Bad actors in LA protests a 'good thing' for Trump's immigration agenda: Chuck Rocha

Protests in Los Angeles and other cities continue as citizens protest ICE raids taking place in their communities. Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha encourages Americans to protest if they have disagreements with the government but cautions against bad actors who cause destruction and violence, saying, "Those are the imagery Donald Trump wants to see … because it's a good thing for him." Rocha talks about how President Trump campaigned on immigration, which he says is a key reason Trump was reelected. Rocha believes Democrats have a hard time sticking to core values and need to return to those if they want to win elections. #DonaldTrump #LosAngeles #ICEprotests

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The Hill

12 minutes ago

• The Hill

President Lee picks South Korea's first civilian defense chief in 64 years

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung nominated a five-term liberal lawmaker as defense minister Monday, breaking with a tradition of appointing retired military generals. The announcement came as several prominent former defense officials, including ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, face high-profile criminal trials over their roles in carrying out martial law last year under then-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was indicted on rebellion charges and removed from office. Ahn Gyu-back, a lawmaker from Lee's Democratic Party, has served on the National Assembly's defense committee and chaired a legislative panel that investigated the circumstances surrounding Yoon's martial law decree. Yoon's authoritarian move involved deploying hundreds of heavily armed troops to the National Assembly and election commission offices in what prosecutors described as an illegal attempt to shut down the legislature and arrest political opponents and election officials. That sparked calls to strengthen civilian control over the military, and Lee promised during his election campaign to appoint a defense minister with a civilian background. Since a 1961 coup that brought military dictator Park Chung-hee to power, all of South Korea's defense ministers have come from the military — a trend that continued even after the country's democratization in the late 1980s. While Ahn will face a legislative hearing, the process is likely to be a formality, since the Democrats hold a comfortable majority in the National Assembly and legislative consent isn't required for Lee to appoint him. Among Cabinet appointments, Lee only needs legislative consent for prime minister, Seoul's nominal No. 2 job. 'As the first civilian Minister of National Defense in 64 years, he will be responsible for leading and overseeing the transformation of the military after its mobilization in martial law,' Kang Hoon-sik, Lee's chief of staff, said in a briefing. Ahn was among 11 ministers nominated by Lee on Monday, with longtime diplomat Cho Hyun selected as foreign minister and five-term lawmaker Chung Dong-young returning for another stint as unification minister — a position he held from 2004 to 2005 as Seoul's point man for relations with North Korea.

New York Times

12 minutes ago

• New York Times

Live Updates: Fears Run High as Iran Weighs Response to U.S. Strikes

Demonstrators hold signs against the U.S. strikes against Iran in Washington outside the White House on Sunday. Before he ordered strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities, President Trump did not seek permission from Congress, to which the U.S. Constitution grants the sole power to declare war. Many Democrats and even some Republicans say that the attack was tantamount to a declaration of war and that Mr. Trump acted illegally. Several Trump aides say they disagree, calling the strike a limited action aimed solely at Iran's nuclear capabilities that does not meet the definition of war. 'This is not a war against Iran,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Sunday. Vice President JD Vance argued that Mr. Trump had 'clear authority to act to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.' However, later on Sunday, Mr. Trump wrote online that his military aims could be much more expansive: 'If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' Criticisms of the attack, which came less than two weeks after Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran, include Mr. Trump not giving American policymakers, lawmakers and the public enough time to debate a role in a conflict that experts warn could grow quickly if Iran retaliates. The furor over the sudden strikes follows years of bipartisan efforts in Congress to try to place greater limits on a president's ability to order military action, efforts that arose because of disastrous American wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. So is the United States at war with Iran? And did Mr. Trump have the authority to order his attack without consulting Congress? What does the U.S. Constitution say about war? Image A demonstrator holds a shredded copy of the Constitution of the United States on Sunday. Credit... Eric Lee for The New York Times Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution assigns Congress dozens of powers like collecting taxes and creating post offices, as well as the power to 'declare war' and to 'raise and support armies.' The Constitution's framers considered that clause a crucial check on presidential power, according to an essay by the law professors Michael D. Ramsey and Stephen I. Vladeck for the National Constitution Center. Early in American history, Congress approved even limited conflicts, including frontier clashes with Native American tribes. But the question is complicated by Article II of the Constitution, which delineates the powers of the president, and which designates the U.S. leader as the 'commander in chief' of the U.S. military. Presidents of both parties, relying heavily on legal opinions written by executive-branch lawyers, have cited that language to justify military action without congressional involvement. Congress tried asserting itself with the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which says the American president must 'consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities or into situation where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.' But presidents have repeatedly disregarded that language or argued for a narrow definition of the 'introduction' of forces. Congress has done little to enforce the resolution. What are members of Congress saying about the U.S. strikes? Image President Trump walking across the South Lawn as he returned to the White House on Sunday. Credit... Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times Democrats have almost uniformly criticized Mr. Trump for acting without legislative consent, and a few Republicans have as well. 'His actions are a clear violation of our Constitution — ignoring the requirement that only the Congress has the authority to declare war,' Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said in a statement echoed by many of his colleagues. Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, told CBS News that there was no 'imminent threat to the United States' from Iran. Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said on the same CBS program that Congress must act this week to assert a role in any further U.S. military action. 'Would we think it was war if Iran bombed a U.S. nuclear facility? Of course we would,' Mr. Kaine said. 'This is the U.S. jumping into a war of choice at Donald Trump's urging, without any compelling national security interests for the United States to act in this way, particularly without a debate and vote in Congress.' Some Democrats say Mr. Trump has already gone unforgivably far. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York called on Saturday night for Mr. Trump's impeachment. Hawkish Republicans rejected such talk. 'He had all the authority he needs under the Constitution,' Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC News on Sunday. Mr. Graham cited Mr. Trump's power as commander in chief under Article II of the Constitution. 'Congress can declare war, or cut off funding. We can't be the commander in chief. You can't have 535 commander-in-chiefs,' Mr. Graham said, referring to the combined number of U.S. representatives and senators. 'If you don't like what the president does in terms of war, you can cut off the funding.' Mr. Graham noted that Congress has made formal war declarations in only five conflicts, and none since World War II. However, there has been a legal equivalent from Congress that President George W. Bush was the last American leader to successfully seek: an authorization for the use of military force, often called an A.U.M.F. What are legal scholars saying? Image Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of Iran called the U.S. attack an 'outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation' of international law and of the United Nations charter. Credit... Khalil Hamra/Associated Press Several lawyers and scholars who have studied the international law of armed conflict say the United States is without a doubt at war with Iran for purposes of application of that law, and that Mr. Trump acted in violation of international conventions. 'The short answer is that this is, in my view, illegal under both international law and U.S. domestic law,' said Oona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School who has worked at the Defense Department. Brian Finucane, a former lawyer at the State Department, agreed that Mr. Trump needed to ask Congress for authorization beforehand. He also said 'there is certainly a U.S. armed conflict with Iran, so the law of war applies.' On Sunday, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called the U.S. attack an 'outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation' of international law and of the United Nations charter, which forbids U.N. members from violating the sovereignty of other members. Mr. Araghchi did not specifically say that his country is now at war with America. Mr. Finucane also said the United States had violated the U.N. charter. Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University who has also worked at the Defense Department, said 'one important matter for both domestic law and especially international law is the issue of 'imminence.'' The Trump administration is justifying the U.S. attack by saying Iran's development of a nuclear weapon was imminent, Mr. Goodman noted. But 'the law would require that the attack would be imminent,' he said, and 'it is very hard to see how the administration can meet that test under even the most charitable legal assessment.' Even if one were to focus on the question of a nuclear bomb, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran had not yet decided to make such a weapon, even though it had developed a large stockpile of the enriched uranium necessary for doing so. How often have presidents sought congressional approval for war? Image The furor over the sudden strikes also follows years of bipartisan efforts in Congress to try to place greater limits on a president's ability to order military action, efforts that arose because of disastrous American wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. Credit... Eric Lee/The New York Times In the decades since Congress declared war on Japan and Germany in 1941, U.S. presidents have repeatedly joined or started major conflicts without congressional consent. President Harry S. Truman sent U.S. forces into Korea. President Ronald Reagan ordered military action in Libya, Grenada and Lebanon; President George H.W. Bush invaded Panama; President Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of mostly Serbian targets in Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War; President Barack Obama joined a 2011 NATO bombing campaign against the government of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and led a military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Mr. Obama broke with this trend in September 2013 when he decided against launching a planned strike against Syria without first seeking congressional authorization. The strike was unpopular in Congress, which never held a vote, and Mr. Obama did not act. President George W. Bush won separate congressional authorizations for the use of military force against Afghanistan and Iraq before ordering invasions of those countries in 2001 and 2003. In the years since the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, several presidents have also ordered countless airstrikes and special operations raids on foreign soil to kill accused terrorists. Those have largely relied on broad interpretations of the two authorizations for the use of military force that Congress granted the executive branch for the so-called war on terror. Emma Ashford, a scholar of U.S. foreign policy at the Stimson Center, said that in the post-9/11 wars, 'some presidents have largely stopped asking permission at all.' In January 2020, Mr. Trump chose not to consult Congress before ordering an airstrike that killed a senior Iranian military commander, Qassim Suleimani, while he was visiting Iraq. Many members of Congress called that a clear act of war that was likely to begin wider hostilities. Iran responded by firing 27 missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq, inflicting traumatic brain injuries on about 100 U.S. troops. But the conflict did not expand further. Last year, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. ordered U.S. airstrikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen without getting congressional permission, and Mr. Trump did the same this year. Advances in military technology, including drones and precision-guided munitions, have allowed presidents to take action with minimal initial risk to U.S. forces. Military officials say that Saturday's strike in Iran, carried out by B-2 stealth bombers, encountered no resistance. But critics say the action invites Iranian retaliation that could escalate into full-scale war. What happens next Image Advances in military technology, including drones and precision-guided munitions, have allowed presidents to take action with minimal initial risk to U.S. forces. Credit... Eric Lee for The New York Times G.O.P. leaders in the House and Senate have signaled support for the strike, but Democrats and a few Republicans are demanding that Congress approve any further military action. Mr. Kaine, who serves on the committees on armed services and foreign relations, introduced a Senate resolution last week requiring that Mr. Trump get explicit congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. Mr. Kaine on Sunday said the measure was still relevant and that he hoped it would come to a vote this week. Mr. Massie, the Kentucky Republican, introduced a similar war powers resolution last week in the House with Ro Khanna, Democrat of California. 'When two countries are bombing each other daily in a hot war, and a third country joins the bombing, that's an act of war,' Mr. Massie wrote on social media on Sunday. Mr. Massie said he was 'amazed at the mental gymnastics' Mr. Trump's defenders have employed to argue the United States was not entering a war by attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.

Boston Globe

27 minutes ago

• Boston Globe

After US strikes on Iran, a narrow path to diplomacy

Advertisement Now, Iran has a choice to make. The country may be a theocratic autocracy, but it is not monolithic in its thinking or the conclusions its senior officials reach. That means that while the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will ultimately decide Iran's next steps, there is almost certainly a significant debate happening within the country. Iran has two principal options. If the regime ultimately concludes that it has to try to restore some amount of deterrence, even if that means it puts the regime at risk of survival, Iran could choose a robust response that escalates into a broader conflict with the United States in the region. The same would be true if the regime already thought it was at risk from continuing Israeli strikes or internal pressures by hardliners who are frustrated over Iran's poor performance during the war. Advertisement To do so, Iran could leverage some or all of its diminished but not destroyed capabilities. That could include targeting US forces and military assets at bases throughout the region, aiming to inflict maximum casualties and damage. It could also include leveraging Shia militias in Iraq to attack US personnel and interests. Another option would be to close the Strait of Hormuz — a critical chokepoint through which one-fifth of global oil and one-quarter of liquified natural gas passes through daily. And it could conduct asymmetric terrorist attacks against Israel, Jewish, or US targets around the world. Any one of these actions — let alone a combination — would likely compel a US response. But if the regime does not believe it's in imminent danger of collapse and recognizes the reality that its survival is far more likely dependent on being pragmatic in its reaction, then Tehran could seek to undertake a limited and narrow response that would be a powerful signal of Iran's desire to deescalate the situation and might produce an off-ramp to the conflict. Despite the threatening tone of President Trump's post on Truth Social that 'ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT,' it would be naïve to think that Iran is not going to respond at all, despite some limited historical precedent. In 1988, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini's famously accepted the 'poison chalice,' as he called it, of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 that ended the Iran-Iraq war. But that decision came after eight years of war — and this is not the late 1980s. Iran's nuclear, ballistic missile, and proxy strategies that took decades to build have largely collapsed in a short 15 months. And even if some Iranian leaders were inclined to capitulate to US demands, doing so would almost certainly risk undermining the current leadership's credibility, which could set the stage for it to be ousted by more hardline leaders. Advertisement Given that Saturday's attack was directly on the Iranian homeland, Tehran is likely to believe that its response will have to be bigger than its response to the killing of Major General Qasem Soleimani, head of Iran's Quds Force, in January 2020. A missile attack on US personnel stationed at Al Asad airbase in Iraq resulted in multiple injuries of US service members, but no one was killed. An Iranian response, however, can be bigger in scope than in intensity. Attacking more targets but with the same goal of not killing US service members would allow regime leadership to boast to the Iranian population that it struck a critical blow against the United States, defending itself and the country, while not prompting the United States to undertake the kind of lethal attacks the US public would demand if Iran killed multiple Americans. There is still risk in this course of action — not intending to cause death or serious injury won't matter to the United States if it happens by accident. But if Iran avoids killing US service members, Trump could decline to respond and instead downplay the attack. But for Iran, which seems to wrongly but sincerely view the United States as being secretly behind most if not all Israeli actions, it will be critical that the conflict not only end with the United States but with Israel, as well. Trump should work to make that happen. His leverage has never been greater with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The United States succeeded in striking the Fordo nuclear site that Israel seemingly couldn't — at least not via a higher risk mission, such as inserting ground forces. And while Israel's desire for regime change is more ambiguous now, Jerusalem's original two goals are clear: destroy or meaningfully set back Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Advertisement The strike has clearly set back Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, though to what extent may take weeks or longer to assess. Some reporting indicates that there was unusual activity at the Fordo site before the US strike that could be an indication that Iran moved much of its highly enriched uranium from the site. And Rafael Grossi, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has warned that it is unclear where all Iran's centrifuges are located. A few hundred advanced machines combined with highly enriched uranium and Iran could quickly enrich to weapons grade at a secret facility with a small footprint. Which is why diplomacy is still critical. Just as the United States should use its leverage with Israel to end its war with Iran, it should also use the now very credible military threat as leverage with Iran. The Trump administration needs to redouble its backchannel diplomacy using every legitimate intermediary — the Norwegians, Omanis, and Swiss all come to mind — to ensure the message is accurately conveyed that the United States is ready to continue diplomacy. Advertisement But Washington should be clear that if Iran is found to be engaging in nuclear enrichment or weaponization at a secret nuclear site, the United States will not hesitate to strike it again. In doing so, it can seek from Iran a real and verifiable diplomatic agreement that prevents Iranian enrichment but provides access to civilian nuclear power in Iran through the type of consortium that was under consideration before the war started. The US strike at Fordo significantly set back the potential for Iran to develop a working nuclear weapon. Now diplomacy is required to permanently eliminate it and avoid a broader war.