Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Kharg Island: “The U.S. conducted strikes early this morning on military targets on Kharg Island, Iran’s main hub for oil exports, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the incident. ‘This was not an oil infrastructure strike,’ the official stressed, describing the attack as ‘restrikes’ on what the U.S. had previously hit. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the strikes.”
* A joint statement from House Democrats: “House Democratic leadership demanded Congress come back in session to ‘vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III,’ according to a joint statement issued by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., among others. The leaders called Trump ‘completely unhinged’ and said his latest statement, issued Tuesday morning, ‘shocks the conscience and requires a decisive congressional response.’”
* A similar joint statement from Senate Democrats: “‘We speak today with one voice and one purpose: to condemn President Trump’s threat to extinguish an entire civilization,’ said the statement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee; and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, among others.”
* From the Vatican: “Pope Leo XIV blasted Trump’s latest threats against Iran as ‘truly unacceptable,’ in his most recent rebuke of the U.S.’ actions in Iran.”
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* From Turtle Bay: “The United Nations rebuked Trump’s threats to Iran at a press briefing in New York today, during which U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric implored leaders to ‘choose dialogue over destruction.’ … ‘There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale destruction of a society’s infrastructure or the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations,’ Dujarric said.”
* Fortunately, most of these injuries have not been serious: “At least 373 American service members have been wounded since the start of the war with Iran on Feb. 28, according to the U.S. Central Command.”
* He obviously needs to go: “After Representative Tony Gonzales, Republican of Texas, admitted in March to a sexual relationship with a staff member who later took her own life, House Republican leaders called for him to end his re-election campaign but stopped short of pressing him to resign from Congress. On Monday, Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans remained mum about Mr. Gonzales’s future in the House after a new batch of texts surfaced indicating that his extramarital affair with Regina Santos-Aviles was part of a pattern of seeking inappropriate sexual relationships with female subordinates.”
* A case worth watching: ‘As of this moment, the Administration believes that the President is legally free to destroy records of his official government conduct, or even spirit away the records for his own future personal use.’ That’s what two nonprofit groups told a federal court in Washington on Monday, in a legal complaint seeking a declaration that the Presidential Records Act is constitutional. The complaint was prompted by a bold new claim to the contrary by the Trump Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.”
See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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