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Browse major news stories and see what officials have said.

Aug 30, 2026· Updated

A Democratic Senator and a Republican Congressman Jointly Tell Hegseth to Reverse the 30 Percent Cut to U.S. Fighter Jets Committed to NATO — "Deterring Russia Is Far Less Costly Than Fighting a War With Russia"

On August 19, 2026, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth urging the Department to reverse planned reductions in the forces the United States commits to NATO operations in Europe. Earlier in the summer, U.S. European Command announced it would scale back its NATO commitment, including a roughly 30 percent cut to fighter jets, a reduction in reconnaissance aircraft, and the withdrawal of aerial refueling tankers. The lawmakers wrote that the decision and the speed of its implementation would weaken allied deterrence and send a troubling signal to Moscow at a moment of strain in the transatlantic relationship. The letter asked Hegseth to reconsider the cuts and to provide Congress, in writing by August 31, 2026, an explanation of how the United States intends to uphold its commitments to allied security. It arrives against a Congress that has already tried to fence in the drawdown: the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act set a 76,000-troop floor for U.S. forces in Europe and, through a provision secured by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), requires the administration to consult Congress and allies before changing force posture there. Neguse and Bacon lead the bipartisan effort from opposite parties — Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, has been among the most consistent Republican critics of the administration's Europe drawdown.

“I doubt that Congress will approve, at this critical moment, reduction in force structure in Europe when Putin is more dangerous and threatening than ever.”
Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) · Aug 30, 2026

Israel Opens Bidding to Build 1,234 Homes in E1 — the Corridor That Would Sever the West Bank — and 29 Senate Democrats Tell It to Rescind the Tenders While the State Department Pointedly Says Nothing About E1

On Aug. 18, 2026, Israel's Construction and Housing Ministry published a tender inviting contractors to build seven residential compounds totaling 1,234 housing units in E1, the tract of occupied West Bank land east of Jerusalem that every U.S. administration since Clinton has treated as a red line. Bids are due Oct. 19. Building E1 would wall occupied East Jerusalem off from Bethlehem and Ramallah and cut the northern West Bank from the southern one — which is why successive American governments, Republican and Democratic alike, have pressed Israel not to develop it. The Trump administration's response was conspicuously narrow. Asked about the tenders, the State Department restated existing language — that the United States "does not support Israel annexing the West Bank" — without mentioning E1 at all. On Aug. 28, Sen. Ruben Gallego led a statement signed by 29 congressional Democrats calling on Israel to withdraw the tenders outright. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who has pushed hardest in the Senate on West Bank settler violence, had already gone further, calling E1 a violation of international law that would leave Israel "an apartheid, pariah state." No Republican member of Congress is on record objecting to the tenders.

“We urge the Israeli government to immediately rescind these tenders, halt settlement expansion in the West Bank, and take urgent action to rein in settler violence.”
Jack Reed (D-RI) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

Eleven Senate Democrats Invoke a Cold War-Era Human Rights Law to Force a Floor Vote on Israel — Demanding the State Department Account for Nine Americans Killed in the West Bank

On August 27, 2026, Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced their intent to introduce a privileged resolution under Section 502B(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the State Department to report to Congress on escalating violence in the West Bank — including the killings of at least nine American citizens there since 2022, investigations (or the absence of them) into killings by Israeli settlers and security forces, and Israel's detention of Palestinian children. Section 502B(c) lets any senator force a floor vote on a demand for a human rights report about a country receiving U.S. security assistance. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has ten days to act on the resolution; if it does not, the resolution can be brought straight to the floor. If it passes, the administration has 30 days to submit the report or certain security assistance to Israel is cut off. Eight more senators joined as original cosponsors: Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Peter Welch (D-VT). No Republican senator had publicly responded to the resolution as of the announcement.

“We write to reiterate our alarm about the potential for a dangerous collapse in the West Bank now that the only two Israeli banks providing vital services have indicated difficulties with banking waivers.”
Brian Schatz (D-HI) · Aug 28, 2026

Aug 28, 2026· Updated

Five Months Into a War Fought to Stop Iran From Enriching Uranium, Trump Sends Congress a Nuclear Agreement With Saudi Arabia — and Four Democrats Call It "the Starting Gun for a Middle East Nuclear Arms Race"

On Monday, August 24, 2026, the Trump administration transmitted the classified text of a U.S.–Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement to Capitol Hill, starting the review clock required by Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee now have 90 days of continuous session to review it; absent a joint resolution of disapproval, the agreement takes effect. The pact was signed in Washington last month by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart. It would open the kingdom to U.S. nuclear technology and reactors. President Trump has publicly promised there will be "no enrichment of material" and has tied the whole thing to Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel: the deal, he wrote on July 23, "is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords." The administration reaffirmed that condition when it sent the text up. Critics say the promise and the paper do not match. The agreement contains no permanent, legally binding prohibition on enrichment or reprocessing — the "gold standard" the U.S. secured from the UAE in 2009 — and does not require Saudi Arabia to adopt the IAEA's Additional Protocol, the inspection regime 146 countries have accepted. The Wall Street Journal reported the agreement includes a joint U.S.–Saudi study of possible future domestic enrichment, and U.S. officials have told reporters the door is left open. The objection that cuts across party lines is the timing. The United States has been at war with Iran since late February over Tehran's nuclear program. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), one of the few Republicans on record against the deal, put it plainly: "We're bombing a country to keep them from getting a nuclear weapon, but we're signing a deal with another country." Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. John Garamendi (D-CA) and Don Beyer (D-VA) made the same argument in a joint op-ed on August 4 and called on Congress to reject the agreement outright. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking Democrat on Foreign Relations, has stopped short of rejection but said Congress should approach the agreement "with great caution." The Saudis, for their part, have said normalization with Israel requires a clear path to Palestinian statehood, which Prime Minister Netanyahu has rejected — so the Abraham Accords condition Trump has attached may keep the deal from taking effect regardless of what Congress does.

“With this deal, President Trump is not only triggering a nuclear arms race in the Middle East but also weakening America's security and standing on the world stage.”
Jeff Merkley (D-OR) · Aug 28, 2026

The United States Designates a British Protest Group and an Italian Web-Hosting Collective as Global Terrorists — the First Sanctions Under Rubio’s "Far-Left Terrorism" Doctrine

On Wednesday, August 26, 2026, the State and Treasury Departments designated three organizations as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224, the first sanctions imposed under the administration's push to reorient counterterrorism policy toward what it calls violent far-left terrorism. The three are Palestine Action, a United Kingdom protest group proscribed by the British government in July 2025 after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged military aircraft; Autistici/Inventati, an Italy-based collective that provides encrypted email, web hosting and anonymity services and that the State Department describes as supplying "the digital infrastructure for Antifa cells"; and Masar Badil, a transnational pro-Palestinian movement the Treasury says operates as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with two of its leaders. The designations block the groups' US assets and bar Americans from transacting with them. The action follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio's July 2026 summit in which delegations from more than 60 countries were pressed to treat far-left political violence as terrorism, and the administration's 2026 National Counterterrorism Strategy, which names violent far-left groups as one of three top threats — a reversal of the Biden-era emphasis on far-right and white supremacist violence. Civil liberties groups and Palestine Action itself say the designation criminalizes protest and civil disobedience. House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats had already written to Rubio in July warning that the Department was politicizing counterterrorism work, hosting a conference focused exclusively on left-wing extremism while cutting the offices that assessed extremist violence of all kinds. No member of Congress had issued an on-record response to the designations themselves in the first 24 hours.

“Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”
Scott Bessent (R-SC) · Aug 26, 2026

Forty Members of Congress, Six of Them Senators, Tell Rubio to Get a 20-Year-Old American Out of an Israeli Military Prison Where She Has Been Held Without Charge Since June

On August 25, 2026, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) led 40 members of Congress — including six senators — in a bicameral letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding the immediate and permanent release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen held in Israeli military detention without charge. Safi, an honors psychology student at Birzeit University whose family lives in Florida, was taken from her family's home near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank at about 3 a.m. on June 2, 2026, in a series of Israeli raids targeting Birzeit students. She was moved to Ofer prison and then to the Moscovia interrogation center in Jerusalem. She has never been charged. The letter says Safi "has described horrific conditions and violence by guards in Israeli military detention, including frequent physical assault, gas and stun grenades thrown in overcrowded cells, and lack of food and water." Safi has familial Mediterranean fever, a severe chronic condition requiring daily medication, regular monitoring and recurring specialized biologic treatment abroad — which is why the signers frame the delay itself as the danger. The letter is the escalation point of a campaign that has been building since June. Sen. Chris Van Hollen was among the first to demand her release and has since called for the resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee over his silence on detained Americans. Rep. Ayanna Pressley pressed the administration publicly in August. On August 18, 102 rights groups including CAIR wrote to Rubio making the same demand. The August 25 letter is the first time the ask has come from both chambers at this scale.

“Every day that Sama remains wrongfully detained in these inhumane conditions, she is at greater risk of irreversible and life-threatening repercussions.”
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) · Aug 25, 2026

After 47 Years, the United States Takes Syria Off the State Sponsors of Terrorism List — and Also Delists the Islamist Coalition That Toppled Assad

On August 24, 2026 Secretary of State Marco Rubio formally rescinded Syria's designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, ending a listing that had been in place since 1979. The same action removed Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham — the Sunni Islamist coalition that led the campaign that toppled Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 and whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, now governs Syria — from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list. The rescission followed the statutory sequence: Trump notified Congress of his intent on July 8, 2026, and the required 45-day congressional review period ran out without a resolution of disapproval. That is because the underlying policy had bipartisan backing. On July 2, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) — an unusual trio — wrote to Rubio urging him to delist, arguing the legal grounds for the designation no longer existed and that it had become the single biggest obstacle to Syrian reconstruction and to keeping Russia, China and Iran out. Rubio framed the move as a reward for al-Sharaa's counterterrorism cooperation. Outside analysts, including at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned that the designation had rested on Syria's ties to Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran-backed groups and that those ties are not resolved by a paperwork change. No member of Congress went on record opposing the delisting.

“These actions were all taken in recognition of the positive actions taken and further commitments by the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa to fully distance Syria from acts of international terrorism.”
Marco Rubio (R-FL) · Aug 24, 2026

Trump’s Own Envoy Publicly Breaks With Israel Over Its Strike on a Syrian Airbase — Says U.S. Intelligence Found No Turkish Buildup and Floats That Israel Was "Baiting" a NATO Ally Ahead of Its Election

On the night of August 17–18, 2026, Israeli aircraft dropped at least eight bombs on the runway and hangars of the disused Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria, roughly 45 miles from the Turkish border. Israel's justification was that Syria was on the verge of breaching a security understanding by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there. What followed was a rare, sustained public break between the Trump administration's own envoy and the Israeli government. Tom Barrack — U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria, and the official Trump has credited with brokering the first direct Syrian–Israeli talks — said on August 18 that Washington was deeply concerned the strike was "an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability." The next day he went further, warning that because Turkish forces had no idea Israeli jets were inbound or what they were targeting, they "could potentially have been inclined to scramble their own jets in the belief that they themselves were under attack" — a scenario he said "carried a real risk of rapid escalation into a direct military confrontation between Israel and Turkey as well as Syria." Barrack then said the U.S. had checked Israel's central factual claim and could not confirm it: "We went back to our respective intelligence agencies. The answer we got is, no, that's not happening." On August 22 he offered a theory for why the strike happened anyway — that with Israel's election set for October, "one theory is they were just baiting Turkey, and it's a very aggressive, but maybe well-received, pre-election concept." In the same interview he also said Israel still occupies the Golan Heights "against the UN resolutions," a position at odds with stated U.S. policy. Israel pushed back hard. Defense Minister Israel Katz called Barrack's account "full of inaccuracies" and said it contained "positions that contradict the position of US President Trump," insisting Israel had clear intelligence about Turkish intentions at the base. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told Axios he had told Israel directly that his government was not working with Turkey to build up a military presence there, and that Israel struck anyway. The episode matters because Turkey is a NATO ally whose Article 5 protections the alliance has never had to weigh against an Israeli strike, because the Trump administration has treated the new Syrian government as a foreign policy win it does not want destabilized, and because a sitting U.S. ambassador publicly questioning an Israeli government's motives — and floating an electoral one — is not something Washington usually does out loud.

“President Trump has been CLEAR about Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights for years! It seems the Ambassador forgot that or failed to do his research, so here’s a refresher for him.”
Rick Scott (R-FL) · Aug 23, 2026

Israel’s National Security Minister Says Israel Should Kill "30 to 40" People in Gaza Every Night Because "There Are People There Who Are Not Worthy of Life" — and Two of the Senate’s Most Reliably Pro-Israel Democrats Tell Him to Resign

In an interview recorded for the debut episode of a podcast hosted by former Hamas hostage Rom Braslavski and aired the weekend of August 15–16, 2026, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel should be carrying out "targeted assassinations" in Gaza at a rate of "30 to 40 every night" — and made clear he did not mean only people posing an immediate threat. Ben-Gvir, who was criticizing the reduced tempo of Israeli operations under the armistice, said of Palestinians in Gaza that there are people there "who are not worthy of life." In the same conversation he called for Palestinians to be encouraged to leave Gaza permanently and said he viewed "all of Gaza as ours." The remarks circulated widely on Sunday, August 16, and drew condemnation from a narrow but notable slice of Washington: two Senate Democrats who have consistently voted to keep U.S. weapons flowing to Israel and have resisted party pressure to block arms sales. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) called the comments "horrific and completely indefensible" and became the first sitting U.S. senator to say outright that Ben-Gvir should leave the Israeli government, urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly disavow him. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official, followed on August 20, calling the remarks "abhorrent and a shameful part of the Netanyahu government." The episode is a marker of where the pro-Israel center of the Senate Democratic caucus has moved: the officials calling for a sitting Israeli cabinet minister's removal are not the caucus's left flank but two of its most dependable supporters of U.S. military aid to Israel. German lawmakers separately called for EU sanctions on Ben-Gvir over the same comments. The Trump administration did not issue a public statement on the remarks in the days that followed.

“Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has once again made violent, dehumanizing comments about innocent civilians in Gaza. It is abhorrent and a shameful part of the Netanyahu government. He should be long gone from any government role and publicly condemned by anyone who claims to care about civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, in the region.”
Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) · Aug 20, 2026

Aug 19, 2026· Updated

Trump Orders the Pentagon to "Substantially Reduce" Joint Exercises With South Korea, Citing His Relationship With Kim Jong Un and Seoul's Refusal to Join the Iran War — Drawing Bipartisan Backlash

On Sunday, August 16, 2026, hours before the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise was set to begin, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "substantially reduce" the joint military exercises the United States conducts with South Korea. He said the drills were costly and sent a signal "totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea, which he described as "unthreatening and respectful" during his time in office, and he grounded the decision in his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un. Trump added a second rationale in the same post: he had recently asked South Korean President Lee Jae Myung to join the US in the "Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran," and Seoul had declined. Ulchi Freedom Shield, a roughly ten-day exercise focused on cyberattacks, drone activity and GPS disruption, began Monday, August 17 — too late to cancel outright, which is why the order was to shrink it rather than scrap it. South Korea's defense ministry said it would "proceed as previously notified and scheduled," and President Lee's office said the two governments had "maintained close coordination." The backlash was bipartisan. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on Senate Armed Services, called it "another inane, haphazard decision" and warned that China and Russia were watching. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said cutting the drills does nothing but free up North Korean troops fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Sen. Mark Kelly, a Navy veteran, called it "shortsighted and a mistake." Sen. Andy Kim objected to the unilateral, social-media announcement of a joint decision, and Reps. Frank Pallone and Pramila Jayapal accused the president of appeasing a dictator. As of publication no Republican member of Congress had gone on record defending the decision. The move revives objections Trump raised in his first term, when he suspended major drills after his 2018 Singapore summit with Kim, and lands as US military hardware has been pulled from the Indo-Pacific for the war against Iran.

“I wouldn’t have allowed it. But he’s got them.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 19, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

On the Day the Iran Peace Memorandum Expires, Trump Threatens to "Bomb the Shit Out Of" Oman — the Ally Mediating the Strait of Hormuz Talks — and Kaine Says He Will File a War Powers Resolution

The 60-day negotiating window created by the Islamabad memorandum of understanding that Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed on June 17, 2026 ran out on August 16-17, 2026 without a final agreement. Asked on August 17 by Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst about talks between Oman and Iran on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump said: "If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them." Oman is a US free-trade partner and has spent the war acting as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran. Trump said later the same day that Oman had not "behaved very well" but that the US would "handle them very easily," said Washington would not seek an extension of the memorandum, told Iran to "put up the white flag of surrender," and repeated that the US now controls the Strait of Hormuz "with the blockade." Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) announced within hours that he will introduce a war powers resolution barring military action against Oman when the Senate returns from its August recess in September. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) responded that Democrats "may just need to file war powers resolutions for the 192 other countries," and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked publicly when Republicans would "concede the man has lost his mind." No congressional Republican publicly criticized the Oman threat on the day it was made. Jared Kushner, who met Hamas leaders in Egypt the day before as part of the administration's regional diplomacy, said Iran was "not showing any interest in doing something that makes sense for us."

“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Aug 18, 2026

Aug 18, 2026· Updated

Sixteen Senators Tell Rubio the Administration Has Never Once Used the Levinson Act on the Five Americans Sitting in Russian Prisons — "All to Be Used as a Pawn in a Larger Conflict"

On August 12, 2026 sixteen Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio about five U.S. nationals held in Russian custody: Andre Khachatoorian of California, David Barnes of Texas, Olga Jezler of New York, Alexsandr Antonov of California, and Charles "Chuck" Zimmerman, a Roanoke Valley native. The letter's central complaint is procedural and specific: the administration has not designated any of them "wrongfully detained" under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, the 2020 statute that unlocks the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and the interagency machinery built to get Americans home. Only Stephen Hubbard carries that designation. The letter landed days after Robert Gilman was released following more than four years in Russian detention — proof, the senators argued, that direct engagement works — and it asks Rubio to negotiate for the remaining detainees separately from the broader talks on Russia's war against Ukraine, rather than letting their cases ride on the diplomacy. Several have been in custody for years: Khachatoorian since 2021, Barnes since 2022, Jezler since 2022, Antonov since 2025. The State Department's answer was that it "continuously reviews the circumstances surrounding the detention for indicators that it is a wrongful detention" in every case, and that consular assistance continues regardless of whether a determination has been made. Rubio himself has not responded publicly. The signers are all Democrats, which is the story's main limitation as an oversight matter — no Senate Republican has joined the letter.

“The continued detention of Americans in Russia underscores the need for sustained engagement and a renewed urgency to obtain their release, including in independent and direct negotiations with the Russian government separate from the broader ongoing negotiations on Russia's war against Ukraine.”
Chuck Schumer (D-NY) · Aug 18, 2026

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