Chuck Schumer says Republicans are ‘ignoring the nation’s most urgent national security crisis’ amid US exchange of fire with Iran

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Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked the advancement of a must-pass defense bill in protest of Donald Trump’s resumption of hostilities with Iran.

The hold up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) comes amid the fiercest exchange in fire between the countries in weeks, which has amplified frustration among Democrats that the US remains involved in the conflict despite the passage last month of a war powers resolution intended to force a ceasefire.

US political leaders must be more clear-eyed about our global alliances, without embracing his scorched-earth approach

Donald Trump memorably took out a full-page advertisement in multiple newspapers in 1987 charging that America was carrying too much weight for its allies. In his first term he repeated this charge, threatening to withdraw from Nato and berating US allies around the world in the process. Last week’s gathering of Nato’s heads of government in Turkey suggests his approach is running out of steam as the world adjusts and the president bumps up against the limits of American unilateral power in Iran.

Trump’s domestic political opponents should breathe a sigh of relief but not rush headlong into an uncritical embrace of US alliances. For all his counterproductive bluster, Trump recognized something real. If his opponents in the Democratic and Republican parties are not more clear-eyed about what alliances cost Americans – as Biden failed to be with Israel – they will fuel the fires that brought Trump to power in the first place.

Christopher S Chivvis is a senior fellow and director of the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Outlet said journalists subpoenaed to testify before grand jury after story detailed security concerns with Qatar-gifted plane

The Trump administration has issued subpoenas to several New York Times journalists after the newspaper reported on security concerns with the president’s new plane, according to the outlet.

The Times said its journalists were subpoenaed on Friday by the US justice department to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan five days later, marking the latest effort by the Trump White House to compel testimony from journalists under the threat of penalty. Agents delivered some of the subpoenas to the Times reporters at their homes, the paper added.