Good morning. There are three big stories today. President Trump addressed the nation last night about the war in Iran. In an unprecedented move, he also went to the Supreme Court to watch arguments about birthright citizenship. And the Artemis astronauts started their 10-day journey around the moon. (They’re putting 695,000 miles on the odometer.) Here we go!
Primetime TrumpFor 19 minutes last night, the president spoke directly to the American people about the war. It was, as one Times reporter put it, the kind of televised speech you would have expected to hear when the bombs first started falling on Feb. 28 — a call to action about a murderous regime. That’s in tone, anyway. In substance, as another colleague reported, the address was something less than that — a rehash of Trump’s recent talking points and posts on social media. It was a Trump win list: We’ve destroyed Iran’s navy and air force. We’ve buried its remaining nuclear sites under rubble. We’ve achieved a kind of regime change in killing so many of Iran’s senior leaders. “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast,” Trump said. “Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks.” Here’s what he talked about: The end of the war. Trump did not offer a clear timeline for that. He said that “discussions are ongoing” but that in the meantime, the U.S. would continue to bomb Iran. “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” he said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” He also threatened to strike “each and every one” of Iran’s power plants, an act widely considered a war crime, if Iran refuses a deal to end the fighting. (Iran has said there are no direct talks with the U.S.) The economy. “Remarkably, Trump barely acknowledged the economic consequences of his war, as Americans around the country continue to feel the sting of high gas prices,” wrote Tony Romm, an economics reporter. Trump’s sanguine about that: “This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said of the war. Iran’s remaining nuclear material. Trump indicated that he was in no hurry to retrieve it after bombing Iran’s nuclear sites into dust. As my colleague David Sanger put it: “Perhaps this is deception, and he will attempt to seize that cache. If not, he will have left the nuclear material exactly where it was before the war started — underground, and within Iran’s reach.” Venezuela. Trump recalled how well the operation to unseat President Nicolás Maduro had gone. It’s his model for success in Iran. “That hit was quick, lethal, violent and respected by everyone all over the world,” he said in the speech, adding that the United States and Venezuela were now “joint venture partners” and “getting along incredibly well.” The Strait of Hormuz. That waterway is not America’s problem, Trump said, because our oil and gas does not move through it. He urged those nations that depend on oil moving through the strait to just go take it. “We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on,” he said. For context, it’s worth comparing those talking points with the five objectives for the war that Trump laid out on its first day. My colleague Ed Wong has an assessment of where the war stands based on those goals.
The Trump administration brought its effort to limit birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court yesterday. Is it constitutional? A majority of the justices appeared skeptical. Conservative justices raised doubts about the constitutionality of the executive order that led to the case, and the chief justice called a key part of the government’s argument “quirky” — which, our chief legal affairs correspondent Adam Liptak noted, “is not praise.” But the justices also asked tough questions of the A.C.L.U. lawyer arguing against the government, making it difficult to know what the final decision will be. Trump attended in person, watching from the first row of the public gallery — the first time a sitting president hasattended a Supreme Court argument. He abruptly stood and left the courtroom around 13 minutes into the A.C.L.U. lawyer’s arguments. His presence added to an already charged session: A government victory could redefine what it means to be an American, stripping citizenship from 200,000 babies born in the U.S. each year to undocumented immigrants. The court is expected to rule by the end of June or early July. More on the case
A towering orange-and-white NASA rocket blasted off from Florida yesterday evening, lifting four astronauts over the Atlantic Ocean and into space. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will voyage to the moon and back, setting the stage for more exploration and a new lunar landing. It is the first time astronauts have made the journey since Apollo 17, in December 1972. “We have a beautiful moonrise, and we’re headed right at it,” Wiseman, the Artemis II mission commander, said from the spacecraft. For more
Politics
Around the World
Trump will lose the birthright citizenship case. But by publicizing it in the Supreme Court, he’s already won, Stephen Vladeck writes. The Trump administration has ratcheted up the pressure on Cuba’s government, but doesn’t have a plan for what should happen if it falls, Ricardo Zúniga writes. Morning readers: Save on the complete Times experience. Experience all of The Times, all in one subscription — all with this introductory offer. You’ll gain unlimited access to news and analysis, plus games, recipes, product reviews and more.
Fishing for data: Lobstermen in New England are adding sensors to their traps that collect details about the changing ocean. A long tenure: As Apple turns 50, one of its first employees (and he’s still an employee) takes a look back. Your pick: The most-clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about the Supreme Court justices’ family histories.
1,606— That is the approximate number of civilians, including 244 children, who have been killed in Iran since the war with the U.S. and Israel began on Feb. 28, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.
M.L.B.: The automated ball-strike challenge system made its first game-ending ruling in yesterday’s match-up between the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles. N.F.L.: The Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua checked into a private rehab facility “to focus on his health,” his lawyer said, after months of off-field controversies, including a lawsuit that alleges he bit two women and made antisemitic remarks.
Here’s a terrific recipe for shrimp guisado tacos — a fast-cooked stew of chickpeas and shellfish in a tomato-based sauce you can make as spicy or as mild as you like. Serve on warm corn tortillas with salsa verde, raw diced white onion and wedges of lime.
Patrick Radden Keefe is about as close to a celebrity as any nonfiction writer can be these days. He has modeled for J. Crew, appeared as himself in HBO’s “Industry” and is, according to David Remnick, his boss for well over a decade at The New Yorker, a “relentless, relentless reporter and a storyteller of the highest order.” So why is he so obsessed with failure? As Keefe prepares to release his latest book, “London Falling,” about a 19-year-old who plummeted from a high-rise into the Thames under mysterious circumstances, The Times spent a day with him to find out. More on culture
At what moment does a man become a ladies’ man, a ladies’s man a skirt chaser, a skirt chaser a Lothario, a Lothario a libertine, a libertine a pervert, a pervert a groper, a groper a groomer and a groomer a rapist? This ladder of questions is not about Jeffrey Epstein. It approximates the thoughts that impose themselves while one is reading Guy de la Bédoyère’s new book about Samuel Pepys.
Beware the concept of “trauma bonding.” It doesn’t mean what folks on social media think it means. Shave a dude’s face, minimizing the chances of cuts and irritation while maximizing smoothness and comfort, with the best razors tested by the hirsute gentlemen at Wirecutter. |
