Good morning, I’m Thom Hartmann.
Trump issued a new threat this morning to obliterate Iran’s power plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island while the Pentagon draws up ground invasion plans. A new investigation has corroborated key details from a woman who told the FBI in 2019 that she was trafficked to Donald Trump at age 13. Border czar Tom Homan suggested ICE agents may stay in America’s airports even after TSA workers get paid. And Trump is at war with the federal judiciary ahead of a Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship.
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Trump Threatens to Obliterate Iran’s Power Grid, Oil Infrastructure, and Kharg Island
In an early Monday Truth Social post, Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s electrical generating plants, oil wells, Kharg Island, and possibly its desalination plants if the Strait of Hormuz does not reopen.
This is nearly identical to the threat he issued on March 23rd, before reversing course hours later and claiming “very good and productive conversations” with Iran. Iran denied any such talks were taking place. Trump now says he is dealing with “a new and more reasonable regime,” referring to the leadership vacuum left after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the opening days of the war.
Gas prices have climbed to $3.94 a gallon. The Pentagon has asked Congress for an additional $200 billion to fund the war. Around 3,500 U.S. troops are already in the region, with thousands more on the way, and the Pentagon has been preparing plans for special forces raids and conventional infantry operations. The prospect of ground operations has fractured MAGA. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused Fox News of “brainwashing boomers to support what we voted against.” A Reuters poll found 59 percent of Americans disapprove of this war. Sixty-two percent oppose ground troops.
The president who promised to end wars before they started is now threatening to blow up civilian desalination plants while preparing a ground invasion his own base opposes.
When a president can threaten to destroy another nation’s water supply on a social media post with no congressional debate and no public accountability, we’ve crossed a line that Americans in previous generations would’ve recognized immediately as the line between a republic and an empire. This isn’t just about Iran. It’s about whether war in America is still a decision that belongs to the people.
New Investigation Corroborates Key Details From Woman Who Told the FBI Trump Abused Her at 13
A South Carolina newspaper has corroborated key personal details provided by a woman who gave the FBI four interviews in 2019 alleging she was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to several men when she was between 13 and 15, including Donald Trump. The corroborated details concern a third man she also accused, and do not directly relate to her allegations against Trump. But they suggest she was truthful about other elements of her account.
According to FBI documents, the woman told investigators Trump sexually assaulted her after asking others to leave a room in a “very tall building with huge rooms” in the New York or New Jersey area. Trump has denied any involvement in Epstein’s crimes. The White House called the allegations “completely baseless.”
What is established: the woman gave detailed, consistent testimony across four FBI interviews while Trump was president. Key personal details she provided about other people she named have now been independently verified. Around 30 pages of documents listed in the DOJ’s own evidence inventory remain missing. And Pam Bondi’s Justice Department is deciding what the public gets to know.
What’s happening here isn’t just about one woman’s account. It’s about who controls the evidence, who controls the Justice Department, and who gets to decide what a sitting president’s alleged crimes look like to the American public. When the same man accused of these acts also controls the agency investigating them, that’s not just a legal problem. That’s a democracy problem.
Corporate outlets with FCC licenses and MAGA-aligned ownership are not leading with this story. We are.
ICE May Stay at Airports Permanently. Homan Said “We’ll See.”
Asked Sunday whether ICE agents would leave airports once TSA workers get paid, border czar Tom Homan offered two words: “We’ll see.” He said their continued presence would depend on how many TSA workers return and how many have already quit for good. More than 480 TSA workers have resigned. Absences at some airports have hit 40 percent.
Trump signed a memo ordering TSA workers paid from existing funds, but it remains unclear where that money will come from since Congress has not passed legislation allocating it. Lawmakers left for a two-week recess without resolving the impasse. The Senate returns April 13th.
ICE agents were sent to airports to fix a staffing crisis they were never trained to address. They produced no meaningful reduction in wait times. And now the border czar is suggesting they may simply stay, indefinitely, regardless of whether the crisis that justified sending them has passed.
This is how normalization works. You introduce a dramatic presence under the cover of an emergency, the emergency fades, and the presence stays. Before long, Americans are accustomed to immigration enforcement agents patrolling domestic airports as if that’s always been the way things are. It hasn’t been, and we shouldn’t let ourselves forget that.
Trump Is Attacking Judges Ahead of a Supreme Court Hearing on Birthright Citizenship
Monday morning, Trump posted that “Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make,” as his administration prepared for Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship. His executive order would deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. to undocumented or temporarily present parents, a direct challenge to the 14th Amendment. Every court that has considered the order has rejected it.
Legal experts have noted that White House lawyers appear to have drawn on Civil War-era arguments developed by white supremacists to deny citizenship to formerly enslaved people. Trump made his framing explicit Monday morning: “It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!” There are approximately 30 to 35 countries around the world that offer some form of birthright citizenship, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.
The pattern is consistent. When courts rule against him, Trump attacks the courts. When generals warn him, he overrules them. The institutions designed to check presidential power are being treated as obstacles, not guardrails.
The 14th Amendment wasn’t written in the abstract. It was written in blood, after a civil war, by people who understood exactly what happens to a country that decides some people born on its soil are less than citizens. Gutting it now doesn’t just affect undocumented families. It reopens a constitutional wound that took 600,000 lives to close.
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Good morning. We will see you tomorrow.
STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Sends Special Forces to Middle East. President Donald Trump recently deployed U.S. Army Rangers and Navy SEALs to join thousands of Marines and sailors who were also just deployed to support Trump’s war in Iran. The number of troops in the region has now surpassed 50,000, which is 10,000 more troops than the U.S. had in the area prior to the war. The new deployment of special forces is ostensibly to mount a campaign to seize over a thousand pounds of uranium.
Blackwater Founder Says Trump Headed for Failure in Iran. Erik Prince — the founder of controversial mercenary firm Blackwater — recently told an audience of right-wing activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he strongly urged Trump to not launch a ground invasion of Iran. Prince pointed out that despite several years of bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen, the U.S. had still not successfully reopened the Red Sea. He also said Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, “understands blood oath” given that the Trump administration killed his family, and that he isn’t likely to give up easily.
MAGA Commentators Rage Against Trump Administration Over War. Trump’s war in Iran is causing significant division among MAGA-aligned podcasters and influencers. Fox News commentator Ann Coulter likened the network’s support of the war to its lies about Dominion Voting Systems, which led to Fox News paying nearly $800 million in a 2023 settlement. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) agreed with Coulter and called Fox “fake news.” MAGA influencer Matt Walsh piled on, and chided Trump supporters for calling anti-war conservatives “panicans.”
Karoline Leavitt Erupts at New York Times for Exposing Ballroom Flaws. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt railed against the New York Times after the paper published a report showing that Trump’s proposed $400 million White House ballroom had several glaring design flaws. One example includes a grand staircase that leads nowhere, while several windows don’t actually let light in. Leavitt dismissed critics as people who have “never built anything.”
Republicans Propose Cutting Healthcare in Order to Pay for Trump’s War. House Republicans are mulling ways to find the funding for a $200 billion request from the Trump administration to pay for its war in Iran. One proposal includes cutting $30 billion in assistance to low-income Americans to pay for health insurance. Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), who chairs the House Budget Committee, said he aims for the proposal to be passed within 60 to 90 days. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the move would kick roughly 300,000 people off of their health insurance.
