"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Iran pushed back against President Trump’s latest attempt to break the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, threatening to attack American warships and any commercial vessels that sought to transit through the waterway without Iranian permission.
Ali Abdollahi, a top Iranian military commander, warned “all commercial ships and oil tankers to refrain from any attempt to transit without coordination with the armed forces,” Iranian state media reported.
“We warn that any foreign armed force — especially the aggressive U.S. military — if they intend to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz, will be targeted and attacked,” he added.
Mr. Trump said on Sunday that the United States would assist ships trapped in the waterway because of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran to get out but did not provide details of what that would entail.
U.S. officials contradicted the president in statements given to the WSJ. They said the plan “doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait.” It is “not an escort mission,” one official told CNN.
U.S. ships will merely be located “in the vicinity” to oversee tankers moving through the strait, Axios was told.
The denial on Monday came as the U.S. remains active in the area near the Persian Gulf, offering to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz and dislodge Iran’s blockade on vessels that don’t receive its authorization..
Iranian news agencies — including the semiofficial agency Fars and the Iranian Labour News Agency — claimed that Iran had struck a U.S. Navy vessel southeast of the strait of Hormuz, accusing it of “violating maritime security and navigation norms.”
The Pentagon announced last week that it would pull some 5,000 troops out of Germany, but Trump told reporters on Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.”
He offered no reason for the move, which blindsided NATO, but his decision came amid an escalating dispute with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the U.S-Israeli war on Iran, and Trump’s anger that European allies have been reluctant to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East.
Sam Levine (GUARDIAN) reports:
Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw more US troops from Germany after stunning European leaders and some senior members of his own party by last week announcing the withdrawal of 5,000 soldiers from Germany.
The move left 30,000 US troops still in the country, according to CNN. But Trump threatened on Saturday that more cuts were coming. “We are going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” he told reporters on Saturday.
[. . .]
The Republicans who chair the armed services committees in Congress, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, released a joint statement on Saturday saying they were “very concerned” by the possibility of reducing troops in Germany.
Republicans and Democrats in Congress are speaking out on the move. For example, Ashleigh Fields (THE HILL) adds:
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) on Sunday criticized the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany following a public spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Last week, the German chancellor said that Washington was being “humiliated” by Iran amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in remarks condemned by President Trump.
Crow said, “It appears as though this decision was made because Donald Trump was upset by a comment made by the German chancellor, like he is getting emotional and angry about this, and he’s making really consequential troop decision — troop movement decisions based upon being upset by the comments of a foreign leader, which is no way to run a foreign policy,” during an appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
“So, we’re looking into it, and we’re going to make sure that any movements, if they do occur, are actually in our interests,” the House Democrat added.
For anyone old enough to remember the 1980s and Ronald Reagan and Republicans’ success at wooing Catholic voters away from the Democratic Party, which the GOP once lambasted as the home of “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion,” the contretemps between Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV is particularly stunning. It’s also stunning for Democrats of a certain age who remember being crestfallen that the GOP had wooed so many Catholic voters from the party of Al Smith, John F. Kennedy, and Tip O’Neill. The Reagan Democrats—many of whom were Catholic—were a prize to be treasured, not cast away with a Truth Social post. For his part, Vice President JD Vance, a recent but hardly humble Catholic convert, rendered unto Caesar, saying Leo should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology.” Um, noted.
Michael Novak, the late conservative Catholic scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who devoted much of his career to chronicling and persuading Catholics to move right, is spinning in his grave under Rock Creek Cemetery.
Trump’s irascibility, hot temper, and twitchy thumbs couldn’t keep him from condemning the pontiff for being “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” after the pope made comments calling for peace in the Mideast—where the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran—and other remarks about political leaders manipulating religion for personal gain. The pope later clarified that the speech containing the last criticism wasn’t directed at Trump.
Not satisfied to frame Pope Leo, a working-class White Sox fan from Chicago, as a liberal elitist, Trump went on to say: “I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History. Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise.”
Naturally, politicians and pundits hotly debated whether Trump’s dissing of a spiritual leader would alienate Catholics whom Republicans have long courted. The short answer is that no one can be sure, but it could make a difference in close, swing races if there are many, given the potential for a Democratic blowout.
Trump has been quiet lately about the pope, but the pope keeps talking about war and peace, as he did the other day when he met the archbishop of Canterbury.
Trump chose to pick a fight with the Pope in a way that his own base argue is against the very things he preaches. His approval rating has fallen to 34% in Pew’s latest survey, the lowest of his second term. The Iran war he launched has closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupted 20% of global oil supplies, pushed gas prices past $4 a gallon, and driven inflation back to 3.3%, the highest since May 2024, with economists warning it could reach 4.2% by year’s end.
The IMF has flagged global recession risk. A majority of voters, 53%, now call the Iran military action a failure, and Democrats hold a 10-point lead on the generic congressional ballot heading into the midterms. An AP poll puts Trump’s approval on the economy at 30%. And into this steps an American pope with a 42% favorable rating and an 8% unfavorable rating, a net favorability 34 points better than the president’s, making the moral case against the very war that is producing the economic pain. The reason why he remains so untouchable despite Trump’s attacks is that he embodies the same thing Trump is: an American.
Chump picked a fight with the Pope. The Pope. Who doesn't work for Chump. Who is a powerful figure in the Catholic Church. His power is independent of Chump's and may very well be more than Chump's. But Chump elected to pick a fight with Pope Leo.
Who isn't dependent upon Chump for anything.
It's been nearly 1,000 years since King Henry IV stood barefoot in the Italian snow to beg forgiveness after clashes with Pope Gregory VII and over two centuries since Napoleon imprisoned Pope Pius VII in France. Now, a new battle is underway between a pope and a world leader, this time in America.
It's the war of words between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. And for dozens of U.S. Catholics interviewed by the USA TODAY Network across the nation, it's Leo who has the upper hand in the crusade. A year into his historic papacy he has given them hope for the future of the Catholic Church.
At Villanova, where Leo graduated in 1977, Catholic convert Jacob Adams, 25, said outside the campus' St. Thomas Church that young people don’t have much appetite for war. Hence, they appreciate Leo's strong words in defiance of Trump's recent comments about destroying “a whole civilization” in the Iran war.
“Right or left, there are people calling for peace,” said Adams, a former evangelical who supported Trump in 2020 and 2024. “I like what (Leo) is doing to hold (Trump) accountable.”
With the pontiff about to finish year one in his papacy, the USA TODAY Network spoke with Catholics nationwide about their views of Leo and found their responses overwhelmingly upbeat. Many say Leo is palpably different from Pope Francis, with an everyman affability they believe is helping fuel a global resurgence in Catholicism - especially among the young.
And while Pope Leo was being embraced over the last months, Chump was seeing his own support dwindle to record lows. And that was before Chump posted the photo of himself as God. That's blasphemy. In the US, we don't call for off-with-their-heads over blasphemy but we also don't embrace blasphemy.
And it is in the weakened period that Chump's learning who has the actual power. Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
Pope Leo XIV has named three new bishops in the United States, each of whom have been vocal critics of President Trump.
Evelio Menjivar, a formerly undocumented immigrant, will be the new bishop for the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia, and Gary Studniewski and Robert Boxie III will be auxiliary bishops in Washington, D.C. The appointments indicate a deliberate choice on the pope’s part to select representatives in the United States who will be similarly unafraid to raise their voices against the Trump administration.
Menjivar, who immigrated from El Salvador to the U.S. in the trunk of a car when he was a teenager, decried Trump’s immigration crackdown last year in the National Catholic Reporter. “The federal government has pursued a ‘shock and awe’ campaign of aggressive threats and highly visible operations of questionable legality that go far beyond mere immigration ‘enforcement,’” he wrote. “We must stand with those at risk … and we cannot let the dark side of anti-immigrant animus take hold.”
Y. John Raby and Giovanna Dellorto (INDEPENDENT) add:
The new bishop, who has spent his ministerial career in the nation's capital and surrounding communities, will work in a less Catholic and more rural region, overseeing the diocese’s 61,000 Catholics and 92 parishes throughout West Virginia.
While acknowledging the beauty of West Virginia mountains and natural resources, he said many people in one of the nation’s poorest states “continue to endure hardship, marginalization and inequality.”
Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington praised Menjivar-Ayala’s advocacy for migrants during his tenure in the capital, saying in a statement that “his passion for justice and sensitive care for the Hispanic and immigrant communities of our Archdiocese have planted seeds of grace that will yield a harvest here for decades to come.”
In an article he wrote last year for the Catholic Standard, the official newspaper of the Washington archdiocese, Menjivar-Ayala spoke out against the treatment of immigrants by Trump’s administration.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, on Sunday sought to contrast the Justice Department’s indictment of the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey over a social media post with other instances in which people have shared the same message, saying that the department had gathered additional evidence during an 11-month investigation.
Mr. Comey was indicted last week over a photo that he posted on Instagram in May 2025 of seashells on a beach that spelled out “86 47,” which the department characterized as a threat to the president. The charge was the second attempt by the Justice Department under President Trump to prosecute Mr. Comey and the department’s latest effort to pursue charges against the president’s perceived enemies.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet The Press” whether others who displayed the same numbers, or bought or sold T-shirts with the same message, would face the same prosecution, Mr. Blanche said no.
The “86 47” message, Mr. Blanche said, is “posted constantly — that phrase is used constantly.” He added, “Every one of those statements do not result in indictments.” What makes Mr. Comey’s case different, he argued, is other evidence collected, which he said he could not describe.
Blanche wasn't the only one on MEET THE PRESS this morning. Senator Adam Schiff also appeared. Max Rego (THE HILL) reports:
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought another grand jury indictment of James Comey because acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wants to stay in the post full-time.
Schiff told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the DOJ sought the indictment, which a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina returned on Tuesday, because Comey is a “political opponent” of President Trump.
He also listed other reasons, saying, “It’s the fact the president has called upon [Comey] to prosecution. It’s the fact that Todd Blanche wants to keep this job.”
“It’s the fact that [former Attorney General] Pam Bondi didn’t successfully bring a case against one of the president’s enemies,” added the California Democrat, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Raddatz then hit Duffy with the new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
“Mr. Secretary, I know you’re feeling optimistic about this, but Americans are apparently not. Our new poll makes clear they feel generally bleak about their financial situation,” Raddatz said.
She continued, “Forty-four percent cut back on driving, 42 percent cut household expenses, 34 percent changed vacation plans. The rise in gas prices is having a real effect. So what would you say to those Americans? We see no end in sight yet of that war.”
Duffy began to talk about “what the president has done for consumers,” mentioning the one big, beautiful bill; tax refunds; no tax on tips or Social Security.
“But Mr. Secretary, what I’m talking about is now. I’m talking about now,” Raddatz interjected.
“I’m talking about now,” she repeated. “What is your message to Americans now who are suffering because of these gas prices?”
Washington, D.C. — Today U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement in response to the Fifth Circuit ruling that, as of now, has resulted in requiring patients nationwide to fill mifepristone prescriptions in-person at a health center:
“Mifepristone is safe and effective—millions of women have used this medication since the FDA approved it over 25 years ago. The only reason mifepristone is regulated as heavily as it already is, is because of anti-abortion politics, not because of science. Yet Republican anti-abortion extremists will stop at nothing to rip this basic health care away from women in America. Let’s be clear about what just happened: three judges on the most extreme appeals court in the country sided with anti-abortion politicians over the FDA’s career scientists, over a quarter-century of safety data, over millions of American women who have safely used mifepristone, and over practically every major medical association in the United States.
“The real-world consequences of this decision are devastating
and immediate—and it is beyond infuriating and infantilizing what these
judges are forcing women to do. A patient in rural Washington who was
going to receive her medication by mail, now has to find a clinic, take
time off work, arrange childcare, and travel—sometimes hours—for a pill
she could have safely taken at home. A woman managing a miscarriage will
be forced to make that same trip in the middle of one of the worst
weeks of her life.
“This should not be a country
where women’s access to health care is determined by the whims of a few
zealous anti-abortion judges with zero medical or scientific
training—do Americans really want a country where a panel of judges get
to decide what medicine we can or can’t take? What’s next: cancer drugs?
HIV medication? Let’s be eyes wide open that Republicans will accept
nothing short of a national abortion ban—I will be fighting to ensure
access to medication abortion every single way possible and to restore
the right to abortion in every state for every woman.”
Two-thirds of U.S. adults oppose banning medication abortion. The overwhelming majority of Americans don’t want abortion legislated at all.
Senator Murray leads the Democratic caucus on reproductive health
care issues, and she has led the fight in Congress to protect and expand
access to mifepristone. Senator Murray led the Congressional response to FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a lawsuit brought by Republican anti-abortion extremists trying to rip away access to mifepristone—Murray led multiple amicus briefs, organized her colleagues, and raised the alarm at every turn. In June 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed the case on standing, but Murray made clear that “the
nationwide threat to medication abortion has not gone away—far from it.
If Donald Trump and his anti-abortion allies return to power, they will
do everything they can to rip away access to mifepristone and ban
abortion nationwide.”
Senator Murray has grilled Trump’s
FDA Commissioner, Marty Makary, on access to mifepristone at every
opportunity she’s had—including at a HELP Committee hearing on his nomination in March, and an Appropriations Agriculture-FDA subcommittee hearing in May. In 2023, Senator Murray pressed national pharmacies including
Costco to ensure access to mifepristone, and in August, when Costco
announced it would no longer sell mifepristone at its stores, Murray spoke out to demand they reverse course.
In November of 2025, Senator Murray led the entire Senate Democratic caucus in
a letter to HHS Secretary Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Makary
expressing alarm over the Trump administration’s plans to conduct “its
own review of the evidence” on the safety and effectiveness of
mifepristone. Murray’s letter laid into the recent junk science “report”
on mifepristone put out by the Ethics and Public Policy Center
(EPPC)—an avowedly anti-abortion think tank—that appears to be the basis
for the Trump administration’s announced review of mifepristone. “By
elevating the sham EPPC report as rationale for restricting access to
mifepristone, HHS is blatantly undermining well-established science and
weaponizing disinformation to fit the Trump administration’s clear
agenda to cut off abortion access in any way possible,” Murray and the senators wrote.
Most recently, at the start of this year, Murray blasted her Republican counterparts on the Senate HELP Committee for holding a sham hearing to discredit medication abortion.
Throughout her career, Murray has beat back countless Republican attacks on reproductive care and other family planning services—and she is widely credited with successfully pushing the Bush administration’s FDA to follow the science and make Plan B available over the counter.
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