Trump turns 2020 statue wars on their head with Columbus monument revival

The 13-foot, one-ton replica now stands on White House grounds as part of Trump’s America250 celebrations.

By Kiera McDonald, Emma Colton
Fox News

Published March 23, 2026 3:24pm EDT

The White House has installed a 13-foot statue of Christopher Columbus after the monument was torn down by rioters and tossed in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor nearly six years ago amid the 2020 riots.

“As we celebrate our Nation’s 250th anniversary of independence, the White House is proud to honor Christopher Columbus’s legendary life and legacy with a well-deserved statue on the White House grounds,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital on Monday of the new addition to the White House’s grounds.

The one-ton statue, spearheaded by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, is part of the Trump administration’s America250 celebrations and sits on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT TO BECOME ‘BIRTHDAY CANDLE’ AS US MARKS START OF 250TH YEAR

The 13-foot, one-ton replica now stands on White House grounds as part of Trump’s America250 celebrations.(Fox News)

Rebuilt in part from salvaged pieces, the statue was installed at the White House on Sunday after Baltimore officials declined to restore it to the city’s Little Italy neighborhood, according to COPOMIAO, which is a national coalition of Italian American groups that advocate for their communities.

President Donald Trump sent a letter thanking COPOMIAO President Basil M. Russo for the statue. He said the tall figure was placed next to another piece of art called Freedom’s Charge, which he said is “a life-size sculpture representing the revolutionary struggle to win America’s independence.”

“These statues represent the inspiring historical progression of the American story and will stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community,” he said.

In the letter, President Trump also praised Columbus’ role in shaping the nation’s history.

WHITE HOUSE FIRES BACK AT CRITICS CALLING TRUMP’S MASSIVE ARCH ‘TOO BIG’

The Christopher Columbus replica statue replaces the monument rioters tossed into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in 2020.(Fox News)

“Christopher Columbus was the original American hero and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the Earth,” he said. “Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve, Columbus’ voyage in 1492 carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas—paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776.”

“I am truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House,” he added.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death in May 2020, statues and monuments identified by rioters as “racist” were vandalized, toppled, and destroyed across the country. A George Washington statue in Portland, Oregon, was toppled and set on fire, while Confederate monuments in Richmond, Virginia, including those of Jefferson Davis and Williams Carter Wickham, were also targeted during the protests.

Russo, in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, led the months-long project to honor “Italian American history and culture.” The original statue, unveiled in 1984 by Former President Ronald Reagan, was torn down decades later on Independence Day amid criticism over Columbus’ 1492 arrival and the deaths of millions of Indigenous people.

WHITE HOUSE TOUTS TRUMP’S ‘BOLD VISION’ FOR TOWERING INDEPENDENCE ARCH FOR AMERICA 250

Remains of the Christopher Columbus statue near Little Italy after it was ripped from its pedestal and dragged into the Jones Falls by protesters in Baltimore on Saturday, July 4, 2020.(Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent,” Russo said. “For over a century, Columbus’s legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country. Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter.”

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Ingle added that the administration will continue its efforts to preserve Columbus’ legacy.

“President Trump has rightly hailed Christopher Columbus as ‘the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the Earth,’” he said. “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come.”

Kiera McDonald is a Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.

Judge appoints new top prosecutor in New Jersey after Justice Department picks were twice determined unlawful | CNN Politics

PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 2:56 PM ET

By

[Kara Scannell]

22 min ago

PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 2:56 PM ET

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The US Courthouse in Camden, New Jersey, in April 2022.

Matt Rourke/AP/File

The chief district judge in New Jersey appointed Robert Frazer, a career prosecutor, to serve as US attorney for the state, ending for now a dispute over the legality of the office’s leadership that threatened to derail criminal investigations.

Frazer is a [longtime prosecutor] who has worked on violent crime organized crime cases.

Federal Judge Matthew Brann ruled last summer that Alina Habba — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer — was illegally appointed as the acting US attorney in the District of New Jersey. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi later appointed a trio of attorneys to split Habba’s role: Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio.

Earlier this month, Brann found Bondi didn’t have the ability to create an alternative leadership structure in that way.

Chief Judge for the District of New Jersey Renee Marie Bumb signed the order appointing Frazer to the role.

Mark Coyne, chief of the appeals division at the US attorney’s office in New Jersey, informed Brann on Monday in a case used to challenge the previous leadership structure that Frazer’s appointment “followed consultations between the District Court and the Department of Justice’s senior leadership.”

Frazer, he said, has served as a prosecutor for more than 20 years and was most recently senior trial counsel.

Habba, who resigned as acting US attorney under after a federal appeals court found her appointment unlawful, praised Frazer’s appointment. She is now a senior adviser to Bondi.

“New Jersey deserves a great chief federal law enforcement official who is in line with President Trump’s agenda of making this country safe and NJ great! I know Rob well and he will be a great champion of this state and mission of the @TheJusticeDept,” Habba said on X. She praised the collaboration between judges, Bondi, and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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Takeaways from arguments in the Supreme Court case that could end grace periods for mail-in ballots | CNN Politics

By

[Tierney Sneed]
,

[John Fritze]
,

[Devan Cole]

Updated 13 min ago
Updated Mar 23, 2026, 3:52 PM ET
PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 3:46 PM ET

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The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 23, 2026.

Evan Vucci/Reuters

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared dubious of state laws that allow the counting of mail ballots that arrive at election offices after Election Day as justices heard oral arguments in a challenge to Mississippi’s five-day [grace period for mail ballots].

Over the course of more than two hours, justices raised an assortment of reasons why they saw those policies as problematic, seemingly embracing [Republicans’ arguments that the state laws] run afoul of statutes passed by Congress establishing Election Day in November for federal offices.

The lawsuit against Mississippi’s practice was brought by the Republican National Committee in 2024 and puts into jeopardy the mail ballot deadlines of several other states. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia also set mail ballot receipt deadlines after Election Day, and 29 states, plus DC, count ballots that arrive after Election Day that are cast by military families and citizens living overseas in certain circumstances, [according to the National Conference of State Legislature.]

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The Trump administration is supporting the RNC in the case, but it argues those overseas ballots can be carved out of a ruling against Mississippi.

It’s not clear how a ruling striking down Mississippi’s law would play out in November’s election. The risk that such a ruling could cause confusion during the midterms was only touched on briefly during the hearing.

The case is one example of how Trump and his allies have continued to try to curb mail voting, which was a frequent target of his false claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him. A ruling is likely to come by the end of June.

Here’s what to know from Monday’s arguments:

Conservative majority appears dubious of mail ballot grace periods

The six GOP appointees who make up the court’s majority put forward a host of reasons they were concerned about laws like Mississippi’s.

Several, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, often seen as a possible swing voter – latched on to a line of questioning put forward by Justice Clarence Thomas – implying that permitting Mississippi’s law would also allow a voter have his ballot counted if he simply handed his ballots to his neighbor by Election Day.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another sometimes-swing vote on the court, also leaned into the arguments against grace periods for mail ballots. He raised the possibility that those regulations erode confidence in elections if late-arriving ballots determine the outcome and pointed to the fact that the practice expanded greatly during the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting that undermined the idea that it has a long-established history.

[Related live story Snow flurries fall outisde the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on March 12, 2026. Following record high temperatures the day before, Washington, DC, recieved snow flurries on Thursday. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Supreme Court appears skeptical of counting mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day]

When Paul Clement, the lawyer from the RNC, was up, he fielded mostly softballs from the conservatives. Justice Samuel Alito gave Clement the opportunity to respond to a Maryland law, cited by Mississippi’s defenders, that allowed for post-Election Day receipt in the early 1900s.

Barrett had some tough questions for Clement and US Solicitor General D. John Sauer. However, it wasn’t clear whether her sharp queries signaled she was inclined to uphold the Mississippi law or if she was grappling with how to write an opinion in the RNC’s favor that dealt with those historical complications.

Justices worry about impact on early voting

When the majority of the court begins drafting its opinion, it’s clear that another popular election practice will be firmly on the justices’ minds: Early voting.

Early voting isn’t technically at issue, but the back-and-forth over the arrival of absentee ballots dealt in a significant way with how to define the word “election.” The justices scrutinized what must happen on Election Day and what is permissible after that day – or before it. The court’s decision may well prompt future challenges to early voting, which most states offer.

Mostly quiet throughout the arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts jumped in with several questions aimed at understanding how a decision in favor of the RNC in the Mississippi case might affect early voting.

“If Election Day is the voting and taking, that has to be that day,” Roberts said, adding that he didn’t think Sauer was adequately explaining how early voting would not be jeopardized. “Maybe you’re not saying anything other than, ‘well, that’s different.’”

A majority of the court — both conservative and liberal justices — asked about early voting.

[Related article A voter walks past a sign requiring a photo ID at a polling location on March 5, 2024, in Mount Holly, North Carolina. Chris Carlson/AP/File Republicans in a growing number of states press ahead with Trump’s voting rules 7 min read]

“You’re saying that we have to go back to the mid-19th Century and say could Congress have possibly conceived of this kind of rule,” said liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who led the questioning on the issue. “Congress couldn’t have conceived of the kind of early voting that we have now. It couldn’t have conceived of a thousand other ways in which we administer elections now.”

Mississippi’s attorney repeatedly raised that very point: Tossing out post-election ballot receipts could jeopardize other functions election officials have for decades conduced after the formal Election Day.

Sauer told the justices that the Trump administration agrees that “early voting is still acceptable.” But when pressed on how to square that view his theory of the case, Sauer conceded it was a “challenging question.”

One issue that drew less attention was how the case might affect overseas military ballots. Many more states permit those to arrive in election offices after Election Day, and Mississippi has touted a federal law that acknowledged those deadlines while making it easier for the overseas voters to cast their ballots.

Still, on Monday, both Clement and Sauer said the court could rule against Mississippi while preserving grace periods for overseas voters.

‘Recalled’ ballots becomes central focus for conservatives

A technical debate about the significance of voters being able to “recall” their ballots after they drop them in the mailbox took on an outsized role in the arguments — and may play prove pivotal in how the court decides the case.

The US Postal Service allows people to “recall” sent mail before delivery in some circumstances.

Several conservatives, including Justices Barrett and Neil Gorsuch — hammered Mississippi’s attorney on the point. The issue is important because the state argues that the selection of a candidate has occurred as soon as a voter fills out their ballot and places it in the mail.

[Related article Gabriel Olivier of Jackson, Miss., a member of Warrior for Christ, cites phrases from the Bible as he protests the drag queen story time outside of Huntington Woods Public Library in Huntington Woods on Saturday, January 26, 2019. 01262019 Dragqueenstory 1 Junfu Han/Detroit Free Press/Imagn Supreme Court revives First Amendment lawsuit from street preacher who called concertgoers ‘whores,’ ‘Jezebels’ and ‘sissies’ 3 min read]

But, the skeptical conservatives asked, how can a ballot be final if a voter can recall the mail before it reaches the election office? Gorsuch offered a hypothetical involving a candidate who becomes embroiled in a sex scandal in the final days of a campaign and a large number of voters attempt to recall their mail-in ballots, enough to change the outcome.

“Not farfetched, I think,” Gorsuch said. “In that hypothetical, does the election happen on Election Day?”

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart argued that the state doesn’t allow voters to recall their mailed ballots, but withered under scrutiny from Gorsuch and Barrett about how that works — or doesn’t — in practice. It’s not clear how often a voter attempts to stop a mailed ballot they have already shipped, but it is likely a small number.

Still, Barrett repeatedly returned to the question of finality and whether it undercuts how Mississippi is framing when an “election” takes place.

“I want to understand what your definition of finality is,” Barrett said at one point in an exchange that prompted several long pauses from Stewart. “It’s about your definition of ‘election.’ It’s about your definition of what it means to cast a vote.”

Liberal justice tries to make case about deference to states

The appeal by a liberal justice to see the case as about deference to states seemed to fall on deaf ears, even though that is an approach that typically animates conservatives, particularly in the election space.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the issue comes down to “who decides” when it comes to policy questions raised by mail ballot deadlines, such as how to handle recalled ballots or if postmarks should be required for ballots arriving after Election Day.

The Constitution generally leaves the administration of elections to states, but it also says Congress may step in with its own rules. In this case, Congress passed laws that standardized Election Day for federal offices as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

“The question, I think, is whether Congress has precluded the states from making those calls, drawing those lines, and your position, as I understand it, is, no,” Jackson said, “that the scantness of Election Day in the federal statutes, actually is appointed your favor, because it indicates that Congress was leaving it to the states to draw the various lines that might arise in this circumstance.”

[Related article Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett attend the State of the Union address at the US Capitol on February 24, 2026. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Everyone has something to say at the Supreme Court. Why the tariffs ruling had more than 160 pages 6 min read]

If the court’s conservatives were seeing that case that way they didn’t voice it.

The main concern GOP-appointees on the court raised about the Republicans’ position was how it was using Civil War history to make its case and whether those arguments would foreclose early voting and other modern day election practices as well.

Risk of voter confusion in November not given much airtime

There was little attention during Monday’s hearing on the risk of confusing voters during November’s election with a ruling striking down Mississippi’s law and others like it.

Federal courts are often reluctant to tinker with election rules too close to a contest thanks to a two-decade-old legal doctrine from the Supreme Court that says such changes by judges should not be made, so as to avoid confusion among voters.

But when Kavanaugh became the only member of the court to raise the “Purcell principle” during the lengthy hearing, Clement quickly downplayed any notion that a ruling favorable to the Mississippi law’s challengers could create a chaotic situation later this year. Clement said the measure only applies to general elections, which would take place months after the court announces its decision, likely in late June or early July.

[Related video ip panel0319.jpg CNN How the Iran war is becoming ‘the soundtrack of the midterm election campaign’ 1:48]

“I think June would give them plenty of time” to make the necessary changes, Clement said, adding that since absentee ballots in Mississippi must be mailed out 45 days before a general election, there would ample opportunity for instructions on how to cast the ballot to be tweaked.

But ahead of Monday’s arguments, election officials across the country were saying the complete opposite, warning that a switch could lead to mass confusion in this year’s election — and higher costs.

A group of local election officials told the justices that 13 other states, and Washington, DC, have similar ballot laws on the books and that changing their procedures to comply with the court’s ruling could be a tricky task.

“Eliminating post-election ballot receipt deadlines would affect nearly every aspect of the preparation for and administration of the general election in these states in 2026, just months before it is set to occur,” the group said in an amicus brief.

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Analysis by

[Aaron Blake]

1 hr 22 min ago

PUBLISHED Mar 23, 2026, 2:40 PM ET

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents patrol at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday.

Adam Gray/Reuters

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for more than a month. But extremely long and growing TSA wait times have created newfound political urgency to reach a deal.

That — along with lawmakers wanting to leave town for an Easter break by the end of the week — means there could soon be some movement. The debate over funding the agency has repeatedly stalled, as Democrats have demanded changes to how federal immigration enforcement operates and Republicans have resisted.

But which direction are the talks going? And who has more leverage here?

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It’s a little more difficult to say than it has been in past shutdowns. Still, there are some early clues.

Poll suggests some possible Democratic leverage

There hasn’t been much polling on the shutdown, in large part because the war with Iran has dominated the political zeitgeist over the past four weeks. But a poll released Sunday suggests that Democrats might have more leverage than Republicans — though the numbers are not necessarily definitive.

The [CBS News-YouGov poll] showed 31% of Americans said that Democrats’ position was worth having a partial shutdown, while 36% said it was not worth it (the rest were not sure). That’s a negative five-point gap.

But Americans were even less favorable when asked about Republicans holding their hard line against those changes. While 23% said the GOP’s position was worth having the partial shutdown, 42% said it was not.

That’s a minus-19, compared to the minus-five for Democrats’ position.

So what does this suggest? Democrats could have leverage to hold out, but not necessarily for major concessions.

The numbers are actually slightly better for Democrats than at the start of the larger government shutdown in early October. At the time, [CBS data] showed the Democrats’ position was minus-12 (28% worth a shutdown vs. 40% not worth a shutdown), while the GOP’s was minus-22 (23%-45%).

That might make Democrats feel more confident that they can hold out. And other polling has suggested some of the party’s demands — things like ICE agents not wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants for immigration raids — are individually pretty popular.

But remember: Even as the polls appeared pretty favorable to Democrats during the larger shutdown late last year, they eventually gave up with relatively little in the way of a bona fide GOP concession on their primary demand: extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Trump’s new x-factors

All of that being said, sometimes the best indicator of how a shutdown is progressing is which side feels compelled to do something.

Right now, that’s Trump and the GOP.

President Donald Trump enters his limousine as he arrives at the Memphis Air National Guard Base in Tennessee on Monday.

Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

While Democrats have appeared pretty resolute in their demands, there are signs of movement on the GOP side.

For one, some GOP lawmakers are trying to separate Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spending from the rest of the DHS funding and pass the latter now. They would then deal with ICE funding in a later reconciliation bill that might need only a majority rather than 60 votes to pass. (The White House appears resistant to this idea, at least for now.)

Secondly, Trump this weekend suddenly announced that ICE agents would be helping at airports, which could suggest that he’s afraid he and his party might shoulder the blame for the long security wait times.

By contrast, during the broader government shutdown last year, Trump actually took steps to increase the pain of the shutdown rather than to try to ease it — at least for certain populations, most notably those who were relying on government assistance for food.

And lastly, as Trump often does, he has thrown a wrench in negotiations. He said Sunday that he would demand any DHS deal include the “SAVE America Act,” a bill mostly focused on changes to the elections process that clearly doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate.

It’s clear Trump just really wants his voting bill passed. But now he risks making it look like he’s the one prolonging the shutdown.

Democrats can already credibly argue that Republicans could have voted to fund the Transportation Security Administration and end the airport chaos if they wanted to; Senate Republicans have objected to such attempts by Democrats to fund the agency.

Now it’s Trump who’s adding demands — except his don’t appear to be as popular as the Democrats’ and aren’t even really related.

People might not be paying close enough attention

There are still significant hurdles to Democrats getting something major out of this shutdown. And high on that list is that people just might not be tuned in right now.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer holds a press conference about Democrats demands for immigration enforcement reform, in February.

Kent Nishimura/Reuters

It’s been two months since federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. And the administration has scaled back its immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and avoided similar high-profile controversies. It is also replacing Kristi Noem as head of DHS, which people might see as a significant concession.

Plus, the war with Iran has sucked up nearly all of the oxygen in the political room.

Given those immigration issues aren’t as front-and-center right now — the CBS poll showed just 20% are following the shutdown “very closely” — it’s not clear that there will be the same kind of urgency behind Democrats’ demands as we might have seen two months ago.

That doesn’t mean what Democrats are asking for isn’t popular; it just means it might not carry the day as much — or be viewed as worth what’s happening at airports.

Though somewhat ironically, Trump’s new move to put ICE agents at airports could seemingly remind people about their problems with aggressive immigration enforcement. Trump even says the agents could be making arrests at airports, which, if true, could open its own can of worms.

What’s clear is that the politics of this debate are coming to a head. Stay tuned.

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Mask-free ICE agents begin patrolling US airports; Trump floats National Guard

Trump wants ‘no masks’ when ICE officers are ‘helping our country out of the Democrat caused mess’

By Eric Mack
Fox News

Published March 23, 2026 12:11pm EDT | Updated March 23, 2026 1:00pm EDT

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed to U.S. airports to help with TSA security lines beginning Monday.

President Donald Trump advised Monday that the agents should not wear masks while on that assignment, adding he could bring in the National Guard to assist with airport chaos if needed.

“ICE was my idea,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac before boarding Air Force One from West Palm Beach on Monday morning. “First person I called, Tom Homan, I said, what do you think? He said, I think it’s great.”

Trump wanted to make sure with Homan that the ICE agents at the airports to help alleviate TSA security stress were not masked.

SCHUMER KNOCKS TRUMP ON IRAN, PLAN TO SEND ICE TO AIRPORTS: ‘ASKING FOR TROUBLE’

“I put out a statement and I asked him, would it be possible to take off masks?” Trump added.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he supports ICE officers wearing masks when dealing with “hardened criminals,” but said he wants “no masks” when they are “helping our country out of the Democrat caused mess.”

“I am a BIG proponent of ICE wearing masks as they search for, and are forced to deal with, hardened criminals, many of whom were let into our Country by Sleepy Joe Biden and his wonderful ‘Border Czar,’ Kamala (she never even went to the Border!), through their absolutely INSANE Open Border Policy,” Trump wrote Monday morning.

“I would greatly appreciate, however, NO MASKS, when helping our Country out of the Democrat caused MESS at the airports, etc. Thank you!”

Asked about the airport deployment during a pre-Air Force One press gaggle, Trump praised ICE for stepping in and said the agents “will do great.” He then escalated the warning, saying, “And if that’s not enough, I’ll bring in the National Guard.”

TRUMP MOCKS ‘DISCOMBOBULATED’ SCHUMER OVER DEMOCRATS’ NEAR GAFFE ON FUNDING ICE

“We’re not going to have the Democrats destroy our country,” Trump told reporters in an under-wing gaggle. “These people are the most destructive sick people, the Democrats.”

The U.S. Travel Association lashed out against Congress for failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security in a statement Monday shared with Fox News Digital.

“There is a striking irony in Congress preparing to leave town for a two-week paid recess while TSA officers, the people who secure America’s travel system, face yet another $0 paycheck,” the statement read.

“Come Friday, if Congress fails to do its job and pass a DHS funding bill, they’ll head to the airports, get escorted to the front of the security line and be screened by the very TSA officers they failed to pay.

LAGUARDIA PLANE CRASH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AUDIO REVEALS FRANTIC CALL FOR TRUCK TO ‘STOP, STOP, STOP’

“Meanwhile, millions of Americans will arrive at airports over the next three weeks to face hours-long waits and endless frustration.”

The statement added a call to not leave town before ending the government shutdown.

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“So allow us to speak directly to Congress: Do not board that flight, pack that bag, or clear that schedule until TSA officers have been paid,” the statement continued. “These are the men and women showing up every single day to keep travelers safe and the system moving. Walking away from that responsibility is not a recess; it’s a dereliction of duty.

“Fix this before you leave Washington. Pass the funding. Pay our TSA officers. The American people are watching, and they will remember who stayed to get it done and who didn’t.”

Eric Mack is a writer for Fox News Digital covering breaking news.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6391461001112

Trump says Ukraine war depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles, but as Iran takes that mantle, Kyiv sees opportunities

March 23, 2026 / 12:31 PM EDT / CBS News

Kyiv— The White House wants Congress to provide at least $200 billion more in funding for the war in Iran, and President Trump says that’s partly due to aid for Ukraine having depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles as it fends off Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion.

“This is a very volatile world,” Mr. Trump said Thursday. “We want to have vast amounts of ammunition, which we have right now — we have a lot of ammunition, but it was taken down by giving so much to Ukraine.”

Throughout his second term, Mr. Trump has criticized the Biden administration for, in his view, providing armaments to Ukraine that America’s defense industry could not quickly replenish.

Last summer, after a review of stockpiles, the U.S. paused the shipment of some weapons to Ukraine. Those weapons transfers were eventually reinstated under a new initiative that sees NATO allies foot much of the bill, but the episode made it clear the White House considers support for Ukraine’s defense an obstacle to ensuring America’s own defensive stockpiles remain up to the demands of any future conflict.

Now, however, Ukraine is offering reasons to reassess that viewpoint. As the war in Iran depletes U.S. stocks of interceptor missiles, Ukrainian officials are offering deals to help replenish them. On Saturday, Ukrainian officials met Trump administration representatives to discuss, among other topics, a deal for the two countries to co-produce drones and drone interceptors.

A Ukrainian soldier holds a Sting interceptor drone before a test flight, Feb. 22, 2026, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine. Alex Nikitenko/Global Images Ukraine/Getty

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the agreement could be worth between $35-50 billion. He’s also said there are several other potential deals in the works with America’s Persian Gulf allies, whose urgent need for Ukrainian drone interceptors has become a public matter amid Iran’s relentless attacks.

But experts say the deals currently materializing extend beyond immediate air defense needs in the Middle East, and they could lay the foundation for longer-term U.S.-Ukraine defense industrial partnerships.

Iran war eating up Patriot interceptor missiles much faster than Ukraine

Soon after the U.S. began providing weapons from its own arsenal to Ukraine in 2022, concerns emerged over the ability of America’s defense industry to replace them. Most alarming were potential shortages of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor missiles, which are among the most effective weapons to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

“We realized that we now had a defense industrial base with no excess capacity to ramp up for wartime requirements,” Matt Tavares, a defense analyst who served as a Pentagon adviser for multiple administrations, told CBS News. “Some of the equipment that we gave to the Ukrainians could not be immediately backfilled by the defense industry.”

When President Trump returned to power in 2025, his administration promised to jumpstart production of air defense munitions and to be more judicious about doling them out to allies. Beginning last summer, some military shipments were redirected, including 20,000 anti-drone missiles originally intended for Ukraine that were instead sent to U.S. Air Force units in the Middle East.

In January, the Pentagon announced a deal with Lockheed Martin to triple production of Patriot interceptors.

But the war in Iran has complicated the Defense Department’s weapons conservation efforts.

America’s Middle East allies burned through 800 Patriot interceptors as they fended off Iran’s retaliatory attacks during the first week of the war alone, according to Zelenskyy, who noted that his country had used only 600 of the Patriots during four years of war with Russia.

Experts have said the rapid use of these expensive munitions is likely driving, at least in part, the White House’s request for another $200 billion from Congress — which is nearly four times the $70 billion in military aid provided to Ukraine since 2022.

“To the extent that U.S. stockpiles are being depleted, it has much more to do with what has been going on in the Middle East over the last nine months than what has happened in Ukraine,” Thomas Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News.

Can Ukraine offer long-term solutions to shore up U.S. weapons stockpiles?

As the Iran war drains interceptor stockpiles, the U.S. and its Gulf allies have turned to Ukraine for its drone defense expertise. President Zelenskyy said last week that Ukraine had sent more than 200 drone experts to the Middle East to help defend military installations and civilian centers from Iranian attacks.

In return, Ukrainians hope to receive more of the Western interceptor missiles that have been so crucial to their own air defense. Asked by journalists in Kyiv last week whether missile shipments from the U.S. and Europe to Ukraine could be further disrupted due to the Iran war, Zelenskyy said, “the risk is very high,” and stressed that getting more Patriot missiles was “our priority.”

U.S. troops place a Patriot air and missile defense launching system at a test range in Sochaczew, Poland, in a March 21, 2015 file photo, during a joint exercise with Polish troops. Getty

But the deals now in the works between Kyiv and Washington, and Kyiv and Gulf states, likely won’t yield direct swaps of armaments to bolster Ukrainian or Middle Eastern air defenses in the short-term.

“The problem is how quickly we can actually produce Patriot interceptors. I would imagine that the Gulf, right now, they want to hold onto all of their interceptor stocks because they don’t know when they’ll be backfilled,” Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CBS News.

She said it could be, for Ukraine, more about long-term gains.

“There is a way here where they could partner on drones, get that capital investment, and then that money that flows into the defense sector can be used to develop niche things like long-range strike or air defense know-how,” Massicot said.

That kind of arrangement could also prove just as beneficial politically for Kyiv, even if it doesn’t help with its immediate war needs.

“This could be a moment where the Ukrainians helping out here elicit some good will on the part of the United States, and show that they are a contributor, and not merely a drain on security resources,” said Karako.

DOJ guts office that helps indigent immigrants obtain affordable legal aid, sources say

Updated on: March 23, 2026 / 3:03 PM EDT / CBS News

The Justice Department has quietly gutted a more than 60-year-old program created to ensure that low-income and indigent immigrants can receive competent and affordable legal representation, multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell CBS News.

The Recognition and Accreditation program, which is part of the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, accredits non-attorneys who work for largely faith-based legal advocacy organizations such as Catholic Charities and Jewish Family Services so they are authorized to assist immigrants on everything from naturalization petitions to representation in DOJ’s immigration courts.

The handful of senior attorneys who operate the program were abruptly reassigned to work in immigration courts last week, leaving in place only two support staff with no legal authority to approve or renew accreditation applications, sources with direct knowledge said.

The reassignment orders came from Jamee Comans, the acting Assistant Director for the Office of Policy, which administers the accreditation program. Comans was previously an immigration judge in Louisiana, and last September, she ordered the deportation of pro-Palestinian protester and former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil to either Algeria or Syria. Comans could not be immediately reached for comment.

The attorneys showed up to their new work locations on Monday, where most were told they’ve been reassigned to work as entry-level law clerks — a job typically reserved for people who are fresh out of law school, the sources added.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Immigration Review declined to comment, saying the office cannot discuss personnel matters. A government official told CBS that the program “isn’t ending or being abolished. It is a longstanding program established by regulation and will continue.”

There has been no public announcement about any of the changes in the program.

The spokesperson did not answer questions from CBS News about the fate of the program, though close to the time that CBS News sought comment, the EOIR assigned two other employees to review pending applications, the sources said.

The program currently accredits more than 2,600 non-attorneys across more than 900 recognized programs, legal experts told CBS.

The majority of those are partially accredited to assist immigrants with representation before the Department of Homeland Security as they petition for immigration benefits, such as green cards, naturalization or lawful status on humanitarian grounds.

A smaller portion are fully accredited, which means they are allowed to represent immigrants in proceedings before the Justice Department’s immigration courts.

Anna Gallagher, the executive director of Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc, also known as CLINIC, said that as of Monday morning, the program had sent out its weekly Monday email and appeared to be operating normally. But the removal of its lawyers, she said, is “alarming.”

“This program saves lives and it also helps alleviate the backlogs in the immigration system,” said Gallagher, who noted that her organization’s 400 affiliates provided legal services to over half a million people in 2025.

“Lawyers can’t cover the need and any attempt to slow down the program is just going to gum up a stressed and already broken system.”

The Justice Department has already taken numerous other steps to make it more challenging for immigrants to navigate the legal system.

Last year, the department removed the head of the Office of Legal Access Programs and gutted most of its legal orientation services that helped prepare vulnerable immigrants such as unaccompanied children and families to navigate the legal system, and the department fired or removed more than 100 immigration judges.

Last fall, the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals mandated that anyone who crossed the border unlawfully without inspection should be held without bond — a decision that has strained government resources and flooded the federal district courts with habeas corpus petitions from immigrants seeking their release from detention.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department imposed new rules that make it much harder for immigrants to appeal adverse rulings, a move lawyers predict will soon overwhelm the federal appellate courts next.

As of Monday afternoon, staff received word that the accreditation program is being shifted to a different office called the Public Resources Program, which is already understaffed, sources said.

The removal of staff from the accreditation program represents “one more nail in the coffin to how the courts can operate fairly and be expected to be a balanced, impartial institution of justice that Americans expect out of our immigration courts and all courts nationwide,” said Greg Chen, the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

He added that accredited representatives are vital to the legal system. “Most of these people don’t understand the legal system, let alone immigration law, and also are going to have limited English capacity to be able to navigate a highly complex process through the courts,” he said.

The Recognition and Accreditation program, which was created through federal regulation, has its roots in the faith-based community, where religious organizations felt it was their calling to help low-income individuals navigate the bureaucratic immigration legal system.

The removal of all of the lawyers who work for the program represents “an attack on freedom of religion,” said Peggy Gleason, a lawyer at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, whose organization helps train some of the accredited representatives.

“The reason these programs started in the 1950s is because the churches and faith-based organizations felt they had a pastoral duty to help this group of people.”

Trump says talks are happening. Iran says they’re not. Why a former Trump Iran negotiator says both might be true | CNN Politics

2026-03-23T17:34:26.950Z / CNN

Trump says talks are happening. Iran says they’re not. Why a former Trump Iran negotiator says both might be true

By Dana Bash, CNN

Published 1:34 PM EDT, Mon March 23, 2026

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Trump says talks are happening. Iran says they’re not. Why a former Trump Iran negotiator says both might be true

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Nate Swanson, who previously served on President Trump’s Iran negotiator team and as an Iran lead at the National Security Council, joins CNN’s Dana Bash on the state of the war amid reports of possible U.S.-Iran negotiations.

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A ruling from the high court is expected by June

By Breanne Deppisch, Shannon Bream, Bill Mears

Fox News

Published March 23, 2026 2:40pm EDT

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Monday appeared poised to overturn state laws from Mississippi and other U.S. states that allow for the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day — a major case that could upend voting laws for millions of Americans just months before the 2026 midterm elections.

At issue is a Mississippi voting law that allows the state to count mail-in ballots that are received up to five days after the election, so long as they are postmarked by or before Election Day.

President Donald Trump has focused on mail-in voting during his second White House term, and has argued that such laws undermine voter confidence. Similar laws are currently on the books for at least 13 states and the District of Columbia, in a sign of the wide-ranging nature of the case.

During roughly two hours of oral arguments Monday, conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the argument made by the Trump administration’s lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who noted that the Mississippi law and similar voting laws in other states could erode voter trust in election results.

SCOTUS TO REVIEW TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER ON BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

Supreme Court justices are seen at the State of the Union.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Justice Samuel Alito pointed to concerns that “confidence in election outcomes can be seriously undermined” when results are delayed, which was echoed later by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode,” Kavanaugh noted.

The case comes as Trump has targeted mail-in voting efforts in his second presidential term. He previously signed an executive order seeking to end mail-in ballots in federal elections, with which several GOP-led states have complied.

That action was separate from the current Supreme Court appeal, however, which centered on the Republican National Committee’s lawsuit brought against Mississippi over its mail-in voting statutes, enacted after the COVID-19 pandemic. The law allows mail-in voting ballots to be received up to five days after the election.

Mississippi officials sought to defend their law against questions from conservative justices regarding a “slippery slope,” and other hypothetical questions raised by conservative justices, including questions centered on early voting, and votes sent by U.S. service members stationed overseas.

SUPREME COURT SIGNALS IT MAY LIMIT KEY VOTING RIGHTS ACT RULE

Certified absentee ballots are seen in this file photo ahead of the Supreme Court’s consideration of a Mississippi mail-in voting law.(AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)

“If history teaches anything,” Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, “[it is that] as soon as anything is allowed, it will happen.”

Gorsuch pressed lawyers on various hypothetical questions, including how far states could go in pushing their own deadlines for accepting mail-in ballots, should the Supreme Court side with Mississippi in the case.

“If we were to rule against you, is there anything that would limit a state from allowing a receipt by election officials up until the day of the next Congress?” Gorsuch asked at one point during arguments.

Paul Clement, who presented arguments for the Republican Party and Libertarian voters, suggested that a high court ruling for Mississippi would open the door to “limitless” options.

“Maybe the next state can figure out a way to have an election without anybody even receiving anything, I don’t know,” Clement said. “That seems to me to be a large reason why Election Day should mean ‘Election Day.’”

FEDERAL JUDGES IN NEW YORK AND TEXAS BLOCK TRUMP DEPORTATIONS AFTER SCOTUS RULING

The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The high court’s consideration of the case comes amid a long-standing legal tug-of-war over how much control states should have over their voting regulations, including in elections involving both federal and local candidates.

It comes as justices are weighing other high-stakes election cases this year, including the use of race to draw congressional voting districts, and a federal law restricting the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president.

Lawyers for Mississippi told the court that an ”election’ is the conclusive choice of an officer… So the federal Election-Day statutes require only that the voters cast their ballots by Election Day.”

“The election has then occurred, even if election officials do not receive all ballots by that day.”

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The high court is expected to rule on the states’ counting of mail-in ballots by June.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at Breanne.Deppisch@fox.com, or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.

Two dead in New York jet collision, Trump deploys ICE to strained US airports | Reuters

March 23, 2026 4:11 PM UTC / Reuters

ATLANTA/WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters) – Two pilots died in ​a runway accident that shut New York’s LaGuardia Airport and President Donald Trump deployed armed immigration agents to help with hours-long lines, adding further strain to a U.S. air-travel ‌system already hobbled by personnel shortages and rising fuel costs.

The crash between an Air Canada Express (AC.TO), opens new tab jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia injured dozens of passengers and led to hundreds of flight cancellations at the start of the working week, the latest disruption for airports and carriers that have been knocked off-kilter by a weeks-long budget standoff in Congress.

The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. Sign up here.

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Travelers have endured hours-long waits at security screening checkpoints in recent days as absentee rates have spiked among ​Transportation Security Administration employees who have gone without pay for more than a month.

“If you work, you should get your money. Why should that be a problem?” said traveler ​Edwin Blain, 60, who showed up four hours early to avoid missing his flight at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, the nation’s busiest, where 42% of TSA ⁠agents were absent on Sunday.

ICE DEPLOYED TO AIRPORTS

On Monday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents wearing flak jackets and pistols stood guard in airports in Atlanta, New York and New Jersey, according ​to Reuters witnesses. They were not wearing the masks that have become a divisive symbol of Trump’s immigration crackdown and a subject of negotiations in Congress.

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White House immigration czar Tom Homan said agents ​had been deployed to 14 airports, in cities including New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Houston.

Authorities said the agents would provide crowd control, but Trump said they could also make arrests – raising concerns that the chaotic raids that have played out on the streets of Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere might come to the nation’s airports as well.

“They’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country. That’s very fertile territory,” Trump told reporters. “But that’s not ​why they’re there. They’re really there to help.”

Item 1 of 7 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk at Newark Liberty International Airport, as hundreds of them were ordered to deploy to airports to help fill TSA staffing gaps, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

[1/7]Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents walk at Newark Liberty International Airport, as hundreds of them were ordered to deploy to airports to help fill TSA staffing gaps, in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., March 23, 2026. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon [Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab]

In Washington, there was little sign that the standoff between Trump’s Republicans and opposition Democrats would end soon. Democrats have refused to fund the Department ​of Homeland Security without new curbs on immigration agents, who have killed U.S. citizens and sparked public outrage during their crackdown.

Though the White House has engaged in talks, Trump said on Monday he would not sign off ‌on any ⁠compromise until Congress first passed a series of voting restrictions that Democrats have rejected, adding another potential roadblock to a deal.

Airlines are also facing rising fuel costs, which have spiked since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than three weeks ago. United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab said on Friday it would cut flights through the busy summer travel season, citing elevated oil prices.

LAGUARDIA COLLISION KILLS TWO, SEVERAL HOSPITALIZED

In New York, the pilot and first officer of an Air Canada Express jet were killed when the plane collided with a fire truck while it was landing, while another nine people were hospitalized with serious injuries. The ​CRJ-900 plane, operated by regional partner Jazz Aviation, ​had been carrying 72 passengers and four ⁠crew members. Some 572 flights were canceled, more than 50% of LaGuardia’s daily total.

A separate 35-minute ground stop at nearby Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday morning added to delays after air traffic controllers evacuated their tower because of a burning smell from an elevator, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

U.S. ​aviation has faced a chronic shortage of air traffic controllers, but it was not immediately clear what led to the crash. Transportation Secretary ​Sean Duffy and other officials ⁠were traveling to New York to investigate. Air-crash investigations typically find that accidents result from multiple contributing factors, rather than a single cause.

Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the fire truck was responding to a separate aircraft that had reported an “issue with odor.”

According to air traffic control audio, a controller can be heard telling the craft that a fire truck ⁠was en route ​and clearing a truck to cross a runway. Moments later, the controller can be heard saying: “Stop, stop, stop, truck ​1 stop, truck 1, stop.”

On Monday morning, the Air Canada jet could be seen on the runway, surrounded by emergency vehicles, its crushed cockpit pointing skyward. By Monday afternoon, LaGuardia had reopened one of its runways.

Reporting by Shannon Stapleton in New ​York, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson in Atlanta, David Shepardson in Washington and Allison Lampert in Montreal, additional reporting by and Bhargav Acharya; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gaffen and Bill Berkrot