The Daily Brief
Today
Good morning. Seven months into the war Donald Trump started with Iran, the president insists he has an off-ramp and refuses to take it. Trump told Axios he expects talks to resume even as neither side will move on its demands, while Tehran says the choice between diplomacy and war is Trump's to make. The war is already reaching allied soil: Streeting declined to connect the arrests of five people near an air base to the conflict, citing an ongoing investigation — but UK counter-terrorism police are understood to be investigating an Iran link to an alleged bomb threat against the base hosting US forces.
At home the administration turns the same contempt on dissent. Trump's White House press ban is one of a set of attacks on the First Amendment's speech, press and assembly protections. He moved to cancel $810 million in spending Congress had already approved — a maneuver even some in his own party call illegal. This is fascism arriving not by force but as law.
The purge reaches the ranks and the bureaucracy alike. The NAACP and the National Women's Law Center are challenging Defense Secretary Hegseth over his blocking of high-level promotions for women and people of color, demanding congressional oversight. Meanwhile the gutting of federal civil rights enforcement has meant fewer staff, closed offices and longer waits for students with disabilities.
Beyond Washington the toll of neglect mounts. Congo's Ebola outbreak has topped 8,000 confirmed cases and remains out of control amid a shortage of health workers. Two years after Hurricane Helene, people are still allowed to live in harm's way. Five weeks from the midterms, both parties still back war and austerity.
Zoom out: The day adds up to an administration prosecuting a war it started abroad while attacking the press, unilaterally cancelling spending, and blocking the promotion of women and people of color at home.
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