The Dictatorship
Trump threatens to deploy ICE to run airport security during shutdown
President Donald Trump says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers will take over security at the nation’s airports amid staffing shortages and extensive lines as soon as Monday if Democrats won’t back a GOP government funding bill.
“If the Democrats do not allow for Just and Proper Security at our Airports, and elsewhere throughout our Country, ICE will do the job far better than ever done before!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Saturday afternoon as the Senate met in a rare weekend session. “I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’”
The president doubled down on a threat he made earlier in the day after Senate Republicans blocked a long-shot attempt by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to pay TSA agents separately while the Department of Homeland Security shutdown drags on. A funding bill failed to pass the Senate for the fifth time on Friday.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again,” Trump wrote earlier on Truth Social“I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia.”
MS NOW has reached out to ICE and DHS for comment.
Flight delays and long security lines at airports have become a pattern over the past week as more TSA agents — who are required to work without pay — are not showing up. Acting deputy TSA administrator Adam Stahl told CBS News this week that officials “may have to shut down airports” if funding continues to stall.
Homeland security funding has lapsed for weeks as Democrats maintain their demands for reforms to the department’s heavy-handed and even lethal immigration enforcement tactics.
Schumer on Saturday urged his Senate colleagues to support his effort to force a vote on funding for TSA agents. “It’s unacceptable for workers and travelers and entire airports to get taken hostage in political games,” the New York Democrat said. “But that’s what the Republicans are doing. It is unacceptable to say we will only pay TSA workers if it is attached to a bill that funds ICE with no reforms. But that’s what the Republicans have been doing.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge agreed Friday to block the Trump administration from enforcing a policy limiting news reporters’ access to the Pentagon, agreeing with The New York Times that key portions of the new rules are unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., sided with the newspaper and ruled that the Pentagon policy illegally restricts the press credentials of reporters who walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules.
The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.
The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.
The Defense Department has been letting some of the legacy media reporters that didn’t agree to the restrictions back in the Pentagon for some of Hegseth’s Iran war briefings. Hegseth rarely calls on them, although he did recently take questions from reporters like Eric Schmitt of The Times and Luis Martinez of ABC.
Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the policy “fails to provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the denial, suspension, or revocation” of Pentagon press credentials. He ruled that it violates the First and Fifth amendment rights to free speech and due process.
“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now,” the judge wrote.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted late Friday on X, “We disagree with the decision and are pursuing an immediate appeal.”
Times lauds ruling as boon for press freedom
New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the newspaper believes the ruling “enforces the constitutionally protected rights for the free press in this country.”
“Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars,” Stadtlander said in a statement. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public’s behalf.”
Theodore Boutrous, an attorney who represented The Times at a hearing earlier this month, said in a statement that the court ruling is “a powerful rejection of the Pentagon’s effort to impede freedom of the press and the reporting of vital information to the American people during a time of war.”
The judge ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times journalists. He also said his decision to vacate the challenged policy terms applies to “all regulated parties.”
Noting that part of the ruling, the Pentagon Press Association — which includes AP reporters — called for the immediate reinstatement of the credentials of all its members.
The PPA released a statement saying: “This is a great day for freedom of the press in the United States. It is also hopefully a learning opportunity for Pentagon leadership, which took extreme steps to limit press access to information in wartime.”
The Defense Departmant has argued that the policy imposes “common sense” rules that protect the military from the disclosure of national security information.
“The goal of that process is to prevent those who pose a security risk from having broad access to American military headquarters,” government attorneys wrote.
Times attorneys claim the policy is designed to silence unfavorable press coverage of President Donald Trump’s administration.
“The First Amendment flatly prohibits the government from granting itself the unbridled power to restrict speech because the mere existence of such arbitrary authority can lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.
Judge finds Pentagon tried to weed out ‘disfavored’ journalists
The judge said he recognizes that “national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected.”
“But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing — so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them; protest, if it wants to protest; and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they are going to vote for in the next election,” Friedman wrote.
Friedman said the “undisputed evidence” shows that the policy is designed to weed out “disfavored journalists” and replace them with those who are “on board and willing to serve” the government, a clear instance of illegal viewpoint discrimination.
“In sum, the Policy on its face makes any newsgathering and reporting not blessed by the Department a potential basis for the denial, suspension, or revocation of a journalist’s (credentials),” he wrote. “It provides no way for journalists to know how they may do their jobs without losing their credentials.”
Pentagon must update judge in a week
The Pentagon had asked the judge to suspend his ruling for a week for an appeal. Friedman refused. He gave the Pentagon a week to file a written report on its compliance with the order.
The Times argued that the Pentagon has applied its own rules inconsistently. The newspaper noted that Trump ally Laura Loomera right-wing personality who agreed to the Pentagon policy, appeared to violate the Pentagon’s prohibition on soliciting unauthorized information by promoting her “tip line.” The government didn’t object to Loomer’s tip line but concluded that a Washington Post tip line does violate its policy because it purportedly “targets” military personnel and department employees.
The judge said he doesn’t see any meaningful difference between the two tip lines.
“But the problem is that nothing in the Policy explicitly prevents the Department from treating these two nearly identical tip lines differently,” Friedman added.
__
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and David Bauder in New York contributed to this report.
Critics say the Trump administration’s decision to halt sanctions on Iranian oil — in a bid to curb soaring energy prices caused by the intensifying war — benefits the very regime the United States is fighting.
“It’s very clear that the Trump administration is trying to alleviate some of these global energy and oil market pressures, but at the same time, what they’re doing is allowing Iran to be able to benefit from that relaxation of sanctions,” former CIA Director John Brennan said on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” on Saturday. “It shows the inconsistencies in these policies.”
Brennan, MS NOW’s senior national security and intelligence analyst, predicted the conflict will last “a long, long time, and it’s going to be very, very dangerous for U.S. national security interests.”
Philip Gordon, a former national security official in the Biden, Obama and Clinton administrations, accused Trump of hypocrisy for “giving Iran up to ten times” the amount of money that former President Barack Obama sent to the country in 2016.
When Obama sent Iran $400m + $1.3bn in interest in 2016 Trump called it “insane” and he and others spent a decade mocking the idea of “pallets of cash” even though it was Iran’s own money, American prisoners were released, courts were likely to require the U.S. payment, and Iran… https://t.co/RhP8nZRT9D
— Phil Gordon (@PhilGordonDC) March 21, 2026
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the pause in sanctions in a post on X Friday, saying it would add roughly 140 million barrels of oil to global markets. He said Iran “will have difficulty accessing any revenue generated” from those sales, and that the U.S. will essentially “be using the Iranian barrels against Tehran to keep the price down.”
But critics, including those in Congress, which did not authorize President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran jointly with Israel, say easing sanctions on the Islamic Republic helps Tehran no matter how the administration tries to sell it.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused the administration of “giving the regime a financial lifeline.”
“To say the President has no plan is an understatement,” she said in a statement on X.
“The Trump Administration is lifting sanctions on Iranian oil, giving the regime a financial lifeline while Americans continue to feel the impact of @POTUS’s war.
To say the President has no plan is an understatement.” –@SenatorShaheen https://t.co/tiiHbD9NaF
— Senate Foreign Relations Committee (@SFRCdems) March 20, 2026
In an attempt to stem the economic fallout from the war, as Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz destabilizes global energy markets, the Trump administration also lifted sanctions on Russian oil last week, angering European allies who want to continue exerting economic pressure on Moscow.
“Sickeningly, shamefully stupid—lifting sanctions on oil sales by Russia & Iran, fueling their war machines with windfall cash,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in a social media post on Friday. “A minimal benefit to oil prices, but huge boost to sworn enemies.”
Tommy Vietor, a former National Security Council spokesman in the Obama administration, said“This is the biggest, dumbest concession ever given to Iran by the US and all you need to know about what a disaster Trump’s policy is.”
Neither Trump nor members of his administration have given a definitive timeline for U.S. involvement in the war. Trump told MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle on Friday that it would take Iran 10 years to rebuild if the U.S. ended the war now, but suggested that was not acceptable to him.
“If we stay longer, they’ll never rebuild,” he said.
Still, the president indicated later in the day that he is thinking of an exit soon. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he is considering “winding down” the military operation against Iran and claimed that the U.S. is “getting very close to meeting our objectives” — despite having said repeatedly that the U.S. has “won” the war.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Robert Mueller, the former FBI director for more than a decade who later served as special counsel in the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, died on Friday, according to two people familiar with the matter. He was 81.
The cause of death was not immediately known, but Mueller had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for years, the people said.
Mueller, whose two-year probe concluded in 2019 that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election of Donald Trump, served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013. The Justice Department in 2017 appointed him special counsel to oversee the growing investigation after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
The Mueller probe became an obsessive subject for Trump, who repeatedly — as many as hundreds of times — called Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt,” “a scam” and a “hoax.”
Upon hearing of Mueller’s death on Saturday, the president wrote in a Truth Social post: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
The president’s comment was immediately condemned by Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who had vigorously pursued allegations of Trump’s ties to Russia while he served on the House Intelligence Committee.
Mueller’s investigation resulted in 37 indictments and seven guilty pleas, though he found no evidence that Trump or his aides coordinated with Russia. The Mueller report, as it came to be known, did not conclude that Trump committed any crime, but it also did not clear the president of obstruction of justice.
The investigation made Mueller a prime Trump target. For years, the president lobbed insults and sought to undermine Mueller’s credibility while claiming a “deep state” conspiracy against him.
The grudge that Trump held against Mueller persisted into his second term. In March 2025, he signed an executive order cutting ties between federal agencies and the law firm WilmerHale, Mueller’s former employer. The order was subsequently struck down by a judge as unconstitutional.
In a statement to MS NOW, WilmerHale called Mueller “an extraordinary leader and public servant and a person of the greatest integrity.”
“We are deeply proud that he was our partner,” the firm said. “Our thoughts are with Bob’s family and loved ones during this time.”
Despite his storied career, the partisan bickering stoked by Trump over Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference endured. After news of his death broke, Democrats lauded his character and legal prowess while Republicans criticized his role in the investigation.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called him “a dedicated, courageous patriot, skilled prosecutor, & tireless investigative leader.” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., praised his “integrity, duty, and strength of character.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told MS NOW that Mueller served honorably “in his earlier days” but said in “his last public service, I think he was used by some of his colleagues.” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, struck a similar tone on X: “Up until his leadership of that investigation, Mueller had an extremely strong reputation and career.”
Mueller spent much of his adult life in public service. At a time when many young men were trying to avoid serving in Vietnam, Mueller not only volunteered for the U.S. Marines Corps after graduating from Princeton University, but spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. He was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot while leading a platoon to rescue American soldiers under attack by the Vietcong.
Mueller later earned a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School. He worked as a litigator in San Francisco before serving in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, then as an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston.
He joined the Justice Department as an assistant to Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh in 1989. After a stint as a partner at a Boston law firm, Mueller returned to public service in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
He served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California from 1998-2001 before being tapped by President George W. Bush to lead the FBI, taking office the week before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
After 9/11, Mueller transformed the FBI into an agency dedicated to fighting terrorism — and staved off an effort to split the bureau into two parts, one for intelligence and the other for law enforcement.
“Director Mueller led the Bureau during a period of significant change and played an important role in strengthening its ability to confront evolving national security threats while maintaining its core criminal investigative mission,” the FBI Agents Association said in a statement, adding, “The FBIAA extends its condolences to Director Mueller’s family and honors his commitment to public service and to the FBI’s mission.”
Lisa Rubin and Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
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