Category: Washington Post

President Donald Trump, angered by a comment that NBC anchor Kristen Welker made about his endorsements in the midterm elections, said Sunday he would report her to the Federal Communications Commission for a “rebuke or punishment” in his latest call for the agency to take action against broadcasters.

Welker, ahead of the airing of her show Meet the Press, told NBC D.C. affiliate WRC-TV that Trump is “going to loom large” over the November midterm elections. She noted that he endorsed several candidates in the primaries and said he had “some mixed results.”

Trump took issue with Welker’s characterization, insisting in a Truth Social post that his record of endorsements is, “without question, the strongest Endorsement in the History of Politics.”

“Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, saying he hoped its chairperson, Brendan Carr, “will take this Threat to our Country very seriously.” In a later post, Trump also complained about polls used by media organizations, without giving details, saying, “FCC TO THE RESCUE!”

Trump’s calls for FCC action are the latest move by his administration to seek investigations and sanctions against journalists and media companies. The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, NBC News said, “Kristen is one of the best in the business and we stand by her.”

Welker is a Philadelphia native and a former reporter and anchor for NBC10.

In the Sunday comments, Welker pointed out that Trump’s most recent pick of Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina’s GOP Senate primary was successful.

Other major candidates in competitive primaries who won with a Trump endorsement include Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the state’s GOP Senate primary runoff, and Julia Letlow, who defeated Sen. Bill Cassidy in the Louisiana GOP primary for the Senate seat.

Some candidates Trump endorsed lost their primaries. Among them were GOP gubernatorial candidates Burt Jones in Georgia and Randy Feenstra in Iowa, and Rep. Cory Mills (R., Fla.), who was seeking reelection. As of Sunday, four Trump-endorsed House candidates and six Trump-endorsed statewide candidates have lost their GOP primary races.

Historically, U.S. presidents have usually preferred to stay out of the fray in House and Senate primary races to preserve party unity. But Trump has taken pride in the power of his endorsement, especially in a year when his name is not on the ballot. On the campaign trail, he’s told voters: “What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.”

Carr, who since becoming FCC chairperson in Trump’s second term has relished the role of media enforcer, has previously warned that he would deny or revoke government-issued licenses if broadcasters run what the agency deems “fake news.”

Under the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC has the power to issue broadcast licenses, and it has the authority to monitor that licensed stations serve the “public convenience, interest, or necessity.” It can enforce this by enacting broadcast programming restrictions, but it must adhere to First Amendment limitations.

While the FCC has the limited ability to revoke stations’ broadcast licenses, it has not done so in over 40 years, and its powers do not include revoking licenses because of a disagreement over a viewpoint expressed on the station. Experts have said that revoking a license or censuring a news station because the president disagrees with its content would amount to a violation of the First Amendment.

In March, Carr threatened to remove broadcast licenses over news coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran — a move Trump endorsed.

Last month, the president demanded that ABC and NBC lose their government-issued broadcast licenses because they did not interrupt regularly scheduled programming to air one of his speeches.

The FCC also mounted a separate battle against ABC over the summer after the president criticized the network’s late-night comedy host Jimmy Kimmel.

As the FCC conducted an early review of its eight local broadcast licenses, ABC sued the agency, alleging that the commission’s review is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

Russian airstrikes on civilian targets have destroyed shopping centers and food distribution warehouses across Ukraine, raising the specter of food shortages and price hikes as supermarkets in Kyiv and other cities struggle to keep their shelves stocked.

Moscow shifted tactics this month to focus on civilian targets, including shopping malls, after Ukrainian drones destroyed major e-commerce warehouses in Russia.

Russia initially bombed two distribution centers for Silpo, a major Ukrainian supermarket chain, and a main logistics center in Kyiv for Novus, another grocery and convenience store operator.

Shelves emptied of fresh produce, as well as dairy products including sour cream, yogurt, and cheese.

A wave of attacks in recent days has battered Kyiv and the surrounding region, hitting more warehouses and raising questions about how long retailers can keep stores stocked.

Some stores filled the empty space with kombucha and other surplus products, trying to minimize the sense of scarcity. The government, seeking to avoid public panic, has not issued any alerts.

The supermarkets, however, have warned customers of temporary disruptions. Silpo, for example, said: “Some goods will take longer to be delivered.”

“As of today, roughly speaking, 90% of food logistics operated by retail chains have been destroyed, but that doesn’t mean Ukrainians will be left without food,” the country’s agriculture minister, Taras Vysotskyi, told the Ukrinform news agency on Friday.

“There will be no threat of famine or a systemic physical shortage of food,” Vysotskyi said.

After 4½ years of full-scale war and a brutal winter that often left whole neighborhoods without heat or electricity, some Ukrainians were taking the food shortages in stride.

“I’m not worried because, first of all, it’s summer and we can buy whatever we need at farmers markets,” said Tata Verbetska, 39, a Kyiv resident. “Also, it’s not like everything is gone. In one supermarket, you’ll find one thing, at another supermarket, you’ll find something else you need. You just need to shop around more.”

Verbetska said items produced locally that typically aren’t warehoused, like bread and meat, were still available, while conserved foods and grains were in short supply. “There is almost no beer to be found,” she said.

On Friday evening, a Russian drone hit an ammunition depot in Myla, a village in the Bucha district west of the capital, triggering a massive explosion that killed 38 people in the surrounding residential area.

Explosions continued through the night and well into Saturday as more than 300 emergency workers tried to contain the disaster.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that four people were still missing and at least 20 were injured.

About 130 houses were damaged, and a section of a nearby highway was closed as emergency crews searched for unexploded ordnance and struggled to extinguish fires that continued to burn nearby.

The Myla strike raised renewed concerns about ammunition depots and other military infrastructure being situated close to residential areas. Zelensky called that “unacceptable” and promised accountability for those responsible.

In early July, Russian forces similarly carried out a massive attack on the Kyiv region and hit an ammunition depot in Vyshneve, southwest of the capital, killing nine people.

More than 500 civilians were evacuated because of the risk of further detonations. And on Aug. 21, a Russian attack on military infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih killed 16 civilians and injured 130 others.

Following the Myla strike, the Defense Ministry ordered an audit of ammunition and weapons storage facilities, but the military’s general staff also sought to remind the public that Russia was primarily to blame.

In recent days, Russian strikes have repeatedly hit large shopping malls and other retail centers across Ukraine, including three Epicentr K big-box stores in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Similar stores in Sumy and Kryvyi Rih have been hit, as well, raising concerns that Russia is increasingly targeting large retail centers and their logistics networks to frighten and exhaust the civilian population.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent began the week vowing an “economic onslaught” against Iran and its trading partners in a fresh bid to end the war. By the week’s end, countries with ties to Tehran had so far shrugged off the threat and analysts were left underwhelmed by the U.S. actions.

China, which buys 90% of Iran’s oil, issued a defiant warning to Washington rather than back down. Iranian bank branches remained open in Dubai. At one Bank Melli branch in Abu Dhabi, staff were busy typing away and one employee explained that they were still open for business.

Commercial flights also continued between Iran and Turkey as well as Iran and the United Arab Emirates, which had promised last week to sever all trade and financial transactions with Tehran. Routes flying to Thailand and Azerbaijan, as well as multiple destinations in both Russia and China, remained unaffected.

As the week came to a close, the U.S. announced plans to sanction the UAE-based branches of Egypt’s Banque Misr. That fell well below expectations after Bessent’s warning that the world would see “a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week.”

“As the war passes the six-month mark, the public actions taken by the Treasury Department this week do not match the hype,” said Alex Zerden, a former U.S. Treasury official and founder of Capitol Peak Strategies.

“Operation Economic Outcast is a continuation of 47 years of restrictive economic measures against Iran but does not provide a clearer theory of economic or military victory in this current campaign,” Zerden said.

The Treasury Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Bessent’s threats — and the collective global shrug so far — underscore the Trump administration’s main conundrum as it seeks to sanction Iran into meeting its demands. Any effective sanctions campaign would need to hit China, a move that risks sparking retaliation and potentially massive global economic fallout. Anything less would add to Iran’s economic pain but not enough to budge its strategic calculus.

U.S. credibility is also at stake. Bessent repeatedly compared the U.S. response to the historic 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, France — a coordinated land and air invasion aimed at toppling the Nazi regime. But the U.S. acted unilaterally with its latest move, pressuring other countries rather than working with them, and Bessent openly acknowledged that going too fast and too hard risked tanking the global financial system.

Further muddying the picture, Bessent also said the U.S. was engaged in “quiet diplomacy” to get its way. U.S. officials turned to counterparts in the U.K. asking for a statement of support, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Treasury chief was also expected to speak with fellow finance ministers this weekend at a Group of 20 gathering in Asheville, N.C. One of the biggest questions attendees will likely have for Bessent is whether the US is willing to hit a Chinese financial institution, according to Josh Lipsky, chairperson of international economics at the Atlantic Council.

The UAE, a key U.S. strategic ally, said earlier this month it would cut financial ties with Iran. But some flight and banking links with Tehran appear to continue, and the UAE’s government described its move in a statement to Bloomberg News as a “sovereign decision reflecting its strategic assessment of the national interest and the requirements of regional security.”

Asked on Thursday which countries the U.S. had approached so far, President Donald Trump responded, “About Iran? There’s not a lot to speak to. We don’t want to speak to them. We’re not looking to meet or anything.”

“You can’t unleash meaningful economic warfare on Iran while ignoring the one country that absorbs 90% of its oil exports,” said Leland Miller, the CEO of China Beige Book data platform and a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which advises the U.S. Congress.

In the meantime, the U.S. appears no closer to ending the war that Trump launched alongside Israel in late February. Iran has endured decades of harsh sanctions and has recently faced a full U.S. Navy blockade of its ports that has dried up oil exports.

Officials in nations that have traditionally had strong economic links with Iran have not heard much from the U.S. this week. Turkey has not received any formal guidance from the U.S. on the restrictions and how they apply to Iran, according to people familiar with the matter. But they believe they’ll have adequate time to discuss and implement requirements once they are informed, they said.

The response from Pakistan indicated that even countries with close ties to the US are feeling little immediate pressure from the new campaign, at least so far.

While Islamabad has won praise from Trump for its mediation efforts to end the war, there was no indication that its overland trade with the Islamic Republic — such as in rice and mangoes — had slowed down. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told reporters this week that the country “is not obliged” to respond to unilateral sanctions.

“The idea Iran can be knocked out with this is risible — it’s not going to move the needle,” said Stephen Fallon, principal adviser at DBM Consulting. “It’s not possible to get a completely airtight seal on this thing. There are too many actors, and it’s too rewarding for the people involved.”

Several U.S. military leaders have advised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the U.S. homeland, according to people familiar with a recent assessment prepared for the Pentagon chief.

The warnings — detailed for Hegseth by the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America — appear in the Aug. 14 edition of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB), these people said. They described the assessment to the Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because the document is classified.

The SDOB, typically produced twice monthly, outlines the worldwide availability of U.S. warships, aircraft, personnel, and weapons systems. It reflects the president’s priorities for the force, which are carried out by the defense secretary, and includes insights from the military’s top generals and admirals that inform the directives the Pentagon issues.

As President Donald Trump has pressured Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and accept several U.S. provisions for ending the stalemated conflict, he has been adamant that all options remain available to him — including further military action. Consequently, U.S. Central Command, the headquarters responsible for prosecuting the Iran war, has kept a force of more than 50,000 troops on alert for months in case the president orders additional attacks.

The Aug. 14 orders book directs some troops deployed in the Middle East to remain there through September and some others into 2027, said those familiar with the document. The prospect of extending those forces further compelled military leaders to voice their concern, these people said.

Leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command, and the U.S. Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, responded with what is characterized in the SDOB as a “non-concur,” those familiar with the assessment said — meaning they disagree with the secretary’s order to extend their forces but will execute it nevertheless.

The geographic combatant commands overseeing U.S. operations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America have had their ships, aircraft, and other equipment pulled away to support the Iran conflict. This has limited their ability to conduct missions and ensure proper training, those familiar with the assessment said. The Navy, in particular, has had to stretch its capacity to keep up with wartime demands.

Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth’s desire to extend their deployed forces, but each emphasized that doing so would come with significant risk, these people said.

Overall, the tenor from the military leadership is that the ongoing Iran operation, having reached the six-month mark, has been “too much for too long,” said one person familiar with the assessment.

The military’s warning to Hegseth, which has not been previously reported, offers new insight into the administration’s dilemma as Trump seeks to end the conflict on terms favorable to the United States while Iran, cognizant of the war’s unpopularity with most Americans and its mounting toll on the U.S. arsenal, refuses to capitulate.

“Decisions regarding the scope and duration of specific force commitments to any Combatant Command are made based on the current threat assessment, strategic priorities established by the President, and the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Combatant Commanders,” Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for Hegseth, said in a statement to the Post.

The Pentagon “does not discuss internal operational processes,” including the Secretary of Defense Orders Book, “or specific concurrences, non-concurrences, or risk assessments provided by the Services or Combatant Commands during force allocation deliberations,” he added.

The Secretary of Defense Orders Book also is reviewed by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A spokesperson for the chairman declined to comment and referred questions to Hegseth’s office.

The orders book is one avenue for senior military leaders to surface resource concerns and provide Hegseth with assessments on how gaining or losing assets will impact their objectives.

It’s common for commanders to discuss risk, said the one person familiar with the recent assessment. But the outlook now is “more dire” overall, this person explained, adding that certain generals and admirals were more expansive and frank than is usual in telling Hegseth they disagreed with orders to keep providing equipment and personnel when the operation’s trajectory remains uncertain.

The top military officials at European Command and Southern Command each cautioned Hegseth that lending their ships and surveillance aircraft to Central Command has degraded their ability to fulfill homeland-defense obligations, said those familiar with the assessment.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the chief of Pacific Command, disagreed with the level of support he was ordered to continually provide, including an aircraft carrier strike group and naval destroyers, those familiar with the assessment said.

A spokesperson for European Command declined to comment. Spokespeople for Southern Command and Pacific Command did not respond to requests for comment.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of Naval Operations, provided Hegseth with the dimmest picture, saying in the SDOB that the Navy cannot sustain its current level of support for the Iran conflict because there is no anticipated end date, those familiar with the assessment said.

The Navy has shouldered an extraordinary burden. It has been asked to supply dozens of vessels for the Iran campaign — first to take part in the U.S. assault and defend against Iranian counterattacks and, for several months since, to enforce Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports as he attempts to force open the Strait of Hormuz. Deployments for some vessels and crews have been extended by months.

Caudle conveyed to Hegseth that barely one-fourth of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy, a sharp decline from prewar levels, said those familiar with the assessment.

More broadly, the document says that the impact on ship maintenance, if demands imposed by the Iran operation continue unchanged, jeopardizes the fleet’s availability should other conflicts arise, people familiar with the assessment said.

A spokesperson for Caudle did not respond to a request for comment.

At a recent event in Norfolk, he talked about the deployment extensions, calling them “very challenging for our sailors.”

“I typically am not a big fan of extensions, and I push back hard on that, but the enemy gets a vote,” Caudle said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by the Navy.

Although Army and Air Force leadership concurred with Hegseth’s current path for the Iran conflict, they conceded the challenges it has imposed, said those familiar with the assessment.

Elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, which in March mobilized 2,000 soldiers in response to the Iran war, will see their deployment extended to a year, Maj. Gen. Brandon R. Tegtmeier, the division commander, said in a letter dated Sunday.

The letter to the division community, reviewed by the Post, acknowledges the difficulty of the unknowns throughout the mobilization and that leaders “understand that a longer tour weighs heavily on every household, including our own.”

Those troops would be central to any ground invasion of Iran.

Deployments for units operating the Army’s Patriot air defense systems, which shoot down missiles and drones targeting U.S. bases, also are expected to be extended, said those familiar with the assessment.

A spokesperson for the Army did not respond to a request for comment.

The depletion of Patriot interceptors — as a result of the Iran war and previous donations to Ukraine — has limited the Trump administration’s ability to re-escalate the war, as Tehran retains the ability to successfully target U.S. facilities throughout the Middle East.

As the Post and others have reported previously, the Iran war also has drained U.S. supplies of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors — vital not only to the protection of American assets in the Middle East but to regional allies as well — and long-range Tomahawk missiles. About 25% of the Pentagon’s Reaper drone fleet has been lost, and U.S. bases there have sustained billions of dollars in damage.

The Trump administration has maintained that reports of munitions shortages are inaccurate.

Many of the Air Force units sent to the Middle East to conduct bombing runs and other around-the-clock operations also are slated to stay in the region into 2027, those familiar with the assessment said.

The Air Force declined to comment, citing the classification of the orders book.

A spokesperson for Central Command declined to comment and referred questions to Hegseth’s office.

The recent “non-concurs” from some uniformed leaders mark the latest warning from military leaders about the war.

As the Post and others reported previously, Caine advised the White House before hostilities began that the U.S. lacked sufficient munitions — and support from allies — to conduct an extended large-scale campaign.

More recently, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the head of European Command, privately warned the Pentagon that he lacked adequate naval forces to shield Israel and the U.S. homeland from missile attacks, as the Post reported this month.

In the Pacific, key U.S. allies have raised alarm that the Pentagon’s depletion of missiles and air defense interceptors leaves them vulnerable to China. The Navy’s only dedicated aircraft carrier in the Pacific, a linchpin of the military’s plan to deter Beijing, was sent to the Middle East to relieve another carrier that has been deployed for more than 300 days.

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman telescope blasted off from near Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Sunday, sending a $4.3 billion project into space with the hope of answering some of the most profound questions in the universe.

It was NASA’s most ambitious telescope launch since the James Webb Space Telescope, which took off from Earth in 2021 after years of delays.

But in contrast to its predecessor, Roman ran relatively on budget and ahead of schedule, even after funding pressures and the pandemic threatened to throw a wrench in the project.

Named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Roman is a survey telescope, designed to look far and wide into cosmic time and the universe. Its field of view is big — about 100 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Among other observations, scientists hope it will help shed light on the unexplained force called dark energy that is responsible for the universe’s accelerating expansion and its ultimate fate.

At the launch, the major stages were all “nominal,” as NASA’s announcers put it — agency-speak for going as planned.

Down at the Kennedy Space Center, scientists, engineers, and other space enthusiasts gathered on a partly sunny morning to watch a SpaceX rocket rumble off the launchpad, carrying the telescope. It’ll take about three months to reach its distant orbit, 1 million miles out from Earth in the direction of Mars. (Hubble lives in a low Earth orbit about 350 miles up.) NASA hopes the first images could come at the beginning of 2027.

Roman will look for a phenomenon called cosmological redshift. As the universe expands, light wavelengths are stretched out as they travel long distances. (The same does not happen to objects with mass, like galaxies, because they’re being held together by gravity.) The longer the distance, the greater the stretching, which corresponds to the red and infrared end of the light spectrum.

Redshift carries important information when looking at distant cosmic objects. Light isn’t instantaneous; it has a finite speed, so the rays from a star in the sky visible today from Earth might have been emitted millions of years ago. When looking at the redshift of a galaxy or an exploding star even farther from Earth, Roman’s crisp infrared view should help scientists discern how far away it is — in effect dating how far back the telescope is peering in time.

“We will expect exquisite dark-energy measurements from Roman,” said Yun Wang, a researcher at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center from the California Institute of Technology who worked on Roman and two of its predecessor projects. “It’s very exciting.”

The telescope will also hunt for traces of exoplanets, distant worlds that live outside our solar system. There are only about 6,500 known exoplanets, according to NASA’s data. But Roman could help spot as many as 100,000 new ones by picking up on faint signals, like a blip in a star’s brightness as a planet passes in front of it.

Scientists hope its wide field of view will also pick up on a rare event called microlensing that they hope will indicate the existence of small planets like Earth — maybe even ones that are potentially habitable.

Roman the astronomer was one of the agency’s first female executives and played a key role in securing funding for space projects such as Hubble — which made the observations that led to the discovery of dark energy in the first place.

Over the course of and after construction of the Roman telescope, engineers put it through a battery of tests to make sure it would survive various challenges of the launch and space. They shook it, simulating the vibrations of the launch, and blasted it with loud noise. They stuck it in a cold vacuum chamber for more than 60 days. And on Sunday, they counted down and let it go, to scan the skies for at least five years.

“In some ways, I could never believe that this moment would actually happen,” said Dominic Benford, the telescope’s program scientist, on the launch live stream. “And it is here, and far more beautiful than I could’ve anticipated.”