Senate committee approves Trump nominee Markwayne Mullin to lead DHS, heads for full vote – live

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Democrat Elizabeth Warren is now the fourth senator to endorse Graham Platner, the insurgent candidate running for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in Maine.

Warren said that Platner has “inspired people with his populist agenda for a government on the side of working families – not the billionaires and giant corporations”.

The Massachusetts lawmaker joins Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, as well as Democrats Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, in backing Platner.

An oyster farmer and former marine, Platner has raised substantial cash on his run to oust incumbent Susan Collins – the moderate Republican lawmaker who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997. Throughout his campaign he’s decried the “establishment political system that serves the interests of the ultra wealthy”.

In June, however, Platner will face off against the state’s governor, Janet Mills, in the Democratic primary.

It’s a hotly contested election for a seat that Democrats are confident they can pick up in this year’s midterms, to ultimately claw back more control in the upper chamber of Congress.

Platner, a political outsider who is making his first foray into public office, has set his campaign in contrast to that of Mills – an established political voice in Maine.

In the last six months, however, multiple controversies from Platner’s past have come to light, and he’s been embattled in a morass of damage control while. In October, there were a steady drip of reports featuring Platner’s unearthed racist, sexist and homophobic online comments. Then, Platner tried to get ahead of the story when he revealed, and then covered, a tattoo on his chest that closely resembles a Nazi symbol.

This week, Mills continued spotlight Platner’s internet history and launched an ad that featured women reacting to Platner’s 2013 Reddit post – where he said that survivors and victims of sexual assault should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up”.

In November, Platner told the Guardian that Collins is the “charade of fake moderation”, and argued that Mills is running the “same kind of old-fashioned campaign” that won’t be enough to offer lasting change.

“The reason that I am in the race is because I don’t believe that the governor and I have the same politics,” said in an interview. “People go into power and then don’t try to do anything big. Everything is like playing around in the margins. I think that that is the kind of politics that comes out of someone who’s been in this system for as long as the governor has.”

UK and allies say they are ready to join ‘efforts to ensure safe passage’ in strait of Hormuz

The UK has joined European allies and Japan in saying they were ready “to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the strait of Hormuz”.

In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan condemned Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels and oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, while expressing “deep concern” over the escalating conflict.

This comes ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, later today.

Senate committee approves Mullin to lead DHS, heads to floor for full vote

The Senate committee that held a confirmation hearing for Markwayne Mullin to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), approved Trump’s nomination, creating a glide path for his confirmation when the full chamber casts its votes in the coming days.

Notably, Republican senator Rand Paul, who chairs the Senate homeland committee voted against Mullin’s confirmation, after they continued to clash during Wednesday’s hearing. Meanwhile, Democratic senator John Fetterman supported Mullin’s nomination.

“My AYE is rooted in a strong committed, constructive working relationship with Senator Mullin for our nation’s security,” Fetterman said in a statement.

Trump to welcome Japan PM after calls to assist with Iran war go unanswered

Donald Trump is in Washington today, and we’re going to see him at 11am ET when he welcomes the prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, to the White House.

It’s worth noting that as oil prices continue to soar, Brent Crude has hit $113 a barrel – one of its highest levels since the conflict with Iran began.

This comes after Israel launched an attack on the South Pars field – which Iran shares with Qatar – on Wednesday. Donald Trump claimed that the US “knew nothing” about Israel’s offensive, but said on Truth Social that they will make “no more attacks” on the field, provided that Iran abstains from attacking Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. Otherwise, the president threatened to “massively blow up” the entire gas field if Iran carries out any more retaliatory attacks.

Hegseth didn’t add any more information about how much intelligence the US had ahead of Israel’s attack on the Sout Pars field at his press conference today. “Iran has weaponised energy for decades. Israel clearly sent a warning,” he said.

Answering a reporter’s question on Iran’s missile capabilities, considering the country has managed to strike numerous states in the Gulf, Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, said Tehran retains “some capability” to attack American assets.

“They came into this fight with a lot of weapons.,” he said, adding that the US continues to be “as aggressive and assertive” in striking Iran.

The defense secretary again refused to put a timeframe for the remainder of the conflict, but insisted that the US was “very much on track” to achieve its aims for Operation Epic Fury.

The administration has been opaque about what exactly the end goal of conflict looks like. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has said that it must involve “unconditional surrender” of the regime, with a hand in deciding who will lead the country moving forward.

Hegseth added that Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has “probably taken the hardest hit” and was “down 90% since the start of the conflict”.

“UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicle], think kamikaze drones, down 90%,” he said.

Hegseth ended his prepared speech with an overtly religious plea for Americans to pray for US troops “on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ”.

Hegseth says US has hit more than 7,000 Iranian targets

Speaking today, Pete Hegseth said that US forces have hit 7,000 Iranian targets, and repeated his claims that America is “winning” the overall war.

Hegseth, once again, chided the media for not reporting his preferred headlines on how the US is performing throughout the military operation in Iran.

Hegseth opened his press conference today with an anecdote from Wednesday’s dignified transfer service in Dover, where he said that some families of the service members killed in the war on Iran urged him and the president to “finish this” – a reference to Operation Epic Fury.

One line we’ll be looking out for is if Hegseth has any comment on the resignation of Joe Kent, the top counter-terrorism official who announced he would leave his post over the war on Iran.

Kent claimed that the regime posed no imminent threat, and the US was pressured by Israel to launch the initial strikes on Iran in late February.

The White House has rebuffed all of Kent’s assertions, and CBS News reports that the former director of the Counterterrorism Center was under investigation by the FBI for alleged national security leaks prior to his resignation, according to unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

We’ll also bring you the latest from the Pentagon press conference, due to start at 8am ET.

Last week, Pete Hegseth touted the success of the US operation in Iran. He said that the regime’s naval infrastructure, air defenses and military capabilities were all severely degraded. His public statements on the war tend to be bellicose, and we can expect more of that today. For his part, the defense secretary has refused to put a definitive deadline on when Operation Epic Fury will be over. Usually, Hegseth says that it is the president’s prerogative and they’ll keep fighting until Trump says otherwise.

Trump administration deporting parents without children in apparent violation of its own policies

Maanvi Singh

The Trump administration is deporting a significant number of parents without asking them if they have children or allowing them to decide whether to bring their children with them, in apparent violation of its own policies, a major report has found.

In interviews with dozens of parents deported to Honduras, as well as physicians and psychologists, government officials and staff at reception centers for deportees, researchers found that many parents were deported quickly after they were detained, without a chance to arrange for the care of their children.

According to the report by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), parents were forced to leave their children under the informal care of friends or family members who were also vulnerable to deportation. Others were separated from young children and toddlers – including a mother who was deported without her two-month-old baby.

Immigration officials “didn’t ask me anything”, one 22-year-old mother told researchers in Honduras, where she was sent without her two-year-old child. “They never said: ‘You have a daughter, you can bring her,’ because I would have brought [my daughter], she is very attached to me.”

Some pregnant and postpartum women, meanwhile, had arrived at reception centers in Honduras displaying “extremely high levels of emotional distress” including symptoms of anxiety and panic, according to staff at the centers.

A working lunch between president Donald Trump and visiting Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi has been cancelled, Jiji news agency said on Thursday.

It is understood the cancellation is to allow their summit meeting in the White House to last longer, citing unnamed Japanese government sources.

Democratic lawmakers move to impeach Pam Bondi after 'fake' Epstein briefing

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

Furious Democratic lawmakers have moved to impeach attorney general Pam Bondi after walking out of a closed-door briefing about the Jeffrey Epstein files on Wednesday.

California congressman Robert Garcia branded the briefing “an outrageous fake hearing” after Bondi refused to commit to honoring a subpoena to testify under oath.

The committee voted to subpoena Bondi earlier this month, with five Republicans joining Democrats to demand that the attorney general answer questions about the justice department’s failure to properly release files from the federal investigations into Epstein.

“She is building a record,” Democratic representative Suhas Subramanyam, an Oversight Committee member, told Axios.

“She basically set up a fake hearing under the guise of a briefing, she has defied subpoenas that we’ve put out already and then she has continued to be evasive and combative with us.”

Representative Summer Lee said she had introduced impeachment articles “because [Bondi] has already been obstructing justice”. Lee is the second Democrat this month to introduce articles of impeachment against Bondi after Shri Thanedar.

Democratic representatives Yassamin Ansari and Rashida Tlaib are co-sponsors, while Lateefah Simon indicated support for the measure.

Bondi and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the justice department’s handling of millions of files related to Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation. But less than an hour into the briefing, Democrats walked out in protest of the arrangement.

Speaking outside the hearing room, Florida congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost said:

We asked her multiple times, are you going to come and speak with us under oath? She would not say yes. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster, would not say yes.

Read our full report here:

In other developments:

Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee pressed Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, to explain why her deputy, Joe Kent, said in his resignation letter on Tuesday that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation”, which contradicts weeks of statements to the contrary by Donald Trump.

Senator Markwayne Mullin fielded questions from his colleagues in a confirmation hearing to take over as Donald Trump’s new homeland security secretary.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has started buying location data on Americans, the FBI director, Kash Patel, said under oath at the Senate intelligence committee worldwide threats hearing on Wednesday.

Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that the changes to election law Republicans call the Save America Act will make it more difficult for US citizens to vote

By a vote of 53-47, Senate Republicans blocked a war-powers resolution that would have limited Donald Trump’s ability to prosecute the war on Iran he started last month.