From the moment he announced an extensive military attack against Iran by posting an edited social media video at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, President Trump made clear that he would be taking a different tone and approach than his wartime predecessors.

Mr. Trump did not scramble back to the White House from Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, to oversee the U.S. and Israeli strikes. He did not deliver a televised address informing the public of the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was the nation’s supreme leader for nearly four decades.

Instead, the president capped an extraordinary day of U.S. aggression abroad by attending a glitzy fund-raising dinner at his club.....

Mr. Trump’s decision not to make a formal address to the public — besides the two videos and conversations with several individual reporters — also came after he made little effort before the attack to lay out the case for a military assault against Iran.

His lack of public engagement, after launching a military attack that could spur a broader conflict and has already cost the lives of at least three U.S. service members and dozens of people in Iran, Israel and other countries in the region, was a striking departure from how other presidents have handled the gravity of war.

“What Americans of our time are accustomed to is a president giving a White House speech — usually from the Oval Office — that befits the supreme importance of making war,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and the author of the book “Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times.”.....

But Mr. Trump’s approach Saturday was a departure from how even Mr. Trump himself has handled other major military actions. Last year, when the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, the president addressed the nation from the White House......

The president did not let the bombing of Iran upend his schedule, including his plans to attend a fund-raising dinner to support MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC.

Ms. Leavitt said Saturday that Mr. Trump had no intention of breaking that commitment. The fund-raiser, she said, was “more important than ever.”

In a post-EV report, GOP data guy @Ross_Hunt estimates that Ds have added a net of ~480,000 modeled general election votes over Rs: https://documentcloud.org/documents/27456806-the-implications-of-texas-early-voting-turnout-for-the-november-general-election/

Also, swing-voting constituencies have chosen the Dem primary over the GOP one by a 3:1 rate. #txlege

In a post-EV report, GOP data guy @Ross_Hunt estimates that Ds have added a net of ~480,000 modeled general election votes over Rs: https://documentcloud.org/documents/27456806-the-implications-of-texas-early-voting-turnout-for-the-november-general-election/

Also, swing-voting constituencies have chosen the Dem primary over the GOP one by a 3:1 rate. #txlege

President Donald Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court again on Friday, questioning whether a “Rehearing or Readjudication” is possible after the justices dealt a devastating blow to his tariff agenda one week ago.

In a lengthy post on Truth Social, Trump claimed the ruling “could allow for Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to be returned to Countries and Companies that have been ‘ripping off’ the United States of America for many years."

"And now, according to this Decision, could actually continue to do so, at an even increased level,” he argued. “I am sure that the Supreme Court did not have this in mind!”

“It doesn’t make sense that Countries and Companies that took advantage of us for decades, receiving Billions and Billions of Dollars that they should not have been allowed to receive, would now be entitled to an undeserved ‘windfall,’ the likes of which the World has never seen before," Trump added.

The president insisted the high court could not have intended such an outcome and called the decision “highly disappointing, to say the least.” He then added: “Is a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case possible???”

President Donald Trump was bashed on Saturday after photos emerged of the "blanket fort" at his Mar-a-Lago estate that he used as a Situation Room to monitor the strikes in Iran.

The White House posted a photo of Trump alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of Personnel Dan Scavino, and other administration officials on its X account on Saturday evening. The photo shows a makeshift room surrounded by black curtains and multiple maps of the region......

"Calling it 'the situation room at Mar-a-Lago' doesn’t morph that blanket fort into a SCIF," Joyce Vance, law professor at the University of Alabama, posted on X.

"I can think of nobody better to help make decisions about a war with Iran than….Trump’s f------ golf club manager, Dan Scavino," Rohan Patel, who oversees Majority Democrats, posted on X.

"'Epic fury.' Our leaders spend way too much time playing video games," HuffPost White House Correspondent S.V. Dáte posted on X.

"He looks like s---," writer Peter Rothpeltz posted on X, zooming in on a snapshot of Trump's face in the photo.

While the Trump administration’s unprecedented attack on Iran has received a wave of scrutiny, so too did the name the administration had given the operation – Operation Epic Fury – which was dogpiled on Saturday morning by critics as childish.

“It's called Operation Epic Fury because it tested well with a panel of 6 year olds and Steven Seagal,” wrote author Russ Jones in a social media post on Bluesky Saturday.

“More like Operation Epstein’s Fury,” wrote prominent political commentator and social media influencer Jackson Hinkle in a post to his more than 3.6 million followers on X, referencing the Trump administration’s ongoing fallout from its botched investigation into Jeffrey Epstein......

“Operation Epic Fury sounds like [an] energy drink that gives you heart palpitations and bad decisions,” wrote X user "Crypto Intel Plug,” a cryptocurrency commentator with more than 1,600 followers.

It's called Operation Epic Fury because it tested well with a panel of 6 year olds and Steven Seagal.

— Russ Jones (@russincheshire.bsky.social) 2026-02-28T09:34:28.753Z

Lawyers in President Donald Trump's Department of Justice made some "significant" admissions in court on Thursday that could doom its prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, according to one expert.

The Trump administration has been in an intense legal fight with Abrego Garcia's lawyers since he was deported to El Salvador last year. Courts ruled that the deportation was illegal and ordered Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S. Once he returned, the Trump administration charged him with human trafficking. Abrego Garcia's lawyers have argued that the charges are a "vindictive prosecution."

During a hearing on Thursday, Trump administration lawyers made a series of admissions that undercut key claims levied against Abrego Garcia and raised questions about whether the charges were politically motivated, according to Adam Klasfeld, editor-in-chief of All Rise News.

For instance, Klasfeld said that Trump's lawyers admitted they didn't send a memo outlining reasons not to charge Abrego Garcia, written by Ben Schrader, the former head of the DOJ's criminal division in Tennessee, to the Trump White House because of how "keenly interested" the administration was in the case. Schrader resigned from the DOJ the same day Abrego Garcia was charged.

Shrader's memo stated that he would not bring the case against Abrego Garcia because the charges were politically motivated, Klasfeld said. That stood in stark contrast to Trump prosecutor Rob McGuire's claim that he made an independent decision to file the charges.