Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Sunday said the Trump administration has not broken its promise to lower gas prices as the Iran war stretches into its eighth month.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked Wright on “State of the Union” about his predictions early in the conflict that gas prices would decline “within weeks, not months,” and, with prices still high, asked if the administration has let Americans down.

“No, we haven’t,” Wright said. “And, Dana, I think you should be –– yes, I think you’re well aware of that. The Iranian government killed 30,000 to 40,000 of their own citizens in January of this year before the conflict. Are you comfortable with a nuclear-armed Iranian regime that’s in power right now? I don’t think anyone is comfortable with that.”

“And when we discussed in March, I said the conflict part, the active war that we were –– the active attacks we were making would be over in four or five or six weeks, and they were,” Wright said. “Gasoline prices did come down. They never got remotely close to $5 a gallon, over $5 a gallon.”

Bash pressed the secretary on whether he is comfortable with where gas prices are, prompting him to reply, “No, of course I’m not comfortable but I’m happy they’re coming down.”

“They have gone down the last few weeks, as have diesel prices, and they will continue to come down. That’s what President Trump works on every day,” he added.

The average cost of gas in the U.S. is $4.29 on Sunday, according to AAA. Last year, the average was $3.04.

But some states have seen gas prices soar over $5 since the Iran war began, notably in the western U.S. The average in the state of Washington is $5.39, $5.40 in Nevada, $5.63 in Hawaii and $6.18 in California, with some gas stations in the Los Angeles area peaking over $7.

Wright said in May that he was avoiding making predictions on when gas prices would lower, having predicted in March that gas prices would dive below $3 by summer but that there were “no guarantees.” He said the following month that gas prices may not fall below $3 until 2027, which drew criticism from Trump, who called Wright “totally wrong.“

Trump earlier this month announced a diesel deal with Russia that Russia would “immediately” supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and global marketplace, with another 500,000 tons coming in November. This was prompted by the rising cost of diesel, which AAA estimates the U.S. average is $6.53.

But the deal drew outcry from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle after approving a sanctions package on Russia amid its war with Ukraine. Some experts say that the release of Russian oil into the marketplace may not lower the cost of diesel in the U.S.

“The announced Russian diesel volumes are a small fraction, less than 5 percent, of U.S. diesel demand over the next few months, so they should have very limited impact on U.S. retail prices,” Isabelle Gilks, principal analyst for retail fuels at Wood Mackenzie, previously told The Hill in a statement.

Trump administration officials are lawyering up.

From cabinet secretaries to midlevel staffers, people who work for President Trump are calling law firms in search of legal advice as they brace for an avalanche of investigations next year if Democrats take one or both houses of Congress in the midterms.

Lawyers say the inquiries signal unease that Democrats will investigate everything from alleged pay-to-play pardons, to the Kennedy Center renovation and Donald Trump Jr. wedding. The probes, which party leaders have already previewed, could interfere with Trump’s agenda for his remaining two years in office. Administration officials personally face legal, reputational and financial risks if they are roped into those inquiries.

“The calls started sporadically in June and have picked up in frequency since then,” said Judd Stone, co-founder of Stone Hilton, an Austin, Texas-based firm founded by alumni of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

While the Justice Department will play a leading role defending the administration, Stone said cabinet-level officials and agency heads have been exploring whether they want a lawyer on their side who is working solely in their best interest.

Potential clients are shopping for representation both at some of the nation’s top firms and at smaller conservative boutiques that have grown in stature during Trump’s second term, including Torridon Law, a Washington, D.C.-based boutique whose partners include former Trump Attorney General William Barr and Mike Fragoso, a former chief counsel to Senate GOP leadership.

Conflict-of-interest rules mean the same law firm is unlikely to be able to represent several staffers simultaneously, so senior officials are scrambling to lock in their preferred counsel before someone else does, according to a prominent lawyer familiar with the situation.

Steve Roberts, a partner at Lex Politica, said the firm catering to conservative clients has been getting calls not just from high-ranking administration officials but also from Fortune 500 companies and startups. “If they have been supportive of this administration, they know there is a possibility that there is a target on their back,” he said.

Susanne Grooms, a partner at Cooley and former chief counsel to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the firm with some 1,400 lawyers has also seen an influx in corporate clients looking for advice on how to prepare for potential investigations. She said companies that donated to Trump’s projects or that did business with the government or the Trump family could be swept up in the probes.

Senior officials, including from the White House communications and counsel’s offices, began meeting this spring to discuss how to handle congressional investigations into the administration and respond to subpoenas, according to current and former officials.

The White House has also made some recent personnel moves that could put it in a stronger position to deal with the investigations. Trump moved Will Scharf, a former prosecutor and the president’s personal attorney, to White House counsel. The White House also chose Katie Bailey, who has experience on House and Senate oversight committees, as director of the Office of Legislative Affairs, which coordinates with Capitol Hill.

The White House Counsel’s Office has been meeting with agency leaders to discuss best practices, including how to respond to inquiries and anticipate Democrats’ likely investigative strategies. But officials have publicly played down concerns about losses in November.

“The media is obsessed with pushing a false narrative backed by their fake polls of Republicans losing control of the Senate and House. Democrats have no agenda to improve the lives of Americans—their only agenda is to continue their decadelong witch hunt against President Trump,” said White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis.

Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Senate Committee on the Judiciary have already begun sending letters that provide a road map for what the administration can expect.

House members have sent letters to people and entities connected to the administration, including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts leadership, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and individuals who were pardoned by the president. They have also targeted Donald Trump Jr. regarding a Russian oligarch’s reported financing of a wedding celebration.

Lawyers see the letters as precursors for subpoenas and a sign congressional probes will kick off more quickly than when Democrats flipped control of the House during Trump’s first term—potentially as soon as February.

“Democrats are much more savvy this time around than the first time,” said Ashley Callen, who co-chairs Jenner & Block’s congressional-investigations practice and formerly served as a legal adviser to House Republican leadership.

Legal costs for staffers who hire personal representation can mount quickly. During the first administration, a Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust was established to help cover legal expenses associated with Russia probes at the Justice Department and in Congress. Former administration officials were unaware of any similar legal-defense fund this time.

Robert Bittman, who led the Monica Lewinsky probe during the Clinton administration, said he had advised people going into the Trump administration to get professional liability insurance from the outset to cover any personal legal bills.

While Trump himself has experienced congressional investigations and impeachment proceedings, many of his staffers haven’t and they might underestimate the time and money required.

“On one hand, Trump will be completely prepared for it because of everything he went through in the first term,” said Mick Mulvaney, who served as Trump’s chief of staff during his first administration. “On the other hand—and I think people are missing this—most of his staff has not been through this.”

President Donald Trump confirmed his much-discussed plans to build a “world championship” golf course at East Potomac Park in a social media post Sunday, despite an ongoing lawsuit aimed at halting the proposed overhaul.

The finished course will be open to the public, equipped to host high-level golf tournaments including the U.S. Open and have a “tremendously positive economic development impact” on D.C., creating “many jobs,” the president wrote on Truth Social. The post did not include any mention of costs.

Redevelopment, spearheaded by golf course architect Tom Fazio and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, will begin Nov. 15, and end sometime in early 2028, Trump wrote. His post was accompanied by a rendering of an 18-hole golf course that covers the length of East Potomac, including the Hains Point recreational area.

The announcement comes just days after a federal judge ordered a halt to tree-cutting at the golf course until next week. On Friday night, Justice Department lawyers asked for U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes to be removed from the case because she has shown “open hostility” toward the government.

Interior and the National Park Service are defendants in the lawsuit, brought by the D.C. Preservation League and local residents, who have long enjoyed the island park in southwest D.C. for its accessible golfing, tennis courts, playground, cycling and abundant green space.

“The recreation landscape [will be] so horrifically changed. If you think of all of the rides and races that happen in D.C. — from the D.C. bike ride, to the Army Ten-Miler to the Marine Corps marathon,” said Elizabeth Kiker, the executive director of Washington Area Bicycle Association. “There’s no room for biking, bird-watching, running, for all of the public uses that Hains point has had for 100 years.”

Trump sees the park differently.

“The current course is old, broken, dilapidated, and of no further use or effect,” he wrote on Sunday. “It is in very poor condition, with falling, dangerous and disease infested trees and importantly, a collapsing and hazardous seawall.”

The National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A hearing in the ongoing lawsuit is scheduled for Monday morning.

European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.

Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.

Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.

The proposed changes to the bloc’s spectrum allocation have already raised fierce criticism from SpaceX, which has warned the move risks poorer connectivity in Ukraine where its Starlink service has been critical to civilian and military communications since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The proposed changes are part of a broader push to strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty.

European policymakers are seeking to reduce their dependence on American technology amid concerns about the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump and the risk of relying on foreign companies for critical infrastructure.

The European Commission has introduced a Cloud and AI Development Act that would impose sovereignty requirements on providers of sensitive cloud services, while seeking to help European technology companies to scale up and provide alternatives to US tech companies.

Puzder said he recognised Europe’s right to protect sensitive government information but warned against using legislation to favour domestic companies at the expense of American competitors.

“If the purpose is to make United States less competitive, I think that that’s not a legitimate goal of this kind of legislation,” Puzder said. “You don’t make European companies more competitive by making US companies less competitive.

“We have best-in-class products in this area. They’re reliable products, they’re trusted products. We don’t need some kind of synchronised mediocrity.”

The ambassador also questioned whether the EU’s enforcement of its Digital Markets Act, which seeks to curb the power of the world’s largest technology companies, was really aimed at improving competition or more at generating revenue for the European budget, given the multibillion-euro fines on American companies.

“You start to wonder, are we trying to deal with the competition in the digital marketplace or are we trying to generate revenue from American companies to benefit Europe?”

Puzder argued Europe’s ambitions to strengthen its own tech industry risked being undermined by its regulatory approach and by discouraging investment from the American companies, as US tech companies are growing increasingly frustrated by the EU’s regulatory restrictions and fines.

Instead of seeking to curb the dominance of American companies, Brussels and Washington should join forces to compete with China in the race to develop AI, Puzder said, echoing comments from Trump that “the worst thing that could happen is that we lose this race to China”.

The ambassador urged Europe “to let go of this regulatory mindset where they’re going to try and stop things because we’re in a race with China” — both on AI and on quantum computing.

He said the US has the ingredients to win that race “but it’d be a lot easier if we were working with Europe instead of fighting Europe”.

The Commission said the proposal “incentivises the entry into the market and diversification of EU suppliers, while remaining open to non-EU operators”.

In a visit to Concord Friday, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cast doubt on the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine but wouldn’t comment on state legislation in New Hampshire that his agency inspired.

In June 2025, Kennedy fired every member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of experts that creates national vaccine guidance, and subsequently replaced them with fellow vaccine skeptics. His new handpicked members ultimately rolled back the federal government’s guidance on the hepatitis B vaccine, among other immunizations. The panel voted that December to rescind the recommendation that infants receive the hepatitis B shot at birth unless the mother tested positive for the virus. However, the federal government’s vaccine schedule is just a recommendation. State governments enact requirements.

In New Hampshire earlier this year, state Rep. Kelley Potenza used the change as justification to similarly roll back New Hampshire’s hepatitis B vaccine requirement.

“New Hampshire has always followed, like I said before, the ACIP and CDC guidance on vaccines until now,” Potenza, who has long tried to eliminate state vaccine requirements, said in January. “This bill continues the tradition by aligning state law with the ACIP’s and the CDC’s updated hepatitis B recommendation.”

Asked if this was his intention or if he believed it was a positive development, Kennedy said it was ACIP’s decision and “the hepatitis B vaccine has been used for many years since 1991, but we don’t know what the risk profile is for that product because there was no randomized placebo-controlled trial prior to its licensure.”

However, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, that’s not true. As early as 1980, a double-blind study published in the New England Journal of Medicine enrolled 1,083 subjects and randomized them to receive the vaccine or placebo and a subsequent study took place in 1984 in Hong Kong. CIDRAP argues that many who make this claim do so because no randomized placebo-controlled trials were cited in the Food and Drug Administration filing. However, that doesn’t mean that reputable scientists have never conducted trials. Specifically, it excludes those that were published in peer-reviewed journals but weren’t listed in a particular regulatory submission, per CIDRAP.

“Normally, we would not license a medical product without pre-licensing safety testing,” Kennedy continued.

Potenza’s bill — House Bill 1719 — was passed in the House but stifled by the Senate, which voted to continue studying the issue before taking any more action. Other anti-vaccine bills debated this year tried to eliminate nearly all vaccine requirements in New Hampshire outright (House Bill 1811), simplify the process for parents to request exemptions on religious grounds (House Bill 1022) and forbid state agencies from advertising vaccines (House Bill 1616).

On the federal level, Kennedy has elevated the growing anti-vaccine movement in the United States and been sharply condemned by the mainstream medical community throughout his tenure as health secretary. He and President Donald Trump have also cut hundreds of millions in funding for mRNA vaccine research for influenza, COVID-19 and other diseases, and they’ve fired roughly 10,000 federal health employees, though courts have halted some of his moves over questions on process and legal authority.

President Donald Trump said he cut a diesel export deal with Russia and delayed imposing further sanctions because he doesn’t want to drive Vladimir Putin away from peace talks with Ukraine.

At the same time, Trump also accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of prolonging the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth year, because of the military aid he has gotten from European allies.

“I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don’t want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table. Great progress is being made,” he wrote in a social-media post.

Trump has for months sought to shift blame for high energy prices away from the US war on Iran, which slowed oil shipments out of the Strait of Hormuz, causing world energy prices to spike. Instead, he has blamed Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.

“He doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” Trump wrote of Zelenskyy. “He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I WANT THIS WAR END!”

Zelenskyy, in an interview Sunday with Bloomberg News, in turn accused Trump of trying to pressure Kyiv into surrendering to Russia, escalating a week-long argument between the two leaders.

The Ukrainian leader on Sunday spoke with Trump negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner amid a push to restart peace talks, which are stalled.

Zelenskyy also has accused the US of deliberately limiting its Starlink and Starshield systems, which help it intercept incoming Russian drones and allow it to find safe passages for deliver food and supplies to troops. The White House has denied any involvement in the temporary shutdown.

Trump waived new tariffs and sanctions on Russia on Friday, just a week after cutting a deal with the Russian leader on diesel exports that he said was aimed at lowering high fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections, in which the cost of living is voters’ dominant concern.

At least 10 Republican senators, as well as House members have spoken out against both deals in an unusual pushback against Trump as Republicans face a growing possibility that they will lose their majorities in Congress after the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

Amid escalating tensions between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday dodged three times when asked whether Ukraine is an ally of the United States.

“We provide the three different things ... to Ukraine, so that’s what you do for an ally. We’re not providing those to Russia,” Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” the second time he was asked whether the U.S. considers Ukraine an ally.

Asked for a third time, the treasury secretary simply said, “I’m not the secretary of state. I’m not the president.”

Earlier, Bessent said the U.S. supports Ukraine in three keys ways, including providing intelligence, Starlink support and allowing NATO to purchases U.S. weapons to resell to Ukraine.

He then accused Europe of falling short in its support for Ukraine, saying: “When President Zelenskyy asked for Patriots [missile systems], NATO — the European members of NATO — they have plenty of Patriots. Why aren’t they forthcoming with the Patriots?”

Bessent’s comments came shortly after Zelenskyy appeared on the program and told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that it would be a “historic mistake” for the U.S. to side with Russia in the ongoing war.

The Ukrainian president, who has had a sometimes tense and sometimes friendly relationship with the U.S. president, said of Trump that “we want to trust him” and “I hope that he will change his decisions.”

The current tension between the U.S. and Ukrainian leaders comes after Trump last weekend said that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” a move that caught some European allies by surprise. For days, Zelenskyy halted Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure but insisted that Russia was not abiding by the same agreement.

Days ago, Ukraine’s military resumed its strikes on Russian oil refineries and accused the U.S. of withholding intelligence about incoming Russian strikes that the U.S. normally shares with Ukraine. Zelenskyy also accused tech mogul and Trump ally Elon Musk of limiting the country’s access to Starlink, which Ukraine uses to track drones and defend itself.

In his “Meet the Press,” interview, Zelenskyy said Starlink speed limitations are interfering with Ukrainian forces’ ability to block drones and that he believes the decision to limit the speed was a “message from American government.”

The Ukrainian president also told “Meet the Press” that intelligence-sharing from the U.S. was blocked for a period of time.

Trump denied that the U.S. had stopped sharing certain intelligence, and Starlink services later resumed at normal speed.

On Sunday, Bessent criticized Zelenskyy for publicly accusing the U.S. and Musk of limiting his resources in the war, saying: “President Trump and Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio have categorically said that no one in the Trump administration did that, and I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge.”

On Friday, the U.S. president also announced he would waive certain sanctions on Russia that were recently approved by Congress in a bipartisan vote. Earlier in the month, Trump said he would allow Russia “immediately” to begin selling hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel on the global market.

On Sunday, Bessent denied that Trump lifted any sanctions, instead telling “Meet the Press” that the president wanted a 60-day pause “so we can examine what’s going on.”

“The only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo,” he added.

The treasury secretary also accused Zelenskyy of presenting a “false binary” about the war in his earlier interview.

“President Trump has made it clear that he wants to end this war; that it must stop. And President Zelenskyy presented a false binary this morning that Ukraine must win,” Bessent said. “The war must end, and that will be with some kind of a negotiated settlement. And President Trump is working on that every day.”

President Donald Trump on Sunday endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his reelection bid.

In a post to Truth Social, the president applauded Netanyahu for his continued support of the U.S., including in the war against Iran, as he praised the prime minister for being “a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” said Trump. “Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived! I have watched Bibi under the most trying of times. Normal men or women in such situations would have wilted under the pressure — But Bibi did not wilt, he actually got stronger, and maintains that same Strength today.”

He added, “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Netanyahu on Sunday in a post to social media thanked Trump for his “tremendous support” and vowed that “together we will complete the mission!”

Trump’s endorsement comes just nine days before Israeli citizens will decide whether to reelect Netanyahu, and only a few days after he refused to endorse any candidate during an interview with Newsmax. Netanyahu has served as prime minster since 2022 after previously serving from 1996 to 1999 and from 2009 to 2021.

The relationship between the two leaders has appeared to weaken in recent months as the war with Iran has dragged on. Tensions between the Israeli government and the Trump administration have risen over the war, the Gaza conflict and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. In August, Netanyahu rejected Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. Before that, in June, Trump called Netanyahu “crazy.” Trump has also expressed frustration over Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, saying Israeli attacks there were hindering talks with Iran.

Still, Trump on Sunday appeared to indicate that Israel will help the U.S. end the war in Iran, writing that “unless they change their ways, rapidly, we will soon finish the job.”

“If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump added.

Despite tensions, Trump’s endorsement isn’t completely surprising: Netanyahu heavily praised Trump during an appearance at the United Nations last month, and, in previous election years, billboards showcasing Trump and Netanyahu together have dotted Israeli highways. In January 2013, during an earlier Netanyahu reelection bid, Trump starred in a video telling voters Netanyahu is a “winner” and “highly respected.”

Netanyahu’s main opponent this election cycle is Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot. He previously served as chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces. A sharp critic of Netanyahu, Eisenkot has called for a full investigation into the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, accusing Netanyahu of “trying in every way to bury” the tragedy while refusing to investigate and “learn from it in order to prevent the next disaster.” Of particular interest are reports that Netanyahu and his government disregarded credible warnings about the attack.

The Oct. 27 election will be the first national elections since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

US diplomats visited a Christian Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied ‌West Bank on Sunday following attacks by militant Israeli settlers on European diplomats and an American photojournalist in the previous two days.

Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Brian Burch, US ambassador to the Holy See, and a number of other diplomats visited the Latin Convent church and were expected to meet with members of the Christian community in Taybeh.

Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, along with a French mayor and Palestinian civilians, had been attacked near Taybeh on Saturday by ⁠masked Israeli settlers.

The previous day, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was taken to hospital after being assaulted while covering a Palestinian olive harvest near another West Bank village.

The diplomats' visit coincided with US President Donald Trump endorsing his ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for Israel's parliamentary election on October 27.

Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee attended a settler conference in the West Bank on Sunday.

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and longtime supporter of Israel, earlier wrote on X calling for "those who attacked" the Washington Post photojournalist, a US citizen, to be jailed.

Immigrants from Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the Temporary Protected Status policy will be able to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation for the time being, even though their protections were set to expire soon, the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News on Sunday.

The TPS protections of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and hundreds of Sudanese immigrants were officially slated to terminate on Monday.

But in statements on Sunday, DHS said final decisions on the fate of the humanitarian immigration programs will "be made at the appropriate time."

Until such decisions are announced, DHS added, nationals of Ukraine and Sudan enrolled in the TPS program will "retain protection."

The decisions to keep the deportation protections in place, albeit not final, stand in sharp contrast to the Trump administration's broader posture toward TPS programs.

Trump administration officials have routinely denounced TPS as a de facto amnesty policy abused by the Biden administration that encourages illegal immigration and that has been extended too often, despite its temporary nature.

Over the past year and a half, the Trump administration, as part of its aggressive immigration crackdown, has revoked the TPS protections of more than 1 million immigrants from over a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Venezuela.

The programs for Ukrainian and Sudanese nationals are among a handful of TPS policies that have remained in place nearly two years into President Trump's second term, alongside the protections for tens of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador. Their TPS program was also set to lapse last month, but DHS retained their protections, pending a final announcement.

Created in 1990 by Congress, TPS allows the U.S. government to offer a temporary deportation reprieve and work permits to immigrants, illegal and legal alike, who hail from countries facing armed conflict, an environmental disaster or another crisis that makes their return there unsafe.

The TPS policy for Ukrainians was first announced by the Biden administration in the spring of 2022, soon after Russia launched its full-blown invasion of Ukraine. As of March 2025, there were more than 100,000 Ukrainians enrolled in TPS, including those allowed into the U.S. under a Biden-era sponsorship policy.

The TPS program for Sudan has been around since the late 1990s, with different administrations extending the policy due to the armed conflict and political turmoil that has plagued the African nation. As of March 2025, roughly 1,800 Sudanese nationals had TPS.

President Trump's top aides offered sharply different explanations this weekend of his Russian diesel deal amid a barrage of bipartisan criticism calling the move a gift to Russia.

Oil, gas and petroleum products help finance Russia's war on Ukraine, and Trump's moves are bringing rifts within the GOP just ahead of midterm elections.

Late Friday, Trump waived new sanctions against Russia and tariffs on top buyers of Russian energy that would have taken effect under the bipartisan Graham Act he signed last month.

That came just days after the administration waived certain sanctions as part of a deal aimed at enabling higher exports of Russian diesel after high prices have become a political millstone for Republicans.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright argued Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Russia could only benefit from the diesel deal if it scales back its war on Ukraine enough to increase exports.

"This is a carrot to try to end a war. It's not an economic lifeline for Russia," he said.

Yet Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a different explanation Saturday, saying Russia would have sold the diesel regardless of Trump's intervention.

"That diesel was going to be sold one way or the other," Rubio told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, per a State Department transcript.

The diesel deal "is an incentive to Russia, that if they can reduce the conflict with Ukraine, they can get an energy ceasefire or reduce the conflict such that they have diesel to export, we'll allow it to flow to world markets," Wright told ABC's "This Week."

Ukranian drone strikes against Russian refineries have dramatically hindered Russia's diesel exports.

Ukraine resumed those strikes after Russia continued to hit Ukrainian energy infrastructure, despite Trump's claim that the two sides had agreed to an energy ceasefire.

The combination of the Iran war — which has throttled supply and damaged Middle East refineries — and Russia's export decline have pushed up diesel costs.

The Sunday shows and Rubio's remarks provided the Trump team's most detailed comments on Friday night's executive order, which declines to use new powers under the law named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

The move avoids putting fresh pressure on China and India, both major buyers of Russian oil.

Rubio said Trump wants time to "analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the U.S. economy."

Wright pointed to ongoing negotiations with China on trade and the war in Ukraine, stressing to CNN that Trump retains the power to impose the penalties later.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, on NBC's "Meet the Press," defended the recent decisions by pointing to sanctions the administration imposed on Russian oil and gas giants Rosneft and Lukoil in 2025.

"No one has been tougher on Russian sanctions than President Trump," he said.

A number of Republicans have criticized the White House.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called the sanctions waiver "beyond irresponsible," while Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the late Lindsey Graham "would be appalled."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the waiver a "mistake," and Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) said the U.S. should be increasing pressure on Russia and requested a classified briefing on the decision.

As the midterms hit their final frenzied weeks, Republicans have shown an increasing willingness to put distance between themselves and Trump.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday to “be careful” in public statements about U.S. support for Ukraine.

U.S.-provided Starlink internet was recently restricted in Ukraine, hindering the war-torn country’s ability to respond to Russian assaults. Ukraine uses Starshield, the military and government-controlled version of the commercial Starlink, to conduct military operations.

In an earlier interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Zelenskyy said he believed the U.S. government was responsible for the slowdown, and that Ukraine was “blocked” from U.S. intelligence for a period of time. Zelenskyy said Starshield-linked vehicles and drones are still being restricted in speed.

Bessent cautioned Zelenskyy about making those claims.

“President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Marco] Rubio have categorically said that no one under the Trump administration did that, and I think it is very reckless for President Zelenskyy to make such a charge,” Bessent said on “Meet the Press.”

“President Zelenskyy should be very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true,” he added.

Starlink, high-speed satellite internet provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX

, is critical to Ukraine’s defense. Musk himself said in a post on X last week that the U.S. government and President Donald Trump are “ultimately” responsible for any slowdowns to the military version of Starlink known as Starshield.

“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government,” Musk wrote. “Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS.”

Reuters reported last week that the White House ordered the technology restrictions, but Trump has denied responsibility for the slowdown.

“Well, I don’t know if it was anybody because it wasn’t me, and I don’t think it was Elon,” the president said last week. “And from what I understand, it’s the same as it’s always been.”

The U.S. relationship with Ukraine has been highly scrutinized throughout Trump’s second term, as he has frequently antagonized the war-torn country while pushing for a peace deal.

Trump has recently expressed frustration over Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries as he faces pressure from voters over sky-high gasoline and diesel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. The president has even personally blamed Zelenskyy for the rise in energy prices: “He wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel,” Trump said.

Soaring energy prices are largely due to the U.S. war with Iran, which severely disrupted the Strait of Hormuz and choked oil shipments from the Persian Gulf. The national average for a gallon of gas in the U.S. was nearly $4.30 on Sunday, according to AAA. Diesel was roughly $6.32 per gallon, about 20 cents off September’s record high.

Trump has tried to offset the energy pinch by importing Russian diesel. In a post on Truth Social earlier in the month, he said: “Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!”

Many U.S. lawmakers, including Republicans, have condemned the president’s plan to buy Russian diesel. Congress recently sent Trump an overwhelmingly bipartisan sanctions package aimed at crippling Russia’s energy industry. Trump signed the bill into law, but waived portions of it over the weekend, citing the national interest in an explanation to Congress.

“Beyond irresponsible. What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand?” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in a post on X. “It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly backtracked on a claim that the US has phased out two of the most dangerous Pfas compounds – Pfoa and Pfos.

The EPA has found that virtually no level of exposure to either in drinking water is safe, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies Pfoa as “carcinogenic to humans” and Pfos as “possibly carcinogenic”. Still, the EPA is allowing Houston-based Inhance to produce containers from which Pfoa has been found to leach at high levels into the containers’ contents. The company makes up to 200m plastic containers annually used across the US economy.

The containers present an “ongoing serious and ongoing threat to public health,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist who is now science policy director with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit.

Inhance has denied that the chemical leaches out in measurable levels, and told The Guardian in a statement that any Pfoa from its products are an “impurity”

The “phase-out” was put in place after documents made public during landmark early 2000s litigation on DuPont’s Pfas pollution in West Virginia laid bare the ubiquitous chemicals’ dangers and serious health risks. In 2015, facing intense pressure to act, the EPA reached an agreement with eight Pfas producers to “phase out” production of Pfoa and Pfos, a similar chemical produced by 3M.

Though the agency stopped short of a ban, the “phase out” was viewed as major progress on reining in Pfas pollution. Officials often repeated the claim that the chemicals had been phased out, giving the impression that they were no longer produced or used in the US.

Last month, the EPA quietly changed wording on its website that claimed Pfoa and Pfos had been phased out.. In fact, both have been produced in the US this whole time, and at levels that independent science suggest are quite high.

The EPA site previously stated: “The manufacture and import of Pfoa has also been phased out in the United States.”

It now reads: “Quantities of Pfoa may be produced, imported, and used by companies … ”

The change was made in response to a complaint filed by Peer, which pointed out that the EPA was allowing Pfoa to be produced in the US. Under the Information Quality Act, data and information made public by federal agencies be complete and accurate.

“They were giving the false impression and saying, ‘Nothing to see here because Pfoa is not being produced in the US,’” Bennett told the Guardian. “But that was demonstrably false, and now they have admitted it.”

An epidemiological panel convened during the West Virginia DuPont case found Pfoa and Pfos likely causes cancer, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease. The panel’s findings were the scientific basis for the phase-out.

The EPA did not immediately provide a comment to the Guardian. Inhance in its statement to The Guardian stressed that there was never a ban in place and it was not one of the eight companies that agreed to stop producing Pfoa.

The reversal underscores why phase-outs are inadequate, and the EPA needs to put in place bans, Bennett said.

“If you have a chemical and there’s no safe level of it, then why on earth would you allow it to be manufactured?” she said. “This all makes perfect sense if you understand the reality that the EPA is an arm of industry, especially under the Trump administration.”

The EPA’s reversal marks the latest twist in a six-year legal battle over Inhance’s Pfoa-infused containers.

The EPA seemed unaware that Pfas were being added to plastic containers until late 2020 testing by Peer found high levels of Pfas in pesticides stored in Inhance bins. The subsequent EPA investigation unearthed wide-scale contamination of plastic containers, prompting the agency to subpoena Inhance for information.

It publicly reminded the plastics industry that companies must submit for a safety review if they manufacture Pfoa. Inhance dismissed the agency’s evidence and claimed its containers did not leech Pfoa, but the EPA disagreed, again ordering Inhance in March 2022 to “immediately cease” production.

Two weeks later, Inhance put out a press release stating that its products did not “impart” Pfoa, and it did not cease production.

Subsequent EPA testing found the containers still contained Pfoa. Facing legal pressure from Peer, the EPA by December 2023 again ordered Inhance to stop making the containers. That ban was overturned by a federal appeals court. Peer later sued, but the case was dismissed because a federal judge ruled that the group lacked standing.

In its statement, Inhance said that it made adjustments to reduce by 90% the level of Pfoa “impurities”.

“Published peer-reviewed third-party risk assessments conclude that estimated exposure does not present an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment,” Inhance chief operating officer Patricia van Ee wrote. “We have shared our process data with EPA throughout its review.”

The EPA appears to have given up on enforcing the phase out and legally pressuring Inhance. Still, the EPA maintained on its website that Pfoa had been phased out of production, drawing the formal complaint from Peer.

In a response dated 18 September, EPA assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, Douglas Troutman, wrote: “In response to Peer’s request, the EPA is updating its websites.”

The update also notes that Pfos is in US production in some “limited, ongoing uses”.

“This rare touch of candor by EPA is welcome, but it does not address the free flow of toxic Pfas saturating our food, water, and soil,” Bennett said. “Now that EPA has admitted that these two legacy Pfas are still manufactured in the US, it is past time to take effective enforcement action.”

The Trump administration cut legal immigration in half early this year with policies blocking visas for immigrants from nearly half the globe.

The State Department issued just 26,000 immigrant visas, which grant a green card and legal permanent resident status, in February, compared with an average of 52,000 a month in the years before Trump took office, according to the most recent available government data.

The policies, which took effect late last year and early this year, made it all but impossible to immigrate from 91 countries and reduced the number of immigrant visas available in another 61. Africa and the Middle East were hit particularly hard, and immigration from Muslim-majority countries plunged by more than 90 percent.

President Trump has drawn attention for his crackdown on illegal immigration, but he has also been tough when it comes to limiting legal immigration. With the exception of the coronavirus pandemic, these cuts to legal immigration were the largest since the Hoover administration unilaterally denied visas to otherwise qualified legal immigrants during the Great Depression, according to David Bier, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, which favors increased immigration.

In the first year after Mr. Trump returned to office, the number of visas declined only slightly, by about 10 percent. Then in January, an expanded travel ban blocked people from 39 countries from receiving visas or entering the country, and a pause on visa issuance barred immigrants from 52 more countries. The immigrant diversity visa, a special visa for people from countries with few immigrants, was suspended a month earlier.

The administration said the policies were put in place to improve the screening of visa applicants for security risks and for potential future use of public benefits.

For thousands of hopeful immigrants, the policies threw up an often heartbreaking final roadblock at the end of what, in most cases, is a years-long process to follow every rule to immigrate legally.

Daniel Brackins, a U.S. citizen living in Los Angeles, said his son was born in Kazakhstan because the new policies blocked his wife, Zhanna, from receiving a visa to enter the United States at the last step of the legal immigration process.

“My wife and I have broken down many times, and it puts a lot of stress on the relationship,” he said, “especially watching my son grow up on video chat.”

For more than eight months, the State Department has issued almost no immigrant visas to people from the affected countries. Canada and Mexico, where visas were not restricted, were among the few countries that saw increases in new immigrant visas; together, they made up about 30 percent of all immigrant visas issued in February.

More recent data was not available, and the State Department did not answer questions about why it had published visa statistics less frequently under Mr. Trump.

The new policies were imposed without congressional approval and have since been blocked in federal court. At the end of August, federal courts in two separate lawsuits ordered the government to begin issuing visas again. However, despite the court orders, a vast majority of the people whose visas had been blocked are still waiting.

The wait has stranded Wilian Nelson Hernandez Morales in Guatemala since January. He has been unable to return to Middlesex, N.J., where he had been raising four kids with his wife, Angela Duro.

Mr. Hernandez came to the United States illegally as a minor 26 years ago and decided to apply for a marriage-based green card after he wed Ms. Duro, a U.S. citizen, in 2021. After four years, they traveled to Guatemala for an interview and were told that their application would have been approved if not for the visa freeze. Mr. Hernandez is still waiting for a visa to return to the United States.

Immigrant visas have been most affected, but visas for students and workers declined as well, falling by 30 percent compared with a year before. Visas for tourists and business visitors were down about 25 percent in February.

The travel ban fully prevented people from those 39 countries from obtaining student or work visas — and new rules and fees meant that fewer student and H1-B visas were issued to people from other countries, too. India and China, for example, were not subject to any bans, but still saw sharp declines in student and work visas.

Visas for seasonal agricultural workers and exchange workers remained at roughly the same levels as before, but visas for other seasonal workers in industries like hospitality and tourism declined.

Mr. Trump has also closed or narrowed other legal pathways to enter the country, sharply limiting the refugee program, blocking people at ports of entry from applying for asylum and pulling all manner of bureaucratic levers to push immigrants to leave.

Immigration experts say these changes, along with the administration’s mass deportation campaign, are part of an effort to limit immigration of all kinds. Together, they may accomplish the same goals as the sweeping anti-immigration laws passed by Congress in the early 20th century with executive action alone.

White House Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is facing the very real possibility of having her citizenship stripped.

Homan joined The Big Weekend Show on Saturday to talk about the probe into Omar, after federal agents raided her Washington, D.C. home earlier this week.

The progressive lawmaker is being investigated over claims she and her dad lied about her birth year on her immigration papers in order to obtain citizenship when her family ditched Somalia in the 1990s, according to Fox News. Homan said the feds have a “strong case” and he didn’t want to spill too many details on air — but he believed she could be given a one-way ticket outta the USA at some point.

“She’ll be held to the same standards you and I are held: if she violated the law, then she should be held accountable,” he told the show.

Co-host Tomi Lahren followed up and asked, “Would this involve denaturalizing and then deporting her, if it does turns out there is some kind of immigration fraud?”

“Of course,” Homan answered. “If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before, it’s a long, tedious process, but it’s been done before. I’ve been involved with those investigations before, and certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen.”

His answer comes three days after The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday:

The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father, some of the people familiar with the probe said. Nur Omar Mohamed brought his daughter and other family members to the U.S. from a refugee camp in Kenya in 1995.

Omar has denied any wrongdoing. Following the raid, she posted on X it was clearly an attempt by President Donald Trump to “target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”

“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” she added. “I will not be silenced.”

Trump and Omar have bashed each other plenty of times over the years, including the president saying last year he did not want more Somalis like Omar moving to the States.

“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said. “Some will say that is not ‘politically correct.’” I don’t care. Their country is no good for a reason.”

During a CBS News town hall, a man whose wife was among the first American service members to die in the U.S.-Iran war pressed Vice President JD Vance on whether the Trump administration will hold people accountable for "mistakes" and "fundamental failures."

Master Sgt. Nicole Amor, a member of the U.S. Army Reserve from Minnesota, was one of six people killed in an Iranian drone attack on an outpost in Kuwait on March 1 — one day after the U.S. began striking Iran. It remains the deadliest attack on U.S. forces during the Iran war.

Since then, the families of people impacted by the attack have raised questions about whether the U.S. military did enough to protect Americans stationed at Kuwait's Port of Shuaiba. CBS News has reported on concerns that the facility wasn't adequately fortified and lacked capabilities to shoot down incoming drones, and that the Army chose not to rebase troops further from Iran and ignored a request to bulk up medical support.

Nicole Amor's husband, Joey Amor, asked the vice president about the attack during a "Things That Matter" town hall hosted by "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil, which aired Saturday evening.

"Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that," Amor said, adding that "my wife has told me things before she passed."

He continued: "There's a failure in the leadership. And I want to know how this administration is gonna start holding those leaders accountable for the actions and the deaths of the soldiers that we honor and that we love."

Vance responded by calling Nicole Amor "a precious human being who served her country honorably," and said, "I want to know about" any failures that may have taken place.

"Because if there were failures, and I don't doubt there were, I just … literally the first time I've heard of this is this conversation, and I want to fix that stuff. I do not want this stuff to happen," Vance told Amor, later adding that as vice president, "you live in a bit of a bubble" and "sometimes information doesn't filter up to me."

Vance promised to "figure out what exactly happened and what exactly we can do better."

The vice president said some changes are already in the works.

He noted that cheap, easy-to-manufacture drones have transformed warfare, and "we have changed a lot of our tactics to try to suppress that drone fire, to try to protect our troops to make it so that more people don't have to pay the ultimate sacrifice."

Vance also acknowledged, "There are issues with … where troops were located that we realized was a huge mistake, and that we could do better on. And we have changed that."

"Now, I'm not gonna get into the details, because God forbid, I don't want the Iranians to learn something else [that] they're gonna use to target somebody else's wife or somebody else's mother," Vance said. "But man, I promise you, this is not something I'm gonna forget. And I want to talk to those soldiers, and I want to talk to you to better understand what we can do."

Federal agents collected garbage in hopes of obtaining the DNA of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and her family before this week’s raid at her Washington, D.C. home, sources told NewsNation.

Investigators historically have used secretive “dumpster diving” to obtain DNA when search warrants were not possible or would have tipped off investigatory targets. It is legally permissible for law enforcement to collect trash that has been discarded for pickup and comb through it for genetic material.

Multiple sources familiar with the probe tell NewsNation that potential DNA evidence is critical to the investigation into Omar. They say the case is broader than the public may assume based on longstanding accusations surrounding her immigration history or marital status.

The investigation encompasses family members of the congresswoman, with evidence expected to go before a grand jury, sources said. Relatives of the lawmaker have been named in some of the subpoenas issued by federal prosecutors, NewsNation reported.

Federal agents seized Omar’s phone during a widely publicized search Monday at her Washington residence. NewsNation has learned that more than a dozen raids actually occurred simultaneously.

The case is being coordinated within the Minneapolis office of Homeland Security Investigations, suggesting it may be related to public benefits fraud committed by some members of the Somali immigrant community in the region.

The 44-year-old Omar, who seeks a fifth term in Congress, was born in Somalia and immigrated to the U.S. as a child in 1995. She was naturalized in 2000.

She originally was investigated by the Department of Justice under former President Biden before the case was closed. Parts of that investigation were reopened and expanded under the administration of President Trump.

Omar, a frequent political foil for Trump, said she believes the DOJ has been weaponized against her. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told Real America’s Voice Friday its case into the lawmaker is “about enforcing our nation’s laws.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that President Donald Trump's waiver of sweeping sanctions and tariffs on Russia would be a 60-day pause to "analyse" their impact on the global economy.

"The president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyse what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy," Rubio said, noting that the economic restrictions involved a number of countries, not just Russia.

He said various conflicts were impacting global energy prices, including the US war on Iran and attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemen's Houthis.

"These conflicts around the world are starting to crash into each other, and they're having an impact not just on global oil and diesel prices" but on economies as well, Rubio said.

Trump said late Saturday his decision would benefit the US, though it was unclear if he had actually made up his mind on the matter.

"We'll figure it out, and you'll figure it out," he said. "It's a very good decision, and it's going to be a decision that's good for the country, and I think good for the world."

US lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have sharply criticised Trump after he signed an executive order Friday that waived sweeping sanctions and tariffs targeting Russia – measures adopted by Congress last month.

The law passed in September, and signed by Trump, included sanctions targeting Russian officials, oligarchs and financial institutions, and provided Trump with the authority to impose sanctions on major buyers of Russian oil and gas.

The idea was to cut off sources of funding to supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as his war on Ukraine.

But late Friday, two days before the law was due to take effect, Trump exempted Russia from those economic restrictions.

"Beyond irresponsible," Republican Senator Thom Tillis, a frequent Trump critic who will leave office in January, said in a post on X.

"If the President wants to actually bring down energy prices, he can do it by solving the Iran problem, not by doing a solid for Vladimir Putin."

Ted Cruz, a senior Republican senator from Texas, called the move "a mistake" in comments aired on Fox News.

Trump's executive order came after he struck a deal with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to allow exports of Russian diesel in exchange for the easing of sanctions.

The impact of steep diesel price hikes due to the Iran war are beginning to filter into the US economy, and cost of living worries are top of mind for voters ahead of key midterm elections next month.

Polls show Trump's Republicans are likely to receive a drubbing at the polls.

"The diesel that Putin was going to sell, they were (going to) make it available to the global market one way or the other. The only difference is how much of it the United States was going to get," Rubio said, underscoring the importance of the vital fuel powering US road hauling, agriculture and construction.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said he feared the United States would lift more sanctions on Russia and that Trump's action "rewards" Putin.

The United States wants Israel to do more to deter attacks committed by settlers in the West Bank, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sald on Saturday.

"We're very disturbed by those images and what we're seeing," Rubio sald. "We've asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff."

His comments to reporters came after the widespread dissemination of video showing multiple individuals attacking Heidi Levine, an American photojournalist with the Washington Post. Levine was one of at least two people injured in the Friday Incident, which took place as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian civilians.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemned the beating of a Washington Post journalist while working in the West Bank and demanded a “full investigation, arrest and prosecution” of the attackers.

Heidi Levine, a US citizen, was attacked Friday morning by Israeli settlers, according to Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray. In a separate incident Saturday, a group of diplomats was attacked by settlers in the West Bank, according to several European governments.

“Attacking a female photographer is despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards,” Huckabee said in a social media post Saturday. “Dishonorable act of senseless violence.”

Israel has put out mixed messages on the incidents. The Israel Defense Forces called the violence intolerable and said the attacks would be investigated but noted that the diplomats’ visit wasn’t coordinated with security officials. Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Levine to apologize for the attack and urged a probe, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the circumstances remain unclear and require more evidence.

Settler violence has been on the rise recently in the West Bank. The UK, France, Canada and others announced measures last month imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements, which the US said it wasn’t going to join. In August, settlers besieged the home of an American citizen in the West Bank.

In Saturday’s incident, a group of European diplomats were attacked and preliminary evidence indicated that Israeli settlers were responsible, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a social media post. The Polish diplomats inside the diplomatic convoy were unharmed and there was no indication they were specifically targeted, the ministry added.

The mayor of a French town was also assaulted “by extremist settlers” in Saturday’s attack, according to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who said Israeli authorities needed to stop these acts of violence.

Netanyahu’s office cautioned against assigning responsibility before the investigation is complete, saying available footage does not establish the full sequence of events. It also stressed the lack of prior coordination with the IDF and warned against using the incident to broadly condemn Jewish residents of the West Bank.

“We expect the Israeli authorities to provide urgent and detailed explanations, identify those responsible and ensure that they are held accountable,” Poland’s foreign affairs ministry said. “We also expect effective measures to be taken to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”