Trump says he won’t sign new legislation until Congress passes strict voter ID bill – live

Andy Ogles, a Republican congressman for Tennessee’s fifth district, wrote on social media that “Muslims don’t belong in America”.

His racist and xenophobic post on Monday comes hours after officials in New York said that the improvised explosive device thrown outside Gracie Mansion, as part of a counter-protest to a white supremacist march is being investigated as an act of “Isis inspired terrorism”.

Ogles has repeatedly denigrated the Muslim faith, insisting that it is “incompatible” with American values. His Islamophobic espousals have manifested in a piece of proposed legislation that would ban immigration from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria and Libya. The bill mimicks Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” executive order during his first term in office.

In response, several Democrats have assailed Ogles’ comments. The House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, called the Republican representative “a malignant clown and pathological liar” who has fabricated his whole life story”. A reminder that Ogles’ career has received immense scrutiny from local news outlets.

“Disgusting Islamophobes like you do not belong in Congress or in civilized society. And that’s why House Democrats will defeat you in November,” Jeffries said of Ogles in a statement.

Gavin Newsom’s office called on congressional Republicans to Denounce Ogles’ posts on social media. GOP House speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell, whose district is adjacent to San Francisco, questioned how many Muslim live in Ogles’ constituency. “I know there are tens of thousands in mine,” Swalwell said in a post on X. “They are parents. Entrepreneurs. Police officers. The firefighter-paramedic giving CPR to save your life…They are American.”

Other Democratic lawmakers pushed back against Ogles’ comments on social media. “Maybe it’s YOUR values that don’t belong in American society,” said Shri Thanedar, who represents a large Muslim population in the Detroit area. While Don Beyer of Virginia, said that Ogles “seems unable to comprehend the basic values the United States was founded on – like religious freedom under the First Amendment”.

In further comments, Donald Trump has said Mojtaba Khamenei selection as the the next supreme leader of Iran is a “big mistake”.

He told NBC News: “I think they made a big mistake. I don’t know if it’s going to last. I think they made a mistake.”

The US president has previously said the late ayatollah’s son would be an “unacceptable” choice (see here), while Israel vowed to target any successor (see here).

Republican senator, and noted Iran hawk, Lindsey Graham commended Israel for its “amazing capability” to weaken “the murderous regime in Iran”.

However, he urged Israel forces to “be cautious about what targets you select”, following the strikes on Iranian oil facilities.

Israel struck at least five energy sites in and around Tehran over the weekend, while disruptions to oil supply chain has caused the price per barrel to jump. Energy secretary Chris Wright pledged that the US would not target Iranian energy infrastructure, as Iran’s regime vowed retaliatory attacks on oil facilities across the Gulf region.

“Our goal is to liberate the Iranian people in a fashion that does not cripple their chance to start a new and better life when this regime collapses,” Graham added. “The oil economy of Iran will be essential to that endeavor.”

A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog.

My colleague Lucy Campbell just reported on Trump’s latest comments to the New York Post about Mojtaba Khamenei, the late ayatollah’s son who was chosen to lead Iran.

Asked about his plans for Khamenei, Trump told the paper: “Not going to tell you. Not going to tell you. I’m not happy with him.”

It followed overt threats from the president ahead of Khamenei’s election, after Trump made clear he considered him an “unacceptable” choice. On Sunday, he told ABC News that the new leader “is not going to last long” if “he doesn’t get approval from us”.

Trump told Axios last week that “Khamenei’s son is a lightweight” and that he must be involved in the selection of the new supreme leader “like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela”.

Donald Trump has announced that he will hold a news conference at 5.30pm ET today from the ballroom at Trump National Doral Miami before he heads back to DC from Florida.

As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second week, the president said in his post on Truth Social that there have been “many important meetings and phone calls taking place today”.

This will be his first official press conference since the war began, and we’ll be covering all of it here later.

In an interview with the New York Post, Donald Trump said today that he’s “nowhere near” deciding whether to send US troops into Iran to secure the stockpile of highly enriched uranium there.

“We haven’t made any decision on that. We’re nowhere near it,” Trump said when asked about reported discussions between Israel and the United States on possibly deploying special forces to Isfahan to seize and secure the material.

Trump claimed last month – without evidence – that Tehran was beginning to rebuild the nuclear program that he claimed had been “obliterated” by US strikes in June last year.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear arsenal, saying its enrichment of uranium is strictly for civilian use.

A reminder that my colleague Tom Ambrose is covering all the latest on the US-Israeli war on Iran here:

Further to that last post, Donald Trump has said in an update that he’s spoken to Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese about granting members of the Iranian national women’s soccer team amid fears they could be punished if they return to Iran.

The US president said on Truth Social:

He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way.

Australia’s SBS News earlier said five players had “broken free” after the team was eliminated from the Asian Cup tournament and were now under the protection of the federal police, seeking assistance from the government.

Trump went on:

Some, however, feel they must go back because they are worried about the safety of their families, including threats to those family members if they don’t return.

He ended by praising Albanese: “In any event, the Prime Minister is doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation.”

Donald Trump has urged the Australian government to grant asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s football team, amid reports that they refused to return home following the team’s elimination from the Women’s Asian Cup and were taken into the protection of Australian police.

As my colleague Martin Farrer reports, speculation had mounted for days that some of the players would try to seek asylum in Australia they had been called “traitors” for refusing to sing their national anthem before their opening game of the tournament last week.

On Monday night it was reported that five of the players had slipped their regime minders and were being sheltered by the Australian federal police.

Trump said that the players would “most likely be killed” if forced to return to Iran.

“Don’t do it, Mr. Prime Minister, give ASYLUM,” he wrote on Truth Social, referring to Australian leader Anthony Albanese. “The US will take them if you won’t.”

In response to the news that oil prices surged past $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, Republican congressman Mike Lawler said that the the price hike at the pump “needs to be a focus of the administration” in an interview with CNN.

According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of gasoline rose to $3.47 on 9 March, – a 16% increase in the last week.

Lawler noted that when as Venezuela’s oil reserves “come back online into the open marketplace”, it might mitigate the oil supply crisis, but the administration “needs to take it seriously and be aggressive on it”.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, honored the seven “incredibly brave Americans” who have lost their lives during the US-Israel war on Iran. “We all are all in awe of their service, of their bravery, of their courage, and our hearts and our support extend out to their families in this very difficult moment,” Rubio said during a hostage and wrongful detainee flag raising ceremony at the Department of State.

He reiterated the administration’s stance that the Iranian regime’s military capabilities are depleting. “I want everyone to know your military is getting the job done, and every single day, this regime in Iran has less missiles, has less launchers, their factories work less and their navy is being eviscerated,” the secretary of state added. “The world is going to be a safer and a better place when this mission is accomplished.”

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said “there will be more casualties” in the US military from the Trump administration’s war in Iran, after officials confirmed on Sunday that the number of US service members killed had climbed to seven.

Hegseth made the statement during an appearance Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes, during which he portrayed Donald Trump’s decision for the US to join Israeli attacks on the Middle East country as essential “to advance American interests, and protect American lives”.

Asked about the deaths of seven army reservists in a retaliatory Iranian drone strike on a US base in Kuwait a week ago, Hegseth said: “The president’s been right to say there will be casualties. Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.

“No one is, I mean, especially our generation knows, knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets. But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”

Hegseth at one point promised “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. Those comments were made four days after Iranian officials said at least 175 people were killed in an airstrike on an Iranian girls’ school that military investigators believe was carried out by US forces.

Mamdani noted today that the right to peacefully protest is “sacred”.

“It does not belong only to those we agree with,” he said at today’s press conference. “It belongs to everyone. I will defend that right every day that I am mayor, even when those protesting say things that I abhor.”

The mayor publicly praised New York police department chief Aaron Edwards and sergeant Luis Navarro, who “ran towards the danger so that others could run to safety” during the attack.

“Let me say this plainly anyone who comes to New York City to bring violence to our streets will be held accountable in accordance with the law,” Mamdani added.

New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, addressed the clash between anti-Islam demonstrators and counter-protesters on Saturday, outside his official residence.

During the “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City”, an improvised explosive device was thrown outside Gracie Mansion, as part of a counter-protest. Neither the mayor, nor first lady, Rama Duwaji, were home at the time.

Mamdani noted that while many “met this display of bigotry peacefully”, two men – Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi – “traveled from Pennsylvania and attempted to bring violence to New York City”.

Today, police commissioner Jessica Tisch said the pair would be prosecuted in federal court in Manhattan, and the attack is “being investigated as an act of Isis inspired terrorism”.

Tisch added that the police does “not have any information that connects this investigation to what’s going on overseas in Iran”, but noted she will be able to speak more freely about the details of the case once the complaint is unsealed later today.

The president has threatened to not sign any new legislation into law until a key voter ID bill is passed on Capitol Hill.

On Truth Social, Trump said that lawmakers must pass the SAVE America act “immediately” as it “supersedes everything else”.

Trump added that he did not want the “watered down version” to advance. A reminder, the bill would require proof of citizenship at voter registration and significantly curtail mail-in voting, but is struggling to clear the Senate. The president, however, remained resolute on social media:

GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!

Donald Trump is in Miami, Florida today.

We’re due to hear from the president at a roundtable event at 4:30pm ET, before he delivers remarks at the House Republican policy meeting at 5:35pm ET. We’ll bring you the latest lines, particularly on Trump’s updates on the US-Israel war on Iran, the soaring price of oil, and the GOP’s legislative priorities.

Donald Trump has said a decision on when to end the war with Iran will be a “mutual” one he’ll make together with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Times of Israel has reported.

It said Trump also claimed in a brief telephone interview on Sunday that Iran would have destroyed Israel if he and Netanyahu had not been around. The US president said:

Iran was going to destroy Israel and everything else around it … We’ve worked together. We’ve destroyed a country that wanted to destroy Israel.

The report said Trump was asked whether he alone would decide when the war with Iran ends or if Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, would also have a say. Trump responded:

I think it’s mutual … a little bit. We’ve been talking. I’ll make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account.

The report said that when Trump was asked whether Israel could continue the war against Iran even after the US decided to halt its strikes, he said he declined to entertain the possibility before adding: “I don’t think it’s going to be necessary.”

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has said that leadership change is not enough to reopen the government and starting to fund the Department of Homeland Security again.

It comes as Republican Senator Thom Tillis said he believes White House adviser Stephen Miller “should go” and that his role in the Trump administration has been a “big problem”.

The senior senator representing North Carolina, when asked on CNN’s State of the Union if he thinks Miller should go, during a conversation about the administration’s immigration crackdown, responded to host Jake Tapper stating “Oh, of course I do.”

“He is not worried about substance. He’s more worried about form, but I also think that he has an outsized influence over the operations of the cabinet. And I believe we’ve got qualified cabinet members there that sometimes are doing less than what they want to, because of his direction and his outsized influence. He’s a big problem in this administration. He has been from the beginning,” said Tillis.

Tillis affirmed support for Department of Homeland Security Secretary pick Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi Noem, claiming he believes Mullin will be independent from Miller’s influence, even though Mullin repeated similar falsehoods about the killings by federal agents of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Tillis, who is not seeking re-election this year, was the first Republican to call for the resignation or firing of DHS secretary Noem.

But Jeffries said on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker that leadership change alone is not enough.

“What we want is a situation where ICE is actually conducting itself like every other law enforcement agency in the country as opposed to using taxpayer dollars to brutalize or in some cases kill American citizens,” Jeffries said.

Read the full story here:

In other developments:

• Fox News used old video of Donald Trump in multiple reports on Saturday and Sunday, concealing from viewers that the commander-in-chief wore a golf hat throughout a ceremony on Saturday in which he saluted six flag-draped transfer cases carrying the remains of the first US troops to die in his war on Iran.

• Global oil prices surged past $100 (£74, AU$142) a barrel for the first time since 2022 as fallout from the US-Israel war with Iran continued to wipe 20m barrels of oil from the market each day. A weekend of escalating violence in the Middle East intensified concerns around a sustained supply crunch, propelling oil prices to their highest level in four years and triggering a deep stock market selloff.

• The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, has spoken to Donald Trump and discussed their military cooperation through the US use of RAF bases “in support of the collective self-defence of partners” in the Middle East, Downing Street has said.

• The Trump administration has so radically transformed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) independent watchdog teams that thousands of cases related to conditions in immigration detention, deaths in custody and officers’ use of force are not being investigated, according to court records reviewed by the Guardian.

• Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-American businessman who served a 20-month sentence for campaign contributions to Republican politicians, including Donald Trump, that secretly came from a Russian oligarch, has announced a bid to unseat María Elvira Salazar, a Cuban-American Republican who is in her third term as representative for Florida’s 27th congressional district.

• By rolling back a bedrock climate legal determination, the Trump administration has undercut its attacks on a groundbreaking state climate accountability law, green groups have argued in court.