Good Monday evening. In this edition: Trump renews threat to attack Iranian power plants and bridges following recovery of downed airmen.
Plus, Artemis II, Bannon and Gonzales.
Iran War
President Trump reiterated his threat to destroy Iran's power plants and bridgesby Tuesday night unless the country's leadership agrees to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
"We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again," he said at a White House press conference.
"I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock, and it will happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to — we don't want that to happen."
The remarks come on the heels of his Easter Sunday social media post in which he delivered a profanity-laced warning for the regime to reopen the critical waterway through which about a fifth of the world's oil normally transits.
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!" he wrote. "Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah."
Negotiations are underway, but there have been no major breakthroughs as the Tuesday 8pm ET deadline set by President Trump nears. The president said the latest offer from Iran was "significant" but still "not good enough."
Alongside the diplomatic track, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday and Tuesday would bring the highest volume of U.S. strikes since operations began Feb. 28.
"Per the president's direction, today will be the largest volume of strikes since day one of this operation. Tomorrow, even more than today," he told reporters. "Iran has a choice. Choose wisely because this president does not play around."
President Trump claimed that the Iranian people want the U.S. to continue bombing their country, saying they are "willing to suffer" in order to be rid of the regime.
"Please keep bombing,"he continued, citing intercepted communications. "And these are people that are living where the bombs are exploding."
The president also brushed aside a question about whether such strikes on civilian infrastructure could amount to war crimes.
"We're never going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said, as he criticized the New York Times reporter who asked the question.
President Trump's comments came as he and other top administration officials highlighted the successful weekend rescue mission of two downed U.S. airmen in Iranian territory.
The highly complex operation to recover the second airman involved 155 aircraft and hundreds of personnel, the president said, adding that "a lot of it was subterfuge" designed to divert Iranian forces away from the aviator.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe likened the mission to "hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert," and said it involved the deployment of both "human assets and exquisite technologies" that no other country possesses.
"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 told reporters.
Mr. Ratcliffe said the operation's success was a major embarrassment for the Iranian regime.
"Our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission," he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth drew a religious parallel between the rescue of the second airman and the Easter Triduum.
"Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday. Hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday. And rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn," he said. "All home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing. God is good."
The Artemis II crewset a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, reaching 248,655 miles and surpassing the previous mark set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. "We do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told mission control. "We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear. But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived." Later tonight, the crew is set to arc around the "dark side" of the moon, giving them the ability to see parts of the lunar surface never observed by human eyes. The crew also named a lunar crater after Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.
The Supreme Courtcleared the way for the Trump administration to dismiss the criminal case against Steve Bannon, the president's longtime ally, over his refusal to testify before Congress about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Both the Trump Justice Department and Mr. Bannon asked justices to throw out an appeals court ruling that upheld his conviction and return the case to lower courts so the original charges could be dismissed. In a brief, unsigned order, the high court sent the case back to the appeals court for reconsideration. The decision is largely symbolic, as Mr. Bannon already served a four-month prison term after a jury convicted him of contempt of Congress in 2022.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) sent text messages in 2020 containing sexual advances and requests for nude photos to his then-political director, the San Antonio Express-News reported. The messages show Rep. Gonzales repeatedly pressuring the staffer for sex and asking lewd questions, which she rejected. Rep. Gonzales, who is married with six children, dropped out of his reelection race in South Texas earlier this year following reports that he had sexually harassed a former female staffer who later died by self-immolation. The Texas Republican has so far refused to leave the House despite bipartisan calls for his resignation, which could imperil the GOP's already razor-slim majority in the chamber.
For your radar…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine hold a joint press conference at the Pentagon on Tuesday morning as the Iran war enters its sixth week. Watch LIVE on C-SPAN2 at 8am ET.
NASA officials hold a news conference Tuesday to provide an update on Artemis II during the sixth day of the ten-day manned lunar flyby mission. Watch LIVE on C-SPAN at 4:30pm ET.
