Washington, DC

1. America at war
2. Congress reacts
3. Major test for voters
4. Trump’s historic shift
5. GOP backs voting EO
6. Texas Senate primary
7. Senate turns to housing

PDB: Vance loses to the hawks

Hegseth, Caine to brief on ‘Operation Epic Fury’ at 8 am … UN nuclear agency holds special session … Global stocks tumble on war fears

The risks of Trump’s widening war

President Donald Trump’s war on Iran expanded across the Middle East, posing a major risk to his standing with US voters. Trump is betting he’ll be credited with decimating Tehran’s nuclear program and taking out Iran’s anti-Western leader who based his rule “on fiery hostility to US and Israel,” per Reuters. But the conflict threatens to shake oil markets and the global economy and weaken US alliances, while dragging the US into a prolonged conflict that most Americans don’t want — giving Democrats an opportunity to sharpen their midterm messaging. “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said following news that three US troops had been killed. Widening developments saw fresh fighting erupt between Israel and Hezbollah and explosions reported in major Gulf cities. Three ships in the Strait of Hormuz were hit by apparent Iranian fire, while three US fighter jets crashed in Kuwait, the crews ejected safely.

Dems prepare war powers votes on Iran

Democrats in both chambers are preparing to force votes on reining in Trump’s war powers amid the war against Iran. They’re already acknowledging those efforts will fall short of the margin needed to overcome a presidential veto. “I don’t have a two-thirds margin in both houses, but I do think it’s really important to put every member of Congress on the record about this,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters Sunday. Kaine said even unsuccessful votes can force a president to “change behavior,” adding that Democrats could keep filing new resolutions as the conflict drags on. Kaine expects a Senate vote Tuesday on his resolution, while Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., are readying their own action in the House. That vote is expected as soon as Thursday, with GOP leadership aiming to defeat it, but unity in both parties isn’t guaranteed.

— Morgan Chalfant and Nicholas Wu

Primaries test voter sentiment on Iran

Tuesday’s primaries could serve as the first real test of voter sentiment about the US-Israeli war in Iran, at a moment when pro-Israel sentiment among Democrats is at historic lows. In North Carolina’s 4th district, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam is running the first campaign ad in the country attacking the “reprehensible” war; she is challenging Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee, a rematch of a 2022 race in which Foushee benefited from pro-Israel groups. Allam, who has called Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide,” told Semafor that voters were already tired of seeing their “government endlessly funding war” — and that “Trump’s illegal and reckless war will inevitably be on voters’ minds.” Foushee had pledged not to take support from AIPAC this cycle, but affiliates came in late to support her. Foushee has also condemned the strikes on Iran.

— David Weigel

View: The Gulf next door

Amid the US-Israeli attack on Iran, one way to see Trump is as a basically reactive figure. The thing he’s reacting to is a new global order whose outlines are emerging regardless of US tariffs, populist ideologies, or policy pronouncements. Taiwan and Dubai aren’t important because the US government made them so; they’re vital hubs in a network shaped by US hyperscalers and private equity funds, as well as quieter Chinese companies and investors. They’re hubs of a new order in which the centers of wealth and power have shifted decisively south and east. Trump’s America has mostly shed its moral commitments around the world, but it’s still an unabashed defender of global capital. Now the question for America First is the same one many empires face: How far do you go to defend your vulnerable, far-flung outposts?

GOP support for Trump on voting powers

Some conservatives are encouraging Trump to take executive action on elections, following reports the White House is weighing an order to exert more presidential power over voting. Republicans like Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., see such action as a way for Trump to impose pieces of the SAVE America Act, a GOP-sponsored voter ID bill. “If he has the power to make sure that people have to be citizens to be registered to vote, show ID to vote, he ought to do it,” Scott told Semafor. “If he has the power to do the things that SAVE America does, I think it’s great.” But there’s a counterpoint to any effort to federalize elections: “They’re run by the states. So I don’t know how he would do it,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a former governor.

— Burgess Everett

Dems square off in Texas Senate primary

After Rep. Jasmine Crockett parked outside an east Texas voting site, Semafor’s David Weigel writes, the crowd couldn’t stop cheering. Only a “bold and unapologetic” Democrat like her could win in November, she said — not a Democrat who talked “like a Republican.” In Crockett’s telling, Kamala Harris, who has endorsed her in Tuesday’s primary, told the truth about the “criminal” Trump, but Democrats lost because their leaders didn’t excite them. Crockett’s primary rival, state Rep. James Talarico, tells more or less the same story in a milder tone. “I will say what not enough Democrats have been willing to say: Joe Biden failed us,” Talarico said this year. There’s a palpable fear in the Democratic Party that Crockett’s smashmouth attack style won’t work, and Talarico’s collaborative politics might, in a red state where a Republican primary pileup has given Democrats a rare opening.

As DHS shutdown drags on, Thune pivots

The Senate’s vote today to advance a bipartisan housing bill shows that Democrats and Trump are nowhere near a deal on reopening the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut for 17 days. After Trump called on Congress to pass legislation banning institutional investors from buying up single-family homes, Senate Majority Leader John Thune pivoted the Senate toward housing, a logical place to add such a ban. He reasons that the Senate can flip back quickly to DHS funding if there’s a deal, something he can’t do if he turns to voter ID legislation (which would then goad Democrats into using a weekslong talking filibuster to delay it). Shutdown politics aren’t going away: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem will testify in both chambers this week, thrusting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies back in the news.

— Burgess Everett

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Blindspot: Clinton and Noem

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, curated with help from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: Former President Bill Clinton told a closed-door deposition that President Trump never said anything to suggest he was involved with Jeffrey Epstein, according to House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

What the Right isn’t reading: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem largely ignored an internal watchdog report warning that her decision to allow passengers to move through airport security wearing their shoes was creating security risks, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., will today introduce a bill to ban major financial firms from buying up property in areas affected by natural disasters for a time-limited period.

Playbook: “The mood here is intense and paranoid,” one person said of the atmosphere inside the Pentagon, as fears mount that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control.

WaPo: President Trump’s bellicose rhetoric represents a “stark about-face” for a leader who until recently presented himself as the president of peace.

Axios: Senior US and Israeli officials said their countries’ opening strike on Iran was originally planned to take place a week earlier, but delayed for operational and intelligence reasons.

White House

• President Trump told The Atlantic that Iran’s new leaders “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk.”