President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a confirmation hearing ready to go, and he will have to reckon with an intraparty feud in the process.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., will soon undergo the rigorous confirmation process in the Senate after being tapped by Trump to replace embattled DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

He will first go through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee before heading to a full confirmation vote in the Senate.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs the Homeland Security panel, wants to hold Mullin’s hearing next week. The White House formally sent over Mullin’s nomination to the Senate on Monday, according to the congressional record.

‘We’re shooting for a week from Wednesday if all the paperwork comes in,’ Paul said.

But Mullin and Paul have a personal rift that could spill out into the confirmation hearing.

In February, Mullin slammed Paul during an event with voters for his perennial votes against Republican priorities, like spending bills or other elements of Trump’s agenda, such as the ‘big, beautiful bill’ last year.

Oklahoma reporter David Arnett reported in a lengthy profile of Mullin that, during the event, the lawmaker was asked about an amendment to a spending package from Paul that he voted against.

Mullin warned that Paul was ‘trying to kill the farm bill because he’s trying to legalize hemp for drinks in Kentucky because of tobacco industry shifts,’ and then went after Paul’s voting history before taking a jab at the 2017 incident in which the Kentucky Republican was attacked by his neighbor over a lawn dispute.

‘I respect Bernie Sanders because he’s an open socialist, and you know that he’s a communist, so you know what you’re getting,’ Mullin said. ‘Rand Paul’s a freaking snake. And I understand completely why his neighbor did what he did. And I told him that to his face.’

That slight at Paul may come to bear during his confirmation hearing, but Mullin is expected to easily move through that first hurdle, given that most Republicans on the panel will back him, and he has the support of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa.

Paul shrugged off the incident on Monday when he told reporters, ‘I’m going to reserve judgment now, and we’ll probably find out a lot more.’

‘I would suggest coming to the hearing, though,’ Paul said. ‘I think it’ll be interesting.’

Supreme Court Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Brett Kavanaugh had a dispute over the high court’s approach to its emergency docket in a rare, candid discussion during an event Monday night.

Jackson, a Biden appointee, signaled that the high court’s willingness to side with President Donald Trump most of the time when it comes to the emergency docket, sometimes known as the ‘shadow docket,’ was a ‘problem.’ The liberal justice is one of three, and all have frequently sided against Trump in emergency decisions, which have often broken 6-3 in favor of the president.

‘The administration is making new policy … and then insisting the new policy take effect immediately, before the challenge is decided,’ Jackson said, according to reports from The Associated Press and NBC News. ‘This uptick in the court’s willingness to get involved in cases on the emergency docket is a real unfortunate problem.’

Jackson said: ‘It’s not serving the court or this country well.’

Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, countered that the Supreme Court’s approach to emergency requests was not unique to the Trump administration and that the high court handled the Biden administration the same way despite there being fewer interim requests under the former president.

Kavanaugh said presidents ‘push the envelope’ more with executive orders because Congress is passing less legislation.

‘Some are lawful, some are not,’ Kavanaugh said, later adding, ‘None of us enjoy this.’

The pair spoke in a courtroom during an annual lecture honoring the late Judge Thomas Flannery of the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., while several federal judges, including high-profile ones like Judge James Boasberg, looked on.

Jackson’s criticism is not new; she has been perhaps the most vocal dissenter in emergency docket cases.

In August, she lambasted the Supreme Court majority for ‘lawmaking’ from the bench in a dissent to an emergency decision to temporarily allow the National Institutes of Health’s cancellation of about $738 million in grant money.

‘This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins,’ Jackson wrote.

The Trump administration has faced hundreds of lawsuits and adverse rulings in the lower courts, and the Department of Justice’s solicitor general’s office, which represents the government before the Supreme Court, often does not elevate cases to that level.

Such emergency requests allow the government to bypass the lengthy court process, involving extensive briefings and oral arguments, to seek immediate relief in the face of restraining orders and injunctions in the lower courts.

The Trump administration has brought about 30 emergency applications to the Supreme Court and secured victories about 80% of the time, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Through the emergency docket, the Supreme Court has greenlit Trump’s mass firings and curtailed nationwide injunctions. The high court has also cleared the way for deportations and immigration stops viewed as controversial by critics of the administration. The justices have also found that the government can, for now, discharge transgender service members from the military.

But Trump has not won out all the time by taking this route. The justices required the administration to give more notice to alleged illegal immigrants being deported under the Alien Enemies Act and agreed with a lower court that the president improperly federalized the National Guard as part of his immigration crackdown in Chicago.

President Donald Trump, who rode promises of affordability back to the White House, is now confronting Iran-driven volatility that’s undermining that message as fuel costs rise nationwide — and putting fresh pressure on Republicans heading into the midterms.

With the Iran conflict rattling oil markets and raising fears of supply disruptions, gas prices are climbing again, squeezing Americans already worn down by inflation.

This week, oil prices surged past $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022 as fallout from the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran continued to roil global markets and investors priced in the risk of tighter supply. 

With oil higher, gasoline and diesel prices are rising fast.

The national average gas price climbed to $3.53 per gallon, up 59 cents over the past week, according to GasBuddy. Diesel prices also jumped, with the national average up 97 cents to $4.72 per gallon.

With control of Congress at stake, uneven gas price spikes are becoming a new midterm flashpoint, especially in hard-hit battleground states. 

The steepest week-over-week increases were in Indiana (up 58 cents), Florida (up 57 cents), Michigan (up 55 cents), Ohio (up 54 cents), and California (up 51 cents).

The lowest average prices were in Kansas ($2.90), Oklahoma ($2.95) and Arkansas ($2.98), while the highest were in California ($5.14), Washington ($4.58), and Hawaii ($4.33) — a regional divide that could sharpen midterm attacks over energy costs and inflation.

That kind of pocketbook pressure is exactly what Democrats have been eager to exploit. Last fall, Democrats leaned heavily on affordability themes in state and local elections, and it paid off.

In places like Virginia, New York and New Jersey, where voters have been squeezed by high housing costs and utility bills, Democratic candidates seized on Trump’s early economic moves, including his trade policy, to argue that his policies were worsening the affordability crisis rather than easing it.

They promised to rein in energy costs, expand affordable housing and protect middle-class wages, a message that resonated with voters.

With the ongoing conflict driving gasoline prices higher, the White House is weighing steps to protect shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and keep prices from climbing further. That waterway is critical to global energy supply.

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passage between Iran and Oman, carries roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day and about one-fifth of the global supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG). 

When conflict flares in the region, even the threat of disruption can rattle markets because so much of the world’s energy moves through that single corridor.

Asked about the risk of disruptions, Trump said Monday evening he would keep the route open and threatened retaliation if Iran tried to interfere.

‘I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply. And if Iran does anything to do that, they’ll get hit at a much, much harder level,’ Trump said during a press conference in Florida.

‘In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles,’ he added.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that Russia ‘should not be involved’ in the escalating conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, even as analysts point to Russian military activity that aligns with reports Moscow may be aiding Tehran.

‘The president maintains strong relationships with world leaders, which creates opportunities and options for us in very dynamic ways,’ Hegseth said when asked about President Donald Trump’s recent call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

But as it relates to the Middle East conflict, he added, Russia ‘should not be involved.’

The administration’s messaging comes amid reports that Russia has provided information that could help Iran identify U.S. military assets in the Middle East. Moscow has not publicly confirmed the claims. 

Intelligence assessments have reportedly said Russia provided Iran with information that could help identify the locations of American warships, aircraft and other military assets. Officials reportedly stressed there is no public evidence that Moscow is directing Iranian strikes, but said the information could assist Tehran’s targeting efforts.

The scope, timing and operational impact of that information have not been publicly detailed.

While there is no public evidence definitively proving Russia is providing real-time targeting data, George Barros, a Russia expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said open-source indicators are consistent with the type of support described in the reports.

Barros pointed to Russian military reconnaissance satellites, including Cosmos-2550, a radar and electronic signature spacecraft that recently passed over the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea — areas where U.S. forces have been operating.

‘They’re specialized for naval reconnaissance and detecting ships, because the radar signature off the water really pings it quite well,’ Barros said. ‘These are known capabilities of the Russians.’

Such radar systems can detect maritime targets and electronic emissions that reveal force positioning. Barros said those capabilities align with known gaps in Iran’s own space-based intelligence collection.

Although he cautioned that he does not have dispositive proof of real-time targeting support, Barros said the convergence of Russian reconnaissance capabilities, satellite positioning and reported cooperation ‘makes total sense.’

Trump on Monday described his recent conversation with Putin as ‘very good’ and ‘constructive,’ saying the Russian leader ‘wants to be very constructive.’ Trump suggested Moscow could be more helpful by helping bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, acknowledged over the weekend that Russia is assisting Iran ‘in many different directions’ in its war with the United States and Israel. Pressed on whether that includes intelligence sharing, Araghchi said, ‘They are helping us in many different directions,’ but added, ‘I don’t have any detailed information.’

Beyond intelligence collection, analysts say battlefield patterns suggest tactical cross-pollination between Russia and Iran. 

During the war in Ukraine, Iran supplied Russia with Shahed one-way attack drones, which Moscow deployed extensively against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Over time, Russian forces refined strike packages combining drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to overwhelm integrated Western air defense systems.

‘The Russians got really, really good at learning how to launch drones against integrated Western air defense systems,’ Barros said.

Those lessons, he said, appear to have informed Iranian strike tactics in the Middle East, where Tehran has launched large-scale combined missile and drone attacks against U.S. and allied targets.

If confirmed, Barros argued, intelligence sharing that materially supports Iranian targeting would amount to Moscow acting as a ‘co-belligerent.’

‘The Russians are coming out with Iran as a co-belligerent,’ he said, adding that the Kremlin has long viewed the United States as a geopolitical adversary.

At the same time, Russia remains constrained in how far it can go. 

Russian ground forces are tied down in Ukraine and are not in a position to deploy to assist Iran. Analysts say any Russian support is far more likely to come in the form of intelligence sharing, technology transfers or drone production rather than boots on the ground.

One potential avenue involves drone manufacturing.

Russia operates large-scale Shahed-derived drone production facilities that were initially enabled by Iranian technology transfers. If Iran’s domestic drone factories are degraded by strikes, Russian production could theoretically help sustain Tehran’s aerial campaign, though there is no confirmed evidence that such transfers are occurring.

Defense officials have publicly downplayed the operational impact of any reported Russian assistance, saying U.S. commanders are tracking foreign intelligence activity and factoring it into planning.

The contrast between Trump’s characterization of Putin as ‘constructive’ and Hegseth’s warning that Russia should stay out of the conflict underscores the delicate balance the administration is attempting to strike — pursuing diplomacy in Ukraine while confronting the possibility of deeper cooperation between Moscow and Tehran in the Middle East.

For now, analysts say the evidence stops short of conclusive proof. But the alignment of Russian reconnaissance capabilities, battlefield tactics refined in Ukraine and Tehran’s own acknowledgment of assistance has intensified scrutiny of Moscow’s role as the regional war unfolds.

Russia has not publicly responded to the allegation of intelligence sharing with Iran, but has broadly called for de-escalation of the conflict. 

The Russian embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.

A week and a half into the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, the latest national public opinion poll indicates that more than half of American voters oppose U.S. military action.

But the survey from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut is the latest to indicate a wide partisan divide when it comes to support for the U.S. military operation, known as Epic Fury, which has resulted in the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the decimation of the country’s military.

Fifty-three percent of voters questioned in the poll, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, said they oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, which was ordered by President Donald Trump, with 40% supporting the operation.

The Quinnipiac poll joins other recent surveys from NPR/PBS/Marist (44%–55%), CBS News (44%–56%), NBC News (41%–54%), Washington Post (39%–52%), CNN (41%–59%), and Reuters/Ipsos (27%–43%), in indicating minority support for U.S. military action.

But the latest Fox News poll, conducted Feb. 28–March 2, showed Americans split at 50% in their support or opposition to the fighting.

And three other national polls conducted over the past week and a half indicated majority or plurality support for the operation.

The surveys highlight the divergence between Democrats and Republicans over the fighting.

More than 8 in 10 Republicans surveyed by Fox News said they approved of the U.S. use of force against Iran, with 6 in 10 saying the president’s actions on Iran are making the U.S. safer. 

But nearly 8 in 10 Democrats and 6 in 10 independents disapproved of the U.S. strikes and said things are less safe because of Trump’s performance.

The vast majority of Democrats surveyed by Quinnipiac University, as well as 6-in-10 independents, said they opposed the strikes on Iran, with 85% of Republicans supporting the military action.

A majority (55%) questioned by Quinnipiac said they didn’t think Iran posed an imminent military threat to the U.S. before the attacks, with nearly four in ten disagreeing. 

Again, there was a partisan divide, with 83% of Democrats and 63% of independents saying Iran didn’t pose an imminent threat, while nearly three quarters of Republicans said Tehran did pose an imminent threat.

But there was no partisan gap when it came to the possibility of sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.

Nearly three quarters of voters opposed sending U.S. ground troops into Iran, including 95% of Democrats, 75% of independents and 52% of Republicans.

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly not ruled out using ground troops in Iran.

Asked how long the fighting between the U.S. and Iran, which has retaliated with strikes against Israel and other nations in the volatile Middle East, will last, just 3% of Quinnipiac pollees said days, 18% offered weeks, 32% guessed months, 13% thought the attacks could last a year, and just over a quarter said more than a year.

‘Very soon,’ Trump said at a news conference Monday, when asked when the strikes would end. ‘Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership.’

And the president described the operation as an ‘excursion.’

Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Peter Malloy noted that ‘perhaps compelled by memories of long wars, Americans see no early end to the enormous upheaval in the Middle East.’

Trump recently dismissed the polling on Iran, telling the New York Post March 2: ‘I don’t care about polling. I have to do the right thing. I have to do the right thing. This should have been done a long time ago.’

Trump’s overall approval rating stood at 37% in the Quinnipiac poll, with 57% giving the president a thumbs down on the job he’s doing in the White House.

The president stood at 43% approval in the Fox News poll, and at 44% in the NBC News survey. An average of the latest national surveys that gauged the president’s performance put Trump at 43% approval and 54% disapproval.