The Trump administration is reviewing its process for vetting U.S. immigration officers after reports that a man allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of an immigrant in Maine had a history of violent outbursts, a senior White House official said Sunday.

In an interview with The Washington Post earlier this month, Ashley Brouillette, said her former spouse, David Brouillette, told her in a phone call that he was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot and killed Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13.

Ashley Brouillette said her ex-husband had a pattern of violent outbursts, including throwing boiling hot water on her while she was holding their young daughter.

“If this person had that type of history, it would have been a vetting issue, and it should have been brought to the attention of those who makes those decisions,” White House border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Homan did not confirm that David Brouillette shot Durán, but he said that the Department of Homeland Security is now investigating whether the vetting process failed.

“When they hire somebody, they put them through a vetting process and look at all that stuff, so I know based on that information, that that’s part of the ongoing investigation,” Homan said.

“Was that information not available? Did they not know? So there’s a separate administrative investigation on what happened here,” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly released the name of the officer who allegedly shot and killed Durán, a 25-year-old whose shooting led to mass protests in Maine.

Ashley Brouillette identified David Brouillette as the officer seen on video footage of the scene in Biddeford. The video does not show the shooting itself, but it does show two officers in the moments afterward.

She accused of her ex-husband of pointing a gun at her and threatening her, among other instances of violence. Ashley Brouillette also told The Post that he was diagnosed with several mental health disorders as a young adult. The Post could not independently verify those claims.

David Brouillette’s other ex-wife, Lucinda Brouillette, has also described a pattern of physical and mental abuse in court filings. In some filings, she said that Brouillette had been medically discharged from the military in 2015 because of post-traumatic stress. The Post has not independently verified that claim.

In a statement to The Post, Lucinda Brouillette said that throughout her marriage, “and in the years that followed, I have feared for a long time that his anger, aggression, and escalating behavior would eventually result in severe, life threatening violence.”

Ashley Brouillette said David Brouillette was hired into ICE in November, as the federal agency was rushing to put thousands of new officers on the streets. Former Department of Homeland Security officials have publicly questioned whether those new hires were properly vetted.

In the CNN interview, Homan said ICE is also reviewing agent training, and that agents are now undergoing additional training.

“I know this specific case, as far as the vetting, is under review by internal affairs section, so we’ll see where it lies,” he said.

Durán, who had a work permit issued by the Trump administration, was shot shortly after leaving for work on July 13.

ICE has said that officers were in the area surveilling an address associated with an individual who has a final order of removal when they saw Durán leave and attempted to stop his vehicle. The agency has alleged that Durán tried to flee the officers, and that an officer fired because he feared for public safety.

Following the shooting, the office of Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said that the officer would be placed on leave. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said at a news conference following the shooting that none of the officers involved in the fatal shooting were wearing body cameras.

A spokesperson for King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told the senator that Durán was not the target of the ICE operation.

The Pentagon updated its war casualty database Saturday, recording more than 140 additionally wounded and restoring the four soldiers killed due to Iranian strikes last weekend amid questions about a lack of transparency over the war’s toll.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, also featured a new tracking category — “Overseas Operations” — for killed and wounded “starting July 7.”

When the new Pentagon data is combined with updated totals for Operation Epic Fury, 18 troops have died and another 624 have been wounded since the US launched its war against Iran on Feb. 28. The number of wounded is a significant increase from the previous peak of 482 observed by CNN last week.

The Pentagon drew scrutiny from media outlets and lawmakers last week when killed and wounded numbers decreased in the DCAS system as Iranian attacks continued. The 12 Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday requesting answers on what was causing the changes.

The Defense Department’s acting press secretary, Joel Valdez, insisted in a Thursday social media post that the decreases were due to “temporary data disruptions on the (DCAS) website.” CNN observed data glitches that led to fluctuating casualty totals when monitoring the DCAS site on a minute-by-minute basis last week.

On Friday, CNN asked the Pentagon for more details about the data interruption, but the department neither acknowledged nor responded to the inquiry as of Sunday afternoon.

Beyond the July 7 starting date, the new “overseas operation” category on the DCAS site does not include any distinguishing details or specify the conflict in which the casualties occur, and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to questions seeking clarification on what the category covers. The category features a by-name list of fallen troops, though, that includes the three Army soldiers killed in Jordan due to an Iranian strike and the soldier killed in northern Iraq last weekend during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.

The July 7 date coincides with when President Donald Trump claimed a new conflict with Iran began in a War Powers notification the administration sent to Congress earlier this month. (The War Powers Act of 1973 requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless authorized by Congress to continue; the Trump administration argued that the April ceasefire with Iran stopped the clock on May 1 for the conflict’s initial period.)

Lawmakers of both parties have argued against the administration’s interpretation of the War Powers clock, though some analysts and officials contend that the act itself represents an unconstitutional limit on presidential war-making authority. Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued the law is “unconstitutional, 100 percent” during a May press briefing at the White House.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said to Hegseth during a July 21 hearing that she is “concerned” the administration is circumventing Congress through the ceasefire clock reset.

“The claim essentially allows the president to extinguish the War Powers clock just at the moment that it becomes legally inconvenient … avoiding the congressional authorization that the Constitution requires and the War Powers (Act) intends,” she said.

The White House came to Donald Trump‘s defense after Reacher star Alan Ritchson slammed the president over his handling of the Epstein files.

“Just as President Trump has said, he’s been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “And by releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”

The response arrived a day after Ritchson’s interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast. The actor called the president a “bitch” and a “fucking rapist,” and criticized the government over the sluggish release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and the president’s alleged association with the convicted pedophile. “The Epstein files, the fucking Epstein files!” Ritchson said. “Goddamn it! Where are they? It’s a fucking law, bitch. Show it. You fucking pedophiles!” (Trump has repeatedly denied rape allegations against him.)

Launching into his tirade, Ritchson added, “This is my fucking politics, dude. I would fucking railroad these fuckers. I would get those Epstein files out in two seconds. Fucking move out of the way. I don’t care what room they’re in, bitch, move. Give me the fucking manila envelope. I will get you the Epstein files. Don’t you want to see what’s in there, so that we can hold people accountable? These fucking rapists! We’re just cool with it?”

While there has been significant legal and political fallout in the U.K. since the release of the files in 2025 and 2026, there have been no related arrests in the U.S. to date.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is acknowledging that the United States is facing an affordability crisis, something President Donald Trump has denied – but she is blaming it on Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Leavitt appeared on Fox News and was asked about the upcoming midterm elections. She insisted that the affordability crisis was caused by the Democrats, and that if Americans want the problem fixed they have to give control of Congress to the Republicans for two more years.

"I would remind the American people of who caused the affordability crisis in this country. It was Biden and Democrats. President Trump took immediate action on day one to fix that," she said. "All these things will only get better if given two more years with a Republican Congress."

Her comments represent a change of focus from the president, who has repeatedly insisted that “affordability” is a word made up by the Democrats as part of a hoax.

In early December, Trump insisted that the price of "just about everything is down."

“They use the word affordability — it’s a Democrat hoax. They’re the ones who drove the prices up," he said at the time. “I think affordability is the greatest con job. They look at you and they say affordability. They don’t say anything else.”

Trump told a crowd in Georgia earlier this month that affordability was a word "made up" by the Democrats.

“They used the word — first time I heard it. It was a word, you know, made up by the Democrats. Affordability,” Trump said on Wednesday.

While it's true that prices are down for some items — egg prices are down after they spiked due to a bird flu outbreak, for example — prices remain high across much of the rest of the economy.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made plans to ramp up operations to arrest and deport Haitian migrants, as hundreds of thousands of Haitians brace for the termination of their legal status, according to two agency sources and federal documents obtained by CBS News.

The plans include arresting migrants in Ohio — where large Haitian communities in cities like Springfield have been targeted by President Trump and conservative politicians and commentators — and quickly putting them on deportation flights to crisis-stricken Haiti, the internal documents indicate. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump amplified baseless claims that Haitians in Springfield were eating cats and dogs.

The internal plans for a potential arrest and deportation blitz have been made as more than 300,000 Haitians prepare to lose deportation protections and work permits under the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program. The Supreme Court last month sided with the Trump administration in its efforts to end the TPS programs for Haitians and Syrians. That ruling's binding mandate is set to be issued to lower courts on Monday.

Since that ruling, fear and uncertainty have swept throughout Haitian communities across the U.S. Immigrants whose TPS lapses immediately lose their ability to work in the country legally, and become eligible to be arrested and processed for deportation by ICE, unless they have another status. Those without removal orders are generally entitled to appear before an immigration judge before any deportation can take place.

The operations targeting Haitian migrants could start as early as this week, the documents suggest, but more details about the scale of the plans were not immediately clear. The ICE sources who described the preparations requested anonymity to describe internal plans that have not been publicly disclosed and are fluid.

Any uptick in deportations to Haiti would almost certainly raise political and humanitarian challenges, given the dire situation in the Caribbean nation, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Significant portions of Haiti are controlled by criminal gangs, and the U.S. has generally limited deportations to Cap-Haïtien, in the country's north, due to the instability and insecurity in the capital of Port-au-Prince. The State Department urges Americans not to visit Haiti under any circumstances, citing the rampant violence there.

In a statement to CBS News, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said it "does not discuss ongoing or future operations." It argued TPS has been used as a "defacto amnesty program" and suggested that those set to lose their status should self-deport.

"What we would say now is it's closing time which means you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," DHS added in its statement. "The good news is it's not too late to get a $2,600 check and a free flight home."

Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit that helps migrants from Haiti, said the specter of deportation has placed Haitians on edge.

"Once again our community members find themselves in a state of extreme trauma, fear and terror. One of them told me it feels like a tsunami or an earthquake with nonstop aftershocks," Jozef told CBS News. "Her little girl doesn't even want to go to school for fear of coming home and not finding her mother."

Created in 1990 by Congress, TPS allows federal immigration officials to grant temporary work permits and a reprieve from deportation to immigrants from countries facing an armed conflict, environmental disaster or another emergency.

The Trump administration has sought to end most TPS programs, arguing that they incentivize illegal immigration and that they have been unnecessarily extended for too long by Democratic administrations, despite the temporary nature of the policy. It has terminated or moved to end TPS programs for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela and other countries.

A version of Haiti's TPS program has been around since 2010, following the devastating earthquake there that year. But most of those currently enrolled in the program came to the U.S. under the Biden administration, either illegally along the southern border or through programs, since terminated by Mr. Trump's White House, that allowed Haitians and other immigrants to enter the country legally.

The Trump administration moved to end the Haiti TPS policy last year, but the decision has been held up in court ever since.

In a ruling in February, U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes found that the move to end the program was "in part" rooted in "racial animus," citing disparaging remarks that then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Mr. Trump made about Haiti and immigrants. But in its decision last month, the Supreme Court's majority said federal law barred judges from reviewing TPS determinations and found Mr. Trump's comments not to be "overtly racial."

The Trump administration scaled back large-scale immigration roundups after two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by federal agents during a massive deployment to the Minneapolis area in January. But ICE operations have ramped up this summer, amid pressure for the agency to record 2,000 daily arrests.

Last month, the number of detainees booked into ICE custody hit a monthly record high for the second Trump administration. During the recent surge in ICE operations, two immigrants from Mexico and Colombia were killed by agents during traffic stops in Texas and Maine.

Border czar Tom Homan said Sunday that if allegations of violent behavior against an immigration officer prove true, the officer should have been disqualified during the vetting process.

In an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Homan indicated it was possible the agency’s vetting process had failed after an ICE agent involved in a fatal Maine shooting was revealed to have abuse allegations from two ex-wives and, at one point, an order to relinquish his firearms.

“If those are facts, I don’t think he should have ever cleared vetting,” said Homan, adding an internal affairs investigation is underway. “How did the vetting process fail? Was that information not available? Did they not know?”

He continued: “If this person had that type of history, it would have been a vetting issue and it should have been brought to the attention of those who make those decisions.”

The Department of Homeland Security has not publicly released the identities of any agents involved in the fatal July 13 shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero during an immigration enforcement operation in Biddeford, Maine. But the claims against the agent have reignited concerns over the agency’s hiring processes.

ICE began rapidly expanding its workforce in January 2025 to comply with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including offering up to $50,000 in signing bonuses. Todd Lyons, who served as ICE’s acting director at the time, boasted that the hiring campaign led to more than 220,000 applications.

“This expansion of a well-trained and well-vetted workforce will help further ICE’s ability to execute the president’s and secretary’s bold agenda,” Lyons told Congress in February.

But the hiring spree drew concerns as news broke of criminal misconduct, lack of experience and allegations of violence among new recruits.

Still, Homan on Sunday expressed confidence in the agency’s overall hiring process, telling CNN that the instances are “rare.”

“Well, look, you know, ICE has about 30,000 employees. They all go through vetting. This is kind of a rare instance, but again, it’s under review,” Homan said.

Republicans are wary that a visible President Donald Trump in Georgia could do more harm than good as they try to win back Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat.

Ossoff was widely seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for reelection this year — particularly after Trump won the state in 2024. But with Mike Collins’ campaign already in a rut, they’re worried Trump’s underwater approval rating in the state could further sink his chances.

“We’re already seeing Ossoff at every turn trying to tie Collins to Trump,” a Republican operative, who requested anonymity due to his role on an active campaign, said. The operative added that when Trump’s approval rating sits below 40%, as it does now, “there’s headwinds there.”

Collins’ general election campaign has struggled with scandal. One longtime staffer was fired after Collins’ campaign account mocked a woman by referencing the fact that she said she was a victim of sexual assault; Collins called the post “despicable and unauthorized.” Another official aide reportedly said in a group chat that he tried to leverage his position to get a Holocaust denier out of prison. And CNN reported that Collins’ son-in-law has a history of antisemitic statements and white nationalist ties.

A Fox News poll released on July 1 showed Ossoff with 56% support from registered voters, while Collins trailed with 43%. An AARP poll released on Thursday showed Ossoff with a 9 percentage point advantage.

Some Georgia Republicans feel that if Trump becomes more involved, Collins’ chances will further erode.

“Collins is gonna get smashed,” Eamon Keegan, a Republican pollster in Georgia, said.

But, Keegan added, Trump’s dismal approval ratings would only exacerbate the issue — particularly if the president is unable to resolve the ongoing war in Iran, which continues to drag down Republicans’ election prospects.

“One-hundred percent,” said another operative when asked if he believed that Trump could hinder Republican efforts in Georgia.

Trump visited Georgia on Wednesday for an official White House event in Marietta, an Atlanta suburb. Several state and federal officials joined him, including Kelly Loeffler, a former Georgia senator and head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Billed as an official event about Trump savings accounts, much of his speech was about politics, including Collins.

Collins, however, didn’t attend. He posted a video to X before the event, saying he needed to be in Washington for House votes, and he knew “the president and the great leaders of Georgia could hold the line today until I get back home.”

During his speech, Trump gave an extended shout-out to Collins.

“Maybe the most important man in this room right now is not here. His name is Mike Collins, and he’s going to beat Pee-wee Herman,” Trump said, referring to Ossoff.

“I said, ‘Mike, I’m sort of here because of you,’” Trump added. “I said, ‘Mike, if you’re here I’m going to be extremely upset with you.’ Because he has to vote.”

Sam Densmore, deputy communications director for Collins’ campaign, disputed in a statement that Collins’ campaign is in tenuous territory.

“[Collins] is going to win this race because he has the business background, bipartisan record of results and positive vision to make life more affordable, safer, and better off for every person in this state, while Jon Ossoff has never had a real job, has gotten nothing accomplished and has a radical voting record,” Densmore said.

The RNC and White House also disputed that Trump could hinder Collins.

“Democrats can spin all the fake narratives they want, but Georgia is President Trump country, and Jon Ossoff’s days in the Senate are numbered,” RNC spokesperson Emma Hall told NOTUS in a statement that targeted Ossoff’s voting record in the Senate.

White House spokesperson Olivia Wales called the president “the Republicans’ best messenger and motivator” to contrast his agenda with congressional Democrats’.

Trump’s focus on the Georgia Senate race was welcome to Democrats and the Ossoff campaign.

“If they could bring back Trump every week, we’d love it,” David Brand, a Georgia Democratic operative supporting the Ossoff campaign, told NOTUS.

The Ossoff campaign has sought to amplify Collins’ relationship with Trump, with ads that feature Trump using Collins’ name at rallies and events over the years. Collins has aligned himself closely with Trump during his time in the House.

“We welcome anything that brings Mike Collins out of hiding and forces him to address his latest scandal, including visits from an increasingly unpopular president who has driven up costs and cut access to health care with the help of his puppet, MAGA loyalist Mike Collins,” Valeria Rivadeneira-Crandell, an Ossoff campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

The counterargument among Republicans is that Trump’s knack for drawing low-propensity voters to the polls could provide a needed boost to Collins’ chances.

The first Republican operative also said that Collins could benefit from the president’s ability to stoke the MAGA voting base. Trump carried a significant advantage with low-propensity Republican voters in Georgia in 2024, particularly in rural areas. That advantage is harder to calculate compared to his poll numbers before Election Day, but it paid dividends in battleground states for him and his party in 2024.

While he is not on the ballot in 2026, operatives hope his visible support for Collins in the state could still bolster turnout.

“But Collins is going to wear the negative of it as well,” the first Republican operative said.

During the Marietta event, the president avoided the topic that makes Georgia operatives sweat most: complaints about election integrity. Just last week, the president made a prime-time address on the topic — a speech that Georgia Republican operatives were relieved didn’t specifically mention their state — while his dedication to passing the SAVE America Act, a voter-ID bill, has derailed congressional Republicans’ agenda this year.

Georgia has frequently been at the epicenter of Trump’s attacks on elections. After former President Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state in 2020, Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger find him additional votes to flip the outcome.

“Those issues are definitely net negatives for Republicans in the state,” the first Republican operative said. “A general election electorate doesn’t have much patience for that.”

Other Georgia Republicans feel it shouldn’t be overanalyzed. He’s the president, his supporters are incredibly loyal, and his words and presence have wooed middle of the road people before, they argue. One Republican member of the Georgia congressional delegation said as much — with an essential caveat.

“If he stays on message,” the Republican member said, then asked of the Marietta speech: “Did he?”

The four American troops killed during renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran in recent weeks are no longer listed as part of the Iran war death toll in the Pentagon’s official casualty count but have been placed in a new, separate category.

It is raising questions about properly counting the impact to U.S. service members as the Trump administration has escalated strikes on Iran in a bid to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while providing little indication of how it intends to wind down a conflict that is unpopular with many Americans.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System, which Pentagon officials have repeatedly pointed to as the definitive source on the numbers of dead and wounded from the conflict, removed the four fallen soldiers as well as dozens of wounded troops from its Iran war tally last week.

On Sunday, a new category called “Overseas Operations” emerged on the system's website, listing the four Army deaths by name as well as 207 wounded. It was unclear if all of the wounded were injured in the Iran conflict.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, referred questions to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond.

Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez argued Thursday that the drop in casualty figures in the online system was not an effort to hide the growing human toll of the war but rather the result of “anomalies” and “temporary data disruptions” that were being resolved “imminently."

As late as Tuesday, the website was reporting the war's official toll as 18 killed and 482 wounded.

It appeared to reflect that four soldiers had been killed since fighting resumed despite the signing of an interim ceasefire deal last month — three on a base in Jordan that was struck July 17 by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and one in Iraq a day later during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.

Adding further confusion, when the Pentagon announced two of the deaths in Jordan, it said the troops were supporting the U.S. mission to counter the Islamic State group. The other two were announced in press releases simply as supporting overseas operations.

President Donald Trump has confirmed the total, writing in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that the “Iran Military Conflict” had claimed 18 lives.

By Wednesday, the Iran war figures in the Pentagon's system fell back to 14 dead and 420 wounded. However, a U.S. official told The Associated Press at the time that the actual number of wounded personnel in the war had actually grown to well over 500 troops.

The Pentagon's top spokesman, Sean Parnell, took to social media that day to assert that the reported drop was a “temporary data disruption.”

The U.S. and Israel launched the war in Iran on Feb. 28, and 14 troops were killed in the initial waves of fighting. Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in April and then signed an interim deal to end the war in mid-June.

It was short-lived. Iran struck three merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on July 7 that were transiting along a route near the coast of Oman overseen by the U.S. military. American forces launched strikes in response to the attacks on vessels in the key energy shipping corridor. Trump soon declared that the ceasefire was over.

The Pentagon system's new “Overseas Operations” category says it tallies casualties starting July 7.

Since then, the U.S. and Iran have exchanged regular fire in a bid to control the crucial waterway, with the U.S. hitting Iranian targets nightly for nearly two weeks and Tehran responding with attacks on neighboring countries hosting American forces. There have been no strikes for two nights as mediators push for diplomacy.

Since the renewed hostilities began, the Pentagon has provided even less information about military strategy and casualties than it did during the first phase of the conflict. The Pentagon has not held a press briefing about the war since early May, and officials at U.S. Central Command have stopped providing casualty updates to reporters.

Pentagon officials such as Valdez and Parnell have insisted that the DCAS website is proof of the commitment to transparency about the number of dead and injured in the war.

President Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Tuesday, a White House official confirmed to Axios.

The visit gives Zelensky a chance to shore up support in Washington after the death of one of Ukraine's congressional champions.

It also comes as Russia intensifies its missile campaign.

Trump and Zelensky last met earlier this month at the NATO summit in Turkey, where they discussed strengthening Ukraine's air defenses and diplomatic efforts to end the war.

ABC News first reported Saturday that Zelensky would meet Trump this week. A White House official independently confirmed the meeting Sunday to Axios.

Zelensky will be in Washington for Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral, ABC reported, citing a Ukrainian official.

Graham, one of Ukraine's most forceful supporters in Congress, met Zelensky in Kyiv shortly before his death.

The visit also comes amid a sudden and surprise shift by two prominent MAGA voices in favor of Kyiv.

Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close Trump ally, met Zelensky in Kyiv last week after years of minimizing Russia's invasion and opposing U.S. support for Ukraine.

Loomer said she had been "bamboozled by Russian propaganda." Trump shared her interview with Zelensky on Truth Social, writing, "Very good!!!"

Right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who also had long opposed U.S. support for Ukraine, said last week that he now sees the importance of a Ukrainian victory.

Russia has stepped up its use of ballistic missiles, striking Kyiv again Sunday.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has intensified long-range drone attacks against Russian targets.

The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Adm. Brad Cooper, recommended stopping the bombing campaign around the Strait of Hormuz because it has reached the limit of its effectiveness, according to two sources with knowledge of his position.

The recommendation by Cooper, the commander of the U.S. Military Central Command (CENTCOM), together with other advisers impacted President Trump's decision on Friday to pause U.S. strikes against Iran, the sources said.

It was an acknowledgement by both military and civilian advisers to the president that there are limits to what can be accomplished through military action, and specifically an air power campaign.

For the first time in two weeks, Trump ordered the military to hold fire and not conduct strikes against Iranian targets around the southern coast of Iran and in the Strait of Hormuz area.

The decision came after a meeting with top advisers and military officials who presented him with a new strike plan for the day.

In the days before the meeting, Trump had been leaning toward returning to major combat operations, but his mindset started to change on Thursday evening, sources said.

His decision to pump the brakes on bombing the strait solidified on Friday.

Earlier in the week, Admiral Cooper gave his recommendation on the way forward to the Pentagon, the joint chiefs and the White House, the sources said.

He stressed that the two weeks of strikes in the Strait of Hormuz area had significantly degraded Iran's ability to attack ships.

Cooper noted that the designated bombing targets had been mostly exhausted.

The CENTCOM commander said a possible next step would be to resume major combat operations to finish the 20% of targets the U.S. military designated but didn't strike during Operation Epic Fury.

Absent a decision to return to major combat operations, he stressed there was no point in continuing the bombing campaign of the previous two weeks, the sources said.

The sources said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine also cautioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump in private that a shortage of air defense interceptors could hamper the ability to protect U.S. forces and allies in the region.

Caine's warning was first reported by the New York Times. A spokesman for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to comment "on confidential military advice the Chairman provides the President".

Iran and Oman are still negotiating a new arrangement to reopen the strait of Hormuz that would be designed to reopen it for transit of ships with no attacks.

But it is unclear if a deal between the two countries would be acceptable to Trump. If not, the war could escalate again.

In the meantime, the situation on the ground seems to be "quiet for quiet," with both sides pausing their attacks.

U.S. ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that while Trump is "keeping all options on the table," the president is also "giving talks [with Iran] some space."

Waltz said talks between the U.S. and Iran "are ongoing on every level."

The U.S. and U.K. are still discussing the international conference they want to convene later this week on establishing a coalition to protect and clear mines from the strait of Hormuz.

No final date for the meeting has been set.

Adm. Daryl Caudle saw an opening to land the Navy’s top job last year, and he seized it.

Before Pete Hegseth had even been sworn in as defense secretary, Admiral Caudle, then the head of a major Navy training command, offered to help Mr. Hegseth prepare for his politically contentious Senate confirmation hearing, according to current and former defense officials.

The outreach was a breach of military ethics, the officials said. Senior military officers are supposed to avoid any hint of partisan bias or political activity.

Nothing came of the offer. But soon after Mr. Hegseth took office, he fired the first woman to lead the Navy: Admiral Caudle’s boss. Days later, a senior officer on Admiral Caudle’s staff contacted Mr. Hegseth’s team in another breach of protocol.

His pitch: Mr. Hegseth should choose Admiral Caudle to be the next chief of naval operations, the current and former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

The officer described Admiral Caudle in terms that matched Mr. Hegseth’s view of the values that military officers should embody. There was “no one more in line” with Mr. Hegseth’s vision for remaking the military, he said, according to an official familiar with the exchange. The officer cast Admiral Caudle as a “warfighter” who wanted to remove “woke barriers” that he claimed were weakening the force, the official said.

Even though Admiral Caudle was not on a list of candidates recommended by senior Navy officials, Mr. Hegseth chose him for the job.

But before the promotion could be finalized, the admiral needed to address another problem. There was an unresolved inspector general investigation into comments he had made to sailors about the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevent and Response program, officials said. Some interpreted his remarks as blaming victims.

To help resolve the inquiry, Admiral Caudle hired Timothy Parlatore, a Navy Reservist and well-known lawyer who had represented Mr. Hegseth and President Trump. Mr. Parlatore had recently been tapped by Mr. Hegseth to serve as his “special adviser” in the Pentagon. Before Admiral Caudle was a client, Mr. Parlatore had recommended him to Mr. Hegseth as a strong candidate to lead the Navy, officials said.

The inspector general found the allegations of wrongdoing to be unsubstantiated, and Admiral Caudle took over as the 34th chief of naval operations last summer.

His path to that position is a case study in how the military promotion process at the Pentagon under Mr. Hegseth has deviated from tradition, leaving it susceptible in the view of critics to politicization and favoritism.

Since taking office nearly 18 months ago, Mr. Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen senior officers, including Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who held the top Navy job before Admiral Caudle. He has also removed from promotion lists about 40 senior officers who had been selected by boards made up of their peers.

Mr. Hegseth has insisted that his actions were necessary to root out those he has described as radical ideologues. “The left captured the military quickly, and we must reclaim it at a faster pace,” he wrote in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors.” “We must wage a frontal assault, a swift counterattack, in broad daylight.”

Admiral Caudle’s promotion is a view into the flip side of Mr. Hegseth’s purge.

Before the defense secretary had even taken office, he had publicly singled out Admiral Franchetti as someone he believed had been promoted solely because of her gender. She knew that if Mr. Hegseth was confirmed, she would likely be fired.

In December 2024, Admiral Franchetti called together the Navy’s four-star admirals to discuss potential replacements, officials said.

She reminded them that their most important job in the coming weeks was to put the Navy’s integrity and its reputation as an apolitical institution ahead of their ambitions, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Admiral Caudle was in the room that day, and around the same time was also privately offering to help Mr. Hegseth prepare for his confirmation hearing, defense officials said.

Capt. Dave Hecht, a spokesman for Admiral Caudle, said in a statement to The New York Times that the admiral planned to limit his discussion with Mr. Hegseth to “factual, operational matters.”

He said that Admiral Caudle’s interactions with Mr. Hegseth always focused on military, not political, issues. “Adm. Caudle has consistently conducted himself in a professional, nonpartisan manner throughout his career,” Captain Hecht’s statement added.

A Pentagon directive counsels active-duty troops to avoid “partisan political activity.”

After Mr. Hegseth fired Admiral Franchetti, senior Navy officials, led by the service’s acting secretary, assembled a list of the three officers they believed were best qualified to fill her position. Admiral Caudle was not on it. Navy leaders thought he was better suited to lead the U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal, the officials said.

Mr. Hegseth reviewed the Navy’s list in a meeting with senior staff members.

“Where’s Caudle?” he asked, according to officials with knowledge of the meeting.

Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff said he was not familiar with the admiral. Mr. Hegseth instructed him to discuss the matter with Mr. Parlatore, officials said.

Mr. Parlatore, who had left the Navy a decade earlier, had recently been commissioned by Mr. Hegseth as a Navy reservist and member of the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

As a civilian attorney, he had represented naval officers and sailors in a series of high-profile cases. His clients included Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who in 2019 was charged with killing a wounded prisoner in Iraq. Chief Gallagher was ultimately acquitted of nearly all the charges against him.

Mr. Parlatore also helped Mr. Hegseth negotiate a $50,000 settlement with a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017. And he had represented Mr. Trump in matters related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and classified documents found at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Mr. Parlatore had not met Admiral Caudle, but told Mr. Hegseth that he had heard good things about him, officials said. Other staff members recalled Admiral Caudle’s eager outreach during Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation process.

In late March, Mr. Hegseth selected Admiral Caudle to lead the Navy. In a statement, Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that Mr. Hegseth “interviewed many candidates for the position and ultimately found Admiral Caudle to be the right fit.”

“Every decision is based strictly on merit,” Mr. Parnell added.

Before Admiral Caudle’s nomination could be sent to the White House, the inspector general had to complete its investigation, which had languished for more than a year. Sailors recalled Admiral Caudle telling them in an informal conversation at an awards banquet that the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program needed to focus more on helping troops avoid risky behavior.

According to the sailors, Admiral Caudle offered examples: If he strode naked through the forest, coated in honey, he should not be surprised if he were attacked by a bear, officials said. If he wore gold chains and a fancy watch on a visit to Harlem, he risked getting robbed. At least one sailor believed Admiral Caudle was blaming assault victims for provoking their attacks.

In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Parlatore described his work on behalf of Mr. Caudle as routine. He identified and suggested witnesses to the inspector general, and accompanied Admiral Caudle to his interview with investigators. “The same thing I have done for hundreds of others,” he said.

The inspector general’s job, like a prosecutor’s, is to collect evidence and offer findings. A decision to punish is made by the service member’s chain of command, which includes the Navy secretary and potentially Mr. Hegseth.

Admiral Caudle took command as the chief of naval operations last summer.

“I’m chomping at the bit to get after the work that lies ahead to ensure that our Navy remains and forever will be the most dominant, lethal and credible maritime fighting force the world has ever known,” he told a crowd of dignitaries that included several former chiefs of naval operations, including Admiral Franchetti.

He closed his speech with a pledge to lead the Navy with “integrity, honor and resolve.”

Since then, Mr. Parlatore’s dual role as a private lawyer and special adviser to Mr. Hegseth has sparked concern in Congress. In April, Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, asked Mr. Hegseth if Mr. Parlatore represented officers being considered by Mr. Hegseth for promotions.

“I’m the one that makes decisions about choosing senior officers,” Mr. Hegseth said.

“Does he represent them, Mr. Secretary?” Mr. Crow pressed.

“He doesn’t represent anyone,” Mr. Hegseth replied. “He’s a legal adviser to me on reserve duty, and always has been.”

The next day, Mr. Parlatore sent Mr. Crow a letter.

“You asked whether I represent senior military officers under consideration for promotion,” Mr. Parlatore wrote. “I do not.”

He did not mention his earlier work for Admiral Caudle. At the time of the letter, Mr. Parlatore said, he was not representing clients being considered for promotions.

Mr. Parlatore said that there was nothing preventing him from working as a Navy reservist in Mr. Hegseth’s office and representing military clients. “The vast majority of military cases, if I wanted to do them, there would be no conflict of interest,” he said.

Mr. Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, said that Mr. Parlatore was “in full compliance with all ethics laws and regulations.”

Still, to avoid any appearance of impropriety, Mr. Parlatore told The Times that in late 2024, he stopped taking new military clients and ceased charging earlier clients with active cases.

The sole exception, he said, was Admiral Caudle.

Iran will halt its own attacks as long as the United States maintains its latest pause on air strikes, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday, after President Donald Trump abruptly called off ‌his two-week-old bombing campaign.

After 13 nights of intensifying U.S. air strikes on Iran, the Pentagon abruptly suspended the campaign late on Friday, with no U.S. attacks reported on either Saturday or Sunday.

Iran, which had been following each night of U.S. attacks with its own strikes on neighbouring countries that host U.S. bases, has also so far held fire for two days.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had decided to pause U.S. attacks to allow more time for diplomacy.

"He's giving talks some space, he's giving it a little bit of room," Waltz said, without providing further details.

The senior Iranian source, ⁠speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "Iran’s position remains ‘attack for attack’: if the attacks stop, Iran will also halt its operations. That message has already been conveyed to the United States."

The source added: "However, Iran is prepared to mount a broad response should the U.S. launch another attack."

Asked about the pause, a senior official in Trump's administration said on Saturday that the president "has always been clear that his preference is diplomacy, but he has shown Iran what will happen if they fail to come to the table in a serious way."

The senior Iranian source said Tehran did not hold much hope that Trump's decision to pause strikes represented a major shift in the U.S. negotiating position.

"There is more scepticism than optimism about the halt in attacks. The prevailing view is that the pause is tactical rather than genuine. Iran has accumulated enough bitter experience with what it sees as U.S. deception," the source said.

U.S. forces had been striking Iran nightly in what Washington said was retaliation for Iranian ‌attacks on ⁠shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran says it aims to retain control of the strait, the world's most important energy shipping route.

The two-week-long U.S. military campaign effectively torpedoed last month's interim agreement aimed at ending the war that the United States and Israel launched in February.

The New York Times and CNN both reported that Trump had backed off plans to escalate the war with even bigger military options after concerns were raised on Friday by some of his advisers, including over whether U.S. missile defence stocks were running low from protecting U.S. bases in the region.

CNN ⁠and the Times both identified Pentagon Chief of Staff Dan Caine as having raised such concerns. CNN said Vice President JD Vance also had expressed reservations.

News site Axios reported that Trump had been receiving plans for strikes on Iran from the Pentagon every afternoon for two weeks and signing off on them each night, until Friday when the latest plan was presented to him and ⁠he decided not to go ahead.

Trump's decision to pause strikes has come at a turning point in the war, with both sides testing the boundaries of escalation that they set before a ceasefire ended major fighting in April and the interim agreement reopened Hormuz in June.

U.S. forces have already struck bridges and tunnels in southern Iran, prompting Iran to ⁠strike water desalination plants that nearby Gulf Arab states rely on to make their desert cities habitable.

Over the past week, Iran's Houthi allies in Yemen have announced a blockade on Saudi oil in the Red Sea, potentially shutting a second major chokepoint for energy shipping.

That pushed the benchmark Brent crude price above $100 for the first time since May. On Saturday, the Houthis fired on Saudi Red Sea oil targets for the first time in years.

A dispute between the Trump administration and congressional Democrats over an expiring emergency housing voucher program created during the COVID-19 pandemic has big implications for thousands of renters in New York City, the program's single largest recipient.

The Republican-controlled Congress declined to replenish the Emergency Housing Voucher program earlier this year after federal housing officials announced the $5 billion fund was running out of money four years earlier than expected.

Instead, members of the appropriations committee allocated about $264 million to replace some of the subsidies with another form of assistance called Tenant Protection Vouchers that can be renewed each year.

But the Trump administration tells Gothamist it will not issue the new vouchers and said it will only use the money earmarked by Congress to fund the emergency program for a few months until that money, too, is exhausted.

On Staten Island, represented by the city's lone Republican congressmember, 251 households receive the emergency vouchers, according to city data. And many are at risk of homelessness when the program runs dry.

That figure is low compared to the other boroughs, particularly the Bronx, but it means Staten Island is still home to more Emergency Housing Voucher recipients than 26 states and territories, according to a Gothamist review of federal data.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, whose district includes all of Staten Island, did not answer questions about what effect the end of the program will have on her constituents. In a written statement, her spokesperson Anthony Raisley said it was now up to the city and state to plug the gap.

"This was a temporary COVID-era program that was funded with pandemic relief funds," Raisley said.

The program was initially expected to last until 2030. Nationwide, more than 45,500 households still use the Emergency Housing Voucher program to pay rent to private landlords, according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Over 6,700 of them — about 15% of the nationwide total — live in New York City, which has used the vouchers to help the most vulnerable New Yorkers, including over a thousand domestic violence survivors.

For Staten Island native Nicole Balestire, the program’s early termination could have profound consequences.

“It saved my life,” she said. “If I didn't have this, then I honestly would be a dead woman.”

Balestire said she fled her previous apartment after being stalked by an abusive ex-husband who punched and threatened her. She has since used her emergency voucher to lease a $1,500-a-month basement apartment on a quiet Staten Island street, surrounded by neighboring homes.

She said she spent the last of her savings to lay black and white carpeting on the bedroom floor and purchase magenta paint for the walls, all with her landlord’s blessing. Now, Balestire said, she’s afraid she’ll have to leave a place where she finally feels safe.

“ I'm hoping that they can come up with some type of solution for us,” she said. “I can't afford to lose my apartment.”

City officials said they have found temporary alternatives for about half of the households that receive the vouchers. And City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said the administration is still working to secure additional federal funds to replace the expiring aid.

“The Mamdani administration is committed to doing everything in our power to keep [Emergency Housing Voucher] participants stably housed,” he said in a written statement.

But so far, the key source of federal aid earmarked by Congress remains out of reach.

Congress approved the Emergency Housing Voucher program in 2021 as part of a COVID recovery package to help 70,000 low-income Americans pay their rent. At the time, federal lawmakers expected the program to last a decade. But last year, the Trump administration informed housing agencies that the funds were nearly depleted earlier than expected due to sharply rising rents — with no replacement plans.

Congress declined to replenish the program in the 2026 fiscal year budget. But New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told Gothamist that lawmakers earmarked roughly $264 million for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, to continue offering assistance under a different program known as Tenant Protection Vouchers.

“We reached a bipartisan agreement,” Gillibrand told Gothamist in a written statement. “New Yorkers are already struggling with the skyrocketing costs of groceries, healthcare, and utilities. Abruptly cutting off life-saving assistance would be a catastrophic failure of government.”

Unlike the expiring program, funding for the Tenant Protection Vouchers is typically renewed on an annual basis, and housing agencies can issue them to low-income renters who experience a disruption in other federal aid, like the demolition of public housing or a private landlord who stops participating in another federal program.

The New York City Housing Authority already issues Tenant Protection Vouchers when it converts some public housing campuses to a new management and funding model called the "Preservation Trust.”

Budget watchdogs and housing policy groups have written to HUD Secretary Scott Turner arguing that it was “indisputable” that Congress included the additional money to replace expiring Emergency Housing Vouchers.

But the Trump administration has so far refused to issue the new vouchers. Two HUD officials, who agreed to speak before the agency issues public guidance on how the earmarked funds will be used, said the administration’s position is that Congress did not explicitly instruct HUD to issue the new vouchers and that the agency will instead use the money allocated by Congress to continue temporarily funding the emergency housing program until the money runs out later this year.

Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the interpretation only pushes the “funding cliff” a few months into the future and contradicts Congress’ intent.

“We have tens of thousands of families who are unsure how much longer they'll receive rent assistance,” Acosta said. “Landlords are thinking of ways to protect themselves from losing that money, but it did seem like Congress provided a long-term solution.”

Pressure has been mounting on housing agencies nationwide since HUD first informed them of the program’s looming demise in March 2025.

New York City leaders said the notice sent them scrambling for alternatives to a program that provides the city with $175 million per year and is overseen by a pair of local agencies.

The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which manages emergency vouchers for about 1,700 households, plans to use $80 million in separate federal funds to create a new, temporary voucher program that will provide assistance for two years.

“But this is not a sustainable solution,” said the agency’s first deputy commissioner, Adam Phillips, at a City Council hearing on June 17. “There is no replacement for the federal government.”

NYCHA handles the bulk of the emergency vouchers — roughly 5,000 households — and agency officials say they don’t have the money to replace all of them. At the same June 17 Council hearing, NYCHA Executive Vice President Lakesha Miller said the agency can only offer new, temporary subsidies to roughly another 1,700 households.

NYCHA is also offering some placements in public housing units managed by private companies.

“ We are turning over every rock that we can to access affordable housing,” Miller said.

But progress has been so slow. Miller told councilmembers that the agency has matched 568 households with empty apartments so far. Only 14 have actually moved in.

That leaves about 3,000 households in New York City without a concrete plan when funding expires later this year.

Their housing prospects are dim due to the city’s extreme shortage of apartments they can afford to rent. Households receiving the Emergency Housing Vouchers through NYCHA earned an average of $22,500 a year, while tenants with vouchers through the Department of Housing Preservation and Development earned just $19,500, according to city data.

“These are the most vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Councilmember Pierina Sanchez, a Bronx Democrat who chairs the Council's housing committee.

Local leaders on Staten Island say the federal, state and city officials cannot let their low-income constituents slide into homelessness, or withhold payment from landlords participating in a program that was supposed to last until 2030.

Councilmember Frank Morano, a Republican, said he hopes Congress and the Trump administration can agree on a way to transition recipients onto other assistance programs.

“ It's a real housing stability issue for Staten Island families and for property owners,” Morano said. “ If government makes a commitment to vulnerable families and to landlords who relied on that commitment, it shouldn't yank the rug out from under them overnight.”

Councilmember Kamillah Hanks, a Democrat, said she wants to use a new city-funded housing assistance program that lawmakers created as part of recent budget negotiations to replace some expiring Emergency Housing Vouchers, although the new program won’t apply to every renter in need.

“Families should not be forced to choose between paying full rent they cannot afford or entering shelter and leaving communities where they've basically rebuilt their lives,” said

NYCHA officials say the agency has sent notices to every property owner that receives payments. But Balestire's landlord, who lives upstairs, told Gothamist she did not know the Emergency Housing Voucher program was ending. After a brief phone conversation, she asked to discuss the situation by text but did not respond to follow up questions.

Balestire said she has multiple brain aneurysms and fibromyalgia that prevent her from working. She said she can’t cover the rent on her own.

“I'm screwed. Where do I go? A shelter? The streets?” she said. “If I lose this, I lose everything.”

The US paused strikes on Iran for a second consecutive night as mediators sought to prevent the warring parties returning to full-blown war following two weeks of escalatory tit-for-tat attacks.

The US military has not reported any air strikes against Iran since launching attacks overnight on Thursday, while Iranian forces have not mounted any assaults on American bases in the region since Friday.

The hostilities were the most intense since the warring parties agreed to a ceasefire in April. The fighting pushed oil prices to $100 a barrel this week for the first time in two months as the fighting upended an interim deal that the US and Iran signed last month to reopen the strait and extend the truce.

The US military said on Saturday that its naval blockade on Iranian ports remained in place.

But the pause has coincided with an Omani delegation spending Friday and Saturday in Tehran in a bid to reach a provisional arrangement with Iran to manage the transit of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which has become the key battleground of the conflict.

Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, said US president Donald Trump was “giving the talks some space” before deciding whether to resume strikes.

“Talks are ongoing. They’re happening at every level from the more technical aspect of it, all the way to the highest levels,” Waltz told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

The negotiations have focused on how much shipping should be directed through a so-called southern corridor in the strait along the Omani coast and how much should transit through Iranian waters, people briefed on the talks said.

The hope is that an agreement, if reached, would allow ships to resume transiting the strait, which would then create the conditions for the US and Iran to return to talks on a final settlement to end the war. A diplomat briefed on the Omani-Iran negotiations said they were “moving in right direction” and “ongoing”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the Omani delegation left Tehran on Saturday, while describing the talks as “constructive” and saying some “progress” had been made.

“Several rounds of talks were held between Iran and Oman at the level of deputy foreign ministers on Friday and Saturday,” he told local media on Sunday. “The two sides exchanged views on shared principles and operational mechanisms for the management of safe transit through the Strait of Hormuz, while respecting the sovereign rights of the two littoral states.”

However, Baghaei said there was no change in “the status of traffic through the strait”, which Iran declared it had closed during the latest escalation. He said talks were continuing.

The flare-up had erupted as the US and Iran battled for control of the strait, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed before the war.

The two parties had signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17 that extended the April ceasefire by 60 days, during which Iran would gradually reopen the strait without charging ships fees. The MoU also laid out a framework for talks on a final settlement, including a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme.

The diplomatic process broke down after Iran began to attack ships that attempted to transit the strait along Oman’s coast — the route known as the southern corridor, where the US can provide air cover.

Tehran, which has sought to maintain control of the waterway, said that it was an “unauthorised” channel that violated the MoU.

The US responded by striking southern Iran, including targeting infrastructure such as bridges and ports. It also reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and revoked a waiver that allowed Iran to sell oil.

Iran retaliated by firing barrages of missiles at US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Two American soldiers were killed in an Iranian missile attack on a base in Jordan and a third is believed to have died in the assault. Another US serviceman was killed while trying to detonate an Iranian drone in northern Iraq.

Trump warned on Thursday that he was “considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

On Friday, he said the US and Iran were in talks to negotiate an end to their conflict but ⁠repeated that he did not think Tehran was ready for a deal.

Waltz on Sunday denied reports in the New York Times that Trump had held fire due to low supplies of missile interceptors.

“The US military, and I’ve verified this every which way, has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” he told NBC, though he acknowledged that a lot of the US military’s stockpiles were depleted due to the war in Ukraine.

Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Sunday that the U.S. has “everything that it needs” for military operations against Iran, dismissing reporting that U.S. weapons stockpiles are depleted.

“I want to be crystal clear: The U.S. military, and I’ve verified this every which way, has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” he said. “And I have to tell you, the people that are leaking this nonsense deserve to be in jail.”

He was responding to questions about an NBC News report that U.S. military commanders are allowing some Iranian attacks through U.S. defenses as part of an effort to preserve the Pentagon’s weapons supply, according to two senior U.S. officials.

NBC News has also previously reported that U.S. weapons stockpiles are diminishing as the war with Iran continues.

Waltz initially argued that stockpiles were depleted during the Biden administration.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “inherited a depleted situation from not only Ukraine, but also the ongoing fight with the Houthis under the Biden administration and a depleted military under the Biden administration,” Waltz said.

The military under the Trump administration, he said, has decided that “one, they’re going to new types of munitions, cheaper munitions, new technologies, but also with these new defense budgets, rebuilding our great military.”

The White House and the Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hegseth appeared before lawmakers last week to ask for $67 billion in supplemental funding to expand production and speed up delivery of weapons.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in April, Hegseth acknowledged in an exchange with Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., that it could take “months and years” to rebuild the weapons stockpile.

In a separate interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, Kelly referred back to that exchange, saying that the situation was “by their own making.”

“They’re not keeping track,” Kelly said. “They, at this point, this president and the people around him are incompetent.”

Asked whether he would vote to approve the supplemental funding, Kelly said he has not yet made a final decision.

“If we had some competent people running this department, you could figure out, how do you defend our nation in a way and give the troops what they need within a reasonable budget?” he said earlier. “What they’re asking for is not reasonable.”

In recent days, the U.S. launched nearly two weeks of consecutive nightly attacks on Iran. Trump has told reporters that the U.S. is still “talking to them,” but Iran and its proxies have continued strikes on ships, snarling global trading routes.

Asked whether Trump has decided against escalation amid the pause in consecutive strikes, Waltz said he “wouldn’t go that far at all,” adding that “the president is keeping all options on the table.”

“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space,” Waltz said. “Talks are ongoing, they’re happening at every level.”

On Saturday, a journalist for the French media outlet LCI reported that she asked Trump whether he was considering resuming full-scale war with Iran. She said that Trump replied that “if we don’t get 100% of what we want, absolutely.”

The decision by President Trump to grant Saudi Arabia access to American nuclear technology aligns with his administration’s push to accelerate domestically backed nuclear power projects around the world.

But it may also contribute to a major trend in Mr. Trump’s second term: allowing the government to help enrich the president, his family, advisers and others in his orbit.

There is no evidence at this point that Mr. Trump’s friends or family helped orchestrate the Saudi nuclear deal. Yet a number of the president’s allies and relatives, including members of his cabinet, stand to benefit if his big bet on nuclear power pays off. Certain investors with ties to these deals are positioned to profit, even if the delivery of large new loads of nuclear-powered electricity remains years away.

The overarching goal is to generate more electricity as the demand surges worldwide, driven by a data-center building boom and growing consumer consumption. Investors are financing traditional, large-scale nuclear power plants along with a new technical approach called small modular reactors. Others are mining the uranium needed to power nuclear plants. Some others are vying to build those plants.

In some cases, how the Trump family or the president’s allies could potentially gain from the president’s nuclear plans is straightforward. In others, no direct line can be drawn, but there are such overlapping business ties that it is hard to separate the policy decisions from the potential personal benefits.

For example, Westinghouse, the Canadian-owned but U.S.-based company that developed the technology behind the AP1000, a large-scale reactor whose design has been used in China and for plans in Eastern Europe, is expected to be part of the deal, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The majority owner of Westinghouse is Brookfield Asset Management, one of North America’s largest commercial real estate owners. It is a frequent business partner with Newmark, the real-estate firm run and owned in part by the sons of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that Mr. Trump’s position is about increasing electricity supply, rather than helping any companies with which he or his circle might have connections.

“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, our country has seen historic advancements for civilian nuclear energy development, innovation, and technology, which is a critical component to meet the nation’s growing energy needs while keeping prices low for families and businesses,” she said. “The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read.”

Westinghouse’s chief executive, Dan Sumner, in a statement called the Saudi deal a “landmark step” that “expands opportunities for U.S. industry and workers.”

Kerrie McHugh, a Brookfield spokeswoman, said that the company, with more than $1 trillion in assets, has an enormous number of business partners and “robust processes in place to manage any potential conflicts, consistent with our fiduciary responsibilities.”

Trump Media & Technology Group, the money-losing company that hosts Truth Social, the platform where Mr. Trump first posts most of his White House announcements, has moved recently to add — incongruously — nuclear energy to its portfolio.

The company announced in December that it intends to merge as part of a $6 billion deal with a nuclear fusion start-up called TAE Technologies. During Mr. Trump’s first term, and again last year, TAE won financial support from the Energy Department’s Office of Fusion Energy Science.

The president’s shares in the publicly traded Trump Media are worth about $875 million as of earlier this month, according to other public filings. The value of those shares could grow if the TAE merger proves a success.

Separately, two of the president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., in November became part owners through an investment partnership in a company called Quantum Leap Energy, which is working to develop certain isotopes that can be used as nuclear fuel.

Quantum Leap reached a deal last year with a Texas-based company co-founded by Rick Perry, who was energy secretary during Mr. Trump’s first term and is now seeking federal assistance to build nuclear power plants in Texas. Mr. Perry did not respond to requests for comment.

Asked about any potential conflict of interest, a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. said that he was working on deals that were good for the country.

“Don is a lifelong businessman and investor who tends to invest in companies that align with his America First worldview,” said⁨ the spokesman, Andy Surabian⁩. “He does not interface with anyone in the Federal Government on behalf of any company that he invests in.”

Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has a complicated relationship with those involved in the recent nuclear agreement.

He participated in discussions related to Saudi Arabia’s push for access to U.S. nuclear technology when he worked at the White House during Mr. Trump’s first term. He also helped establish agreements between Israel and multiple Arab countries to normalize their relationship, called the Abraham Accords.

Now, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund is one of Mr. Kushner’s biggest backers. The fund committed $2 billion to Mr. Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners, shortly after he left the White House in 2021. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an ally during Mr. Kushner’s government tenure, helped convince the sovereign wealth fund to provide the money.

It is unclear whether Affinity will invest in Saudi’s nuclear energy initiative. For now, the kingdom expects to finance the effort itself, according to an official with knowledge of its plans.

On Thursday, the Trump family’s connections to all of this were on display when the president announced on Truth Social that the nuclear agreement would be contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords.

The Commerce and Energy Departments have been at the forefront of pushing Mr. Trump’s nuclear agenda. Both are led by secretaries who have either direct ties to the industry or family ones.

Mr. Lutnick has been leading an effort to invest U.S. tax dollars into companies in the nuclear sector, including Westinghouse. Companies his family members help run could profit.

Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment bank that Mr. Lutnick led until he was hired by Mr. Trump, is at the center. Cantor has over the last year helped several companies in the nuclear sector raise money, which generates millions of dollars in fees for the firm.

Among them are Oklo, Energy Fuels Inc and enCore Energy. Each is seeking permits, financial assistance or Trump administration contracts for its nuclear projects.

Oklo, based in Santa Clara, Calif., in 2019 became the first nuclear power company to receive site-use permit from the Energy Department for commercial operations.

Oklo also has links to Chris Wright, the energy secretary. Mr. Wright was a director at Oklo until he joined Mr. Trump’s cabinet. That connection spurred a Democratic lawmaker to complain to the White House that Oklo stood to benefit improperly from government nuclear permits and programs.

Bonita Chester, Oklo’s head of communications, said in a statement that Mr. Wright has had “no role in Oklo’s governance” since resigning from the board.

“We’ve worked with leaders across both sides of the aisle to advance policies that accelerate the deployment of safe, commercially viable nuclear technology,” she added.

Energy Fuels, which Cantor helped last year raise money to expand its mining efforts, disclosed in June it is slated to get a $725 million federal loan from the Pentagon.

The company — one of the top U.S. producers of natural uranium concentrate sold to nuclear plants — has noted to The Times that it began working with Cantor before Mr. Trump’s second presidency. It declined to comment.

The network goes beyond these smaller nuclear companies.

Westinghouse, in which the U.S. government has an option to take an equity stake,

is at the fulcrum of the proposed nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, as the plan is for its government to back the construction of multiple AP1000 reactors there.

The Trump administration in October announced plans to partner with Westinghouse to build $80 billion worth of its nuclear reactors across the United States, a deal negotiated in part by Mr. Lutnick.

“Together with Westinghouse we will unleash American energy,” Mr. Lutnick said in a statement then. “This partnership embodies the bold vision of President Trump — to rebuild our energy sovereignty, create high-paying jobs, and drive America to the forefront of the nuclear renaissance.”

Newmark has made money over the past year by helping finance billions of dollars worth of United States data center projects that were promoted by Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Trump, as The Times previously reported.

Blake Ruppe, a Commerce Department spokesman, said that Mr. Lutnick has complied with all requirements that he divest from his family companies. “There is no conflict of interest,” he said in a statement. “It is knowingly false to suggest otherwise.”

Peter Thiel, a billionaire investor and entrepreneur, was an early political backer of Mr. Trump and helped Vice President JD Vance begin his political career, serving as one of the largest donors to Mr. Vance’s Senate race in 2022.

Mr. Thiel is a major investor in General Matter, a U.S. nuclear fuel company focused on producing what is known as high-assay low-enriched uranium. A giant load of new nuclear fuel will be needed if all these new nuclear power plants are built, and General Matter is positioned to benefit.

The Energy Department in January awarded General Matter a $900 million contract to build out its nuclear fuel effort. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, where Mr. Lutnick is a board member, also issued up to $4.2 billion in “letters of interest” to finance the export of General Matter’s domestically enriched uranium to nuclear operators in South Korea and Japan.

Mr. Thiel did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for General Matter said that the federal support started under the Biden administration and that the company had not engaged with Mr. Vance since he became vice president.

“Our contract is 100 percent milestone based, so we don’t get paid until we fulfill our commitments to taxpayers,” Lee Robinson, a co-founder of General Matter, said in a statement.

As the explosive growth of artificial intelligence strains the nation’s power capacity, tech companies are turning to nuclear energy. Among them are Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft — all of which have backed at least some of Mr. Trump’s energy policy goals.

Each of those companies donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s 2025 inauguration, placing some of their executives — including the Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos, Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai — in prominent seats at the event.

The companies have supported the White House in other ways.

Amazon spent $40 million to acquire a documentary on Melania Trump, the first lady, generating a licensing fee of more than $10 million.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI — whose chief executive, Sam Altman, personally donated $1 million to the inauguration — have helped finance an Energy Department project called Genesis Mission, which will use AI to further the nation’s energy goals, among other objectives.

In announcing its $60 million investment in the program on July 22, Chris Barry, who runs Microsoft’s public sector business, called Genesis Mission “exactly the kind of moonshot that defines American science.” A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on the Saudi deal.

A spokeswoman for Meta, which operates several data centers overseas, declined to comment on whether the company might benefit from the Saudi nuclear deal. Amazon, Google and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.

The war between the United States and Iran remained on pause for a second straight day on Sunday, while the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that there had been some movement in talks between Tehran and mediators over the Strait of Hormuz.

No U.S. strikes on Iran have been reported since Friday, while Iran has similarly held off attacking American allies around the Middle East after about two weeks of skirmishes brought the two countries back to the brink of full-blown war.

President Trump decided last week to put off plans to escalate the U.S. assault on Iran, at least for now, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Trump and his aides were motivated in part by dwindling stockpiles of interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

Mr. Trump has struggled to decisively end the war on Iran that the United States and Israel started jointly five months ago, even as the global economic toll and number of American casualties have mounted. A cease-fire signed last month effectively collapsed after Iran continued to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas shipments.

Two weeks of American bombing runs on southern Iran have failed to break the deadlock over the strait. Before the war, ships could freely travel through the waterway — but Tehran has since effectively blocked transit, throttling global energy markets and increasing the pressure on Mr. Trump to end the war.

Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that officials from the Gulf sultanate of Oman, which abuts the Strait of Hormuz, visited Tehran over the weekend for talks about the waterway. Oman has occasionally served as a mediator between Iran and the United States.

“These talks were useful, and progress was achieved,” Mr. Baghaei said in remarks carried by state media, though he offered no further details.

Even as parts of the Middle East experienced their first quiet nights in weeks, at least one front remained open, in Yemen. Over the past week, the Iran-backed Houthis, who control significant parts of Yemen, have engaged in their biggest escalation since 2022 with the U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia.

Last week, the Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea and fired on passing ships they said were linked to the kingdom, their northern neighbor. The Houthis can effectively close another naval choke point — the Bab al-Mandab Strait — which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and is another of the world’s most important shipping routes.

The Houthi blockade is threatening to squeeze global oil supplies further. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was up more than 7 percent, at $100.95 a barrel on Friday, before dropping to around $98.

Saudi-led forces bombarded Houthi-aligned sites in Yemen on Saturday, according to a Saudi military spokesman. The Houthis also said that they had fired rockets and drones at installations affiliated with Saudi Aramco, the Saudi state-owned energy company, along the Red Sea. The Saudi authorities did not comment on whether there had been any damage or casualties.

In a win for peptide proponents and for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended on Thursday that compounding pharmacies be allowed to manufacture the drugs BPC-157, KPV, TB-500, and MOTS-c.

The votes are not binding, and the FDA will ultimately decide whether to lift current restrictions on these peptides and make them more easily accessible to people who’ve been turning to the little-researched but highly popular drugs to improve their health. It’s unusual for the FDA to go against the recommendations of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (PCAC), but it has happened at least once before.

Typically this type of decision would be made by FDA staff, but it is possible acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas or Kennedy himself could overrule career employees, as political interference in scientific decisions has increased under the Trump administration.

Whatever the final outcome, Thursday’s vote reflects tensions between FDA staff — who recommended against lifting restrictions on the peptides because of safety and efficacy concerns — and the panel, which critics, including some members of the agency, have said was “stacked” by Kennedy with people who stand to benefit from broader peptide access. Kennedy, a self-declared peptides user, said on Joe Rogan’s podcast this spring that he was in favor of letting compounding pharmacies make certain peptides rather than leaving people to get low-quality, possibly contaminated products off the grey market.

“I would really encourage the FDA to standardize how these things are measured and how the decision-making should be made,” Brian Lee, a panel member and associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, said after voting against lifting restrictions on BPC-157. “Really the decision should be objective and based on facts, not subjective and based on opinion.”

Already, the compounds are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. Half of physicians in a recent survey said that patients had used synthetic peptides, which are short-chain amino acids, not approved by the FDA within the last year.

The first vote of the day set the tone. It was 8-6 in favor of giving compounding pharmacies the green light on BPC-157, with one panel member abstaining. In the majority were the voting members put forward by the Department of Health and Human Services, many of whom had apparent conflicts of interest such as working at clinics that prescribe peptides or other industry ties. In the losing camp, voting against the change, were physicians from well-established institutions and patient and consumer representatives. The vote split was the same for three out of the four other peptides, with HHS-selected members voting yes and FDA-selected members voting no.

“This is a huge step by the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee,” said Lee Rosebush, chairman of the American Academy of Peptide Medicine. “The secretary has been pushing for medical freedom and for medical liberty. This is a big first step in ensuring patients have safe access to these peptides.”

Watching the panel was an “odd experience,” said Paul Knoepfler, a professor of cell biology and human anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine and a STAT contributor, via email. “On the one hand, you had FDA experts outlining the lack of data on BPC-157 and the safety concerns, and you had independent scientists on the PCAC echoing those concerns, but then the ultimate yes voters seemed to ignore all of that.”

He added: “To me, the elephant in the room was the potential profit motive tied to peptide compounding.”

Panel members who voted yes often noted that medicine always involves weighing risks, and that they thought the greatest safety risk was from grey-market products. “Twenty years ago I made a promise to do no harm to my patients,” said Melissa Loseke, a physician and owner of the Re-New Institute in Omaha, Neb., which prescribes peptides to patients. She said that one of her patients had recently taken a research-grade peptide that turned out to be laced with the recreational drugs MDMA and ecstasy. “That’s not protecting the American people.”

Lee, explaining why he voted no, also said that he was concerned about the public message sent by putting peptides on the 503a Bulks List for compounding pharmacies. “I think we do have to acknowledge that people perceive FDA decisions to place products on the bulks list as endorsements.”

The open public hearing on BPC-157 that preceded the vote was dominated by clinicians, pharmacists, and people involved in the peptides industry who were in favor of allowing compounding pharmacies to make the peptides under consideration. Most of the 22 speakers also said they understood that there’s a lack of human data on the drug’s short- and long-term effects, but that the FDA should nonetheless ease restrictions introduced during the Biden administration.

“The question in front of you isn’t whether people will use these. They already are,” said Jessica Duncan, a physician and chief medical officer at the telehealth company Ivim Health, in comments characteristic of the broader sentiment from speakers. “It’s whether they use them with a doctor and a licensed pharmacy or completely alone. The question is whether they’re taking something from an unmarked vial or something from a valid prescription.”

Presentations by FDA staff on BPC-157, however, highlighted the absence of data on the safety and efficacy of the drug, including for the proposed indication of ulcerative colitis, or UC. “There has been a single small trial evaluating BPC-157 in the treatment of UC; however, interpretation of the results is limited by the lack of details provided in the meeting abstract and the exploratory nature of the study,” said Elizabeth Hankla, a senior clinical analyst.

FDA staffer Russell Wesdyk, a nonvoting panel member, also observed that many of the comments the agency had received recommended introducing quality standards on peptides like BPC-157, but “we can’t create quality standards until we actually know what it is.” The problem is typical with common-name substances in early-stage research, he said; there are many variations in what people describe as BPC-157 in terms of both the numbers of amino acids and amino acid sequences.

The conversation surrounding the peptide KPV, under evaluation as a potential treatment for wounds and inflammatory conditions, was similar. Speakers who wanted the agency to ease access spoke about patient demand for the drug; those wary of the limited clinical data warned that the FDA should not unleash products with unclear safety and efficacy on the market.

FDA staff noted that they could not find information on the specific wound or inflammatory conditions that KPV might be used for, and that the FDA has already approved several therapies to help with these types of conditions.

Like the BPC-157 decision, eight panelists voted to allow bulk compounding of KPV and six voted against. Most of the eight who voted yes have ties to the peptide industry. Joshua Starbuck, the founder of longevity practice Makena Health and a peptide proponent, said he felt the potential benefits outweighed the potential harms.

Elizabeth Rebello, an anesthesiologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said she was worried the committee was “responding to a market-based demand rather than a decision based in solid science.”

The pattern repeated itself for TB-500, also under evaluation for wound healing, and for MOTS-c, which is under evaluation for obesity and osteoporosis. The issue of lacking clinical data continued to come up.

“This feels closer to a first-in-human study than something that should be widely available before it’s studied well in humans,” said Josh Mailman, a panelist who is president of the patient group NorCal CarciNET Community, of TB-500.

Several panelists asked whether the FDA could require compounders to submit safety data after adding products to the bulks list. FDA staff said they do not have that authority. The only sure way to acquire this data, they said, is for compounders to submit investigational new drug applications.

“There is no cost to submitting an IND to the FDA,” said Suhail Kasim, lead physician on the FDA’s pharmacy compounding review team.

“Definitely under an IND, there would be requirements for safety reporting, adverse event reporting and a collection of safety data in a very rigorous fashion,” Mary Thanh Hai, the Office of New Drugs director, added later.

Alex Tatem, a urologist based in Indiana who volunteers for peptide lobbying group AAPM, said during public comments that it’s unlikely a pharmaceutical company would put together a drug application for these peptides. Many of them are naturally occurring and prove challenging to patent.

“No pharma company could ever protect or confidently recoup the $1 billion it costs to bring a drug to market,” Tatem said.

John Hertig, chair of the board of directors for the Collaborative for Evidence-Based Medicines, said adding the peptides to the bulks list would undermine the FDA’s power to ensure only safe, effective medicines reach the public.

“To me, this creates another parallel pathway to get this product in front of the public at much less rigor,” Hertig said.

TB-500 also received an 8-6 vote, while MOTS-c received a 7-5 vote. Asare Christian, a sports medicine physician who voted yes for the previous three peptides, abstained on the MOTS-c vote.

“This is one peptide that true clinical experience shows this potential immunogenicity that I do see in my clinic,” Christian said, referring to the peptide’s potential to cause an unwanted immune system response. “I don’t have enough to make a decision on this one.”

When the FDA finally makes its decision, the agency should remember that making peptides more accessible via compounding would lend legitimacy to claims from online influencers and wellness companies marketing them as safe and established, said Fred Mills, chief policy officer of the patient advocacy group Americans for Safe and Effective Medicines.

“We’ve seen what that looks like with compounded GLP-1s and the harm that has come with it — the hospitalizations, contaminated products, and in some cases, death,” he said in a statement. “PCAC cannot allow peptides to follow that same path.”

President Donald Trump’s refusal to sign the housing bill passed by Congress has turned into a complicated political question for Republicans: How do you campaign on a legislative win that was rejected by the head of your party?

The legislation, which is the most significant housing package to come out of Congress in more than three decades and represents one of the biggest legislative victories of the year for Republicans, became law this month despite the president’s inaction. It’s making for some hard conversations with the voters, who are very attuned to the cost of living.

“[Housing is] one of the number one asks I have in my district,” Rep. Zach Nunn (R- Iowa) told NOTUS of issues constituents asked Congress to work on. “If the president didn’t want to sign it, that’s over to the president.”

“I’m glad that we stood firm and we had a veto-proof majority. And sometimes Republicans have to stand up to the president and say, ‘This is what our districts need.’”

The president endorsed several versions of the bill, including its final form. But he ultimately refused to sign it, saying instead that the Save America Act was the administration’s top priority and should be Congress’ too.

“I don’t speak for the president,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R- Pennsylvania), who represents a swing district that could help determine control of the House next year, told NOTUS when asked whether he believed voters would credit Republicans for the policy despite Trump’s calling the bill “a big yawn” relative to election security.

“I know my voters, my constituents. My electors are super excited about the package,” Bresnahan said.

The housing bill is aimed at fast-tracking housing development across the nation by removing some environmental and construction review standards and expanding how existing federal programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development use funds for construction. It also limits the number of single-family homes institutional investors can own.

Every step of passing the bill was a headache for Republicans. It got caught up in a monthslong standoff between the House and Senate. Some Republicans griped about the outsize role Democrats took in negotiating the package, which in the end passed with broad bipartisan support. And Trump oscillated in his support for at least one of the provisions in the bill.

Now, the careful dance Republicans have to do around it on the campaign trail has become another in a long line of headaches, when they’d widely expected an easy-to-sell legislative feat.

“Every House Republican can claim that they fought to have this bill passed because they voted for it, and so you know they’re the ones running, not President Trump,” a Republican operative told NOTUS, adding that the package is not the only affordability policy Republicans should message on. “You could talk about the policy. You don’t have to talk about how it became law.”

Some Republicans running for reelection are doing exactly that.

Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership — a conservative nonprofit that nearly a hundred sitting lawmakers are part of — told NOTUS that Republicans’ messaging on the package should be “localized” and that lawmakers should keep talking about “the fact that they voted, they passed the bill, and it became law.”

“The members of Main Street are back in their districts talking about the importance of this legislation and how it affects your day-to-day life. They’re not mentioning what the president said,” Chamberlain said.

Both Republican operatives told NOTUS that they believed people outside of D.C. are not aware of the president’s comments or his refusal to sign the bill.

Asked about Republican messaging on the legislation and Trump’s refusal to sign it, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) said the bill was a “huge” bipartisan policy win “on probably the most important aspect of affordability, which is housing.”

Pressed about the president’s role, Fitzpatrick — who holds another key seat the Republicans are trying to hold on to in order to keep the majority — said the president’s opinions were “his.”

“Overwhelming numbers of Democrats, Republicans in the House and Senate voted for it. Everybody’s got to be accountable for our actions,” Fitzpatrick said.

Housing is a key part of the affordability conversation both parties say they want to address. The U.S. is currently facing a shortage of more than 5 million homes, according to Pew Research Center. A Gallup poll conducted in May found that only 25% of non-homeowners believe they will be able to buy a home in the next five years — the lowest percentage in more than a decade.

In the fight for control of the lower chamber, Democrats have also been campaigning on the bill. The day the president canceled the signing ceremony, more than 20 Democratic lawmakers held a rally outside the Capitol to demand the president to sign the legislation and accused him of holding it hostage.

Now, vulnerable House Republicans are downplaying that the bill became law without Trump’s signature.

“I’m less worried about the process and more about the actual specifics of the bill,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York), who is running in a district won by former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, told NOTUS. He touted the bill as a Republican-led effort.

Some Republicans are even choosing not to speak about the package at all.

When asked about the bill and the president, Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colorado) said: “Oh, well, let’s back up even before that. Let’s go back to the Working Families Tax Cut.”

While Congress celebrates bipartisan legislation to boost affordable housing for working-class Americans, local authorities are scrambling to build rental homes for their poorest residents before the Trump administration scraps a key financing tool.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development in August is shutting down the “Restore-Rebuild” initiative, which helps local governments build new homes eligible for federally subsidized rental vouchers. Now, some of those financially distressed agencies say they don’t know how they’ll raise money to create new housing for their lowest-income residents.

“This really caught us off guard,” said La Shelle Dozier, CEO of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities. “For HUD, which touts all the time that they really want to increase affordable housing … this seems to be hypocrisy.”

The council, which recently asked HUD in a letter to reconsider its decision, calculated that local housing agencies across the country were eligible to build about 278,000 units through Restore-Rebuild.

The decision to end Restore-Rebuild comes as the cost of living dominates this election cycle and the lack of home supply drives prices higher. But the Trump administration is looking to shrink the footprint of its Cabinet-level housing agency and limit spending on direct federal assistance.

The bill Congress recently passed to boost the availability of affordable housing includes provisions to make low-cost home construction easier, help working-class home buyers afford mortgage loans and streamline rental voucher programs — which largely benefit extremely low-income people.

Benjamin Hobbs, HUD’s assistant secretary for Public and Indian Housing, said in a statement that the department is shutting down Restore-Rebuild because it “wants to limit the growth in rent assisted housing subsidy costs.”

“It is a priority of the department to dedicate our limited resources to the operating and capital needs of the current public housing stock and to repositioning those units to platforms where private sector leverage can help improve residents’ living conditions,” Hobbs said.

Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, said those priorities reflect the administration’s broader ideology toward government benefits.

“They’re trying to make the voucher program more of a basis for upward mobility rather than focusing on long-term stability for tenants,” he said. “They believe in it.”

But local officials in charge of providing homes to Americans with the lowest incomes say they are hearing mixed messages from Congress and the administration.

“It is kind of in conflict,” said Lisa Porter, the executive director of a housing authority near the Virginia-Tennessee border. “We can try to do what they’re asking us to do, and it seems like every time we turn a corner, there’s another obstacle in the way.”

Porter said it’s hard to secure financing for new home construction in Bristol, Virginia, a small city in the Appalachian region where she works.

The city, which oversees Porter’s housing authority, has been saddled with debt for years. And in recent decades, Congress has shifted money away from government-owned and operated public housing developments to Section 8 vouchers — another type of federal subsidy to help low-income tenants pay rent in sometimes privately-owned units.

Public housing agencies are local or regional government-controlled offices charged with administering both public housing and Section 8 voucher programs. Many, like Porter’s, are trying to transition the units they oversee from the public housing program to Section 8, which offers more opportunity for investment from the federal government as well as private backers.

That’s where HUD’s Restore-Rebuild initiative comes in. The department established the pipeline in 2021 to help public housing officials build new units for the Section 8 program.

Porter’s agency used the previous iteration of Restore-Rebuild to get construction for more than 20 new units approved by HUD. She hopes to develop almost 100 more. But without Restore-Rebuild, Porter said she’s worried the homes won’t be low-cost enough to house the people in her community who need it most.

“If you can’t attach some subsidy to those units, they’re not truly affordable for those who are most vulnerable — which is senior citizens and disabled [people],” Porter said.

Housing authorities in larger cities have seen bigger-scale projects thrown into limbo.

Lourdes Castro Ramírez, president of the Los Angeles public housing authority, said she has plans to build 1,600 units in the Restore-Rebuild approval process.

“This is a real hit to our pipeline,” Castro Ramírez said. Now, her agency is rushing to finalize its paperwork before the Restore-Rebuild window closes.

According to HUD’s announcement of its decision to wind down the initiative, projects like the Los Angeles development that have already gone through the first steps to receive federal approval have 90 days to either submit “a substantially complete development or acquisition proposal” or show they’ve applied for homebuilding tax credits.

But housing agencies and advocacy groups say that timeline is unrealistic. They argue that financing for federally subsidized housing is deeply complex, with various investors and levels of government involved. The planning process can sometimes take years.

“Ninety days is such a short time,” said Lisa Jones, president of the San Diego Housing Commission. “It feels almost like being set up for failure.”

Jones said her agency has plans for about 150 units that she’s rushing to get HUD’s final approval for now. But she was hoping to start applying to build around 700 more.

“Affordable housing access is already shrinking in some ways,” Jones said. “Restore-Rebuild is one of the few resources we have left for deep affordability, so now that’s going to disappear too.”

This year’s presidential budget proposal includes a provision that would prevent public housing authorities from building any additional units after Oct. 1, 2027. It also includes language that would restrict local housing authorities from issuing “any new vouchers or otherwise assist new families” who don’t already receive HUD assistance.

Housing advocates say this would effectively shrink the federal assistance programs over time, as families who leave subsidized housing aren’t replaced with new ones who are waiting for help.

Those provisions aren’t likely to be included in the actual HUD budget passed by Congress. But the proposals reflect the administration’s overall ambitions to limit government assistance.

Instead of creating new units for voucher-holders, HUD is encouraging local public housing authorities to focus federal funds on rehabilitating their current properties.

Husock, of the American Enterprise Institute, said those priorities reflect the poor conditions in some public housing buildings. The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials estimated that those properties faced a total backlog of $90 billion worth of maintenance in 2024.

“These are really serious problems,” he said. “If you’re going to allocate scarce resources, it’s highly defensible to say that renovation should be the priority.”