Senate Republicans, Plus Fetterman, Vote for More War - The Thursday AM Quickie 3/5/26

A top architect says Donald Trump's gargantuan planned White House ballroom could be 47 percent smaller based on industry standards. I don't know, I think it could be 100 percent smaller. - Corey

ON THE SHOW TODAY

3/5: I'm not sure who's hosting or who's guesting, but it'll be fine, I assure you.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Thanks again paid subscribers!

Today you'll read about what US troops are doing in Ecuador, the significance of James Talarico's victory over Jasmine Crockett in Texas, and how Congress is pushing for the release of 48,000 files on Jeffrey Epstein still under wraps.

Tell your friends to sign up for this M-F newsletter at AMQuickie.com!

THE BIG NEWS

War on Iran: 1,000 Already Dead, 6,000 Wounded, Mostly Civilians

• Senate GOP Blocks Resolution to Block Trump's Illegal War; and Key Democratic Senators Won't Rule Out Funding It "I learned when I was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, that when elites in Washington bang the war drums, pound their chest, talk about the costs of war and act tough, they're not talking about them doing it, they're not talking about their kids," Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow says. "They're talking about working class kids like us." via the Associated Press, Politico, and the New York Times.
• US May Arm Kurds in Iran and Iraq to Fight as Proxy Force "We are already facing a volatile security situation, on both sides of the border," former Biden administration State Department official Jen Gavito says. "This has the potential to undermine Iraqi sovereignty and essentially empower armed militias with no accountability and with little understanding of what it may set in motion." via CNN, the Guardian, and the AP.
• US Killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, Paves the Way for His Second Son, Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, to Take Power However the theocratic succession shakes out, "the real power is now likely to be in the hands of the heavily-armed force that propped up Khamenei for decades: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps." via the AP, NBC News, and the Washington Post.
• Iran Officials Contacted CIA to Seek Peace Deal Even After US Strikes Began In a press briefing yesterday, former Fox News weekend host turned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he expects the war to last somewhere between three weeks and two months – but there are signs the situation has already spun out of control. via the New York Times, the AP, the Guardian, and Al Jazeera.
• Thousands of Travelers and Expats Stranded in Middle East as Flights Grounded Meanwhile, commercial tanker traffic throught the critical Strait of Hormuz bordering Iran is down 90 percent compared to last week amid the threats to navigation. via the New York Times, the AP, and NBC News.
• Pentagon 'Investigating' Strike on Iranian Girl's School That Killed 175, as White House All But Denies It Happened The US military reportedly used Palantir software equipped with Antropic's Claude AI to help pick 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of air war on Iran. via the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Al Jazeera.
• US Base in Kuwait Where Iranian Drones Killed Six Troops Had No Air Defenses Hegseth complained that the "fake news" about the US war dead is meant "to make the president look bad"; a majority of voters disapprove of Trump's Iran policy. via the Washington Post, HuffPost, NBC News, and the AP.
• Pakistani Businessman Facing Murder-for-Hire Charges Says Iran Coerced Him Into Plot Against Trump and Biden Asif Merchant says "he 'had no other option' than to play along because the handler had indicated that he knew who Merchant’s Iranian relatives were and where they lived." via the AP and the New York Times.

MORE STORIES TO WATCH

US Troops Are Also on the Ground in Ecuador