Trump: Bring Iran ‘Back to the Stone Ages Where They Belong’

INSIDE: Corey Lewandowski ... Emil Bove ... Pam Bondi

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 1: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. Trump used the prime-time address to update the nation on the war in Iran. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

The Racism Is Front and Center

Every single day of the Trump II presidency is another display of performative racism, but today’s news — punctuated by last night’s address on the Iran War — is especially saturated with the casual white nationalism that has come to define the Trump era.

In his nonsensical, bellicose, we’re-almost-winning primetime appearance from the White House, Trump did notorious Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay one better. We’re not just going to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age — a threat that roiled financial and commodities markets overnight — but the Stone Age is “where they belong,” Trump declared, saying loudly what has been the mostly quiet part of the last century plus of U.S. intervention abroad.

In a separate, under-the-radar foreign intervention, the U.S. has conducted 49 airstrikes on Islamic militant al-Shabab fighters in Somalia so far this year, a faster pace than last year’s record-setting 125 air strikes. Yesterday, Trump re-upped his viciously racist smears on Somalia and Somali-Americans:

SCOTUS Has Its Limits With Trump

Trump’s racist threat against Iran came on the same day he became the first U.S. president to sit in on Supreme Court oral arguments, where he hoped to bully the conservative justices on the birthright citizenship case, itself a sour stew of xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy.

Recapping TPM’s coverage:

• LIVEBLOG: The Supreme Court Decides Who Is Really American In Blockbuster Arguments

• Josh Kovensky: Nativists Loom Over SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Arguments

• Kate Riga: Justices Express Skepticism Over Birthright Citizenship Case They Never Should Have Taken in the First Place

Quote of the Day

“Don’t get me wrong: I’m relieved that this case is shaping up as either 8-1 or 7-2 against the Trump executive order. But the case is a gift to the Supreme Court. By rejecting an outlandish position, it will earn credibility as apolitical, even as the Overton window moves far to the right.”—Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf, on the birthright citizenship case

Mass Deportation Watch

Birthright citizenship is the brass ring of Trump’s mass deportation operation, which licenses the racist targeting of people of color, with appalling violations of civil rights, human rights, and basic decency:

• The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death of nearly blind Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam, who was dumped by Border Patrol officers outside a closed Tim Hortons in Buffalo in freezing February weather, a homicide.

• U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston of Fresno, California, ruled that a Customs and Border Protetion operation last year in a Home Depot parking lot in Sacramento violated her ban against random immigration sweeps, which she had found were based on racial profiling.

The Corruption: DHS Edition

The virulent racism of Trump’s mass deportation operation is an opportunity to cash in, for everyone from detention center contractors to big tech to, allegedly, officials themselves.

The DHS inspector general has reportedly undertaken an “expansive inquiry” into Corey Lewandowski’s handling of contracts while serving as a special government employee under former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the NYT reports. Elements of the investigation have been previously reported.

New DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin yesterday rescinded the Noem-era policy that every contract of more than $100,000 had to be approved by the secretary — which created a chokepoint for Lewandowski, according to various reports. The new threshold for secretary review is $25 million, according to CBS News.

DHS Shutdown Nears End

Earlier the morning, the Senate re-sent its DHS funding bill to the House, which is now expected to pass it eventually after a deal was struck between Senate Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson and the White House under which the House GOP and President Trump will pass the Senate version it rejected only a few days ago.

Dems Sue Over New Trump Election EO

Democrats — including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY), the DNC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Governors Association — sued to block Trump’s latest executive order on elections, which is both about seizing the election administration apparatus from states and throwing up inane new procedural hurdles to voting that will disproportionately impact people of color.

Mahmoud Khalil Seeks Bove Recusal

Pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, targeted by the Trump administration for removal because of his political views, is seeking the recusal of appeals court Judge Emil Bove, the former Trump DOJ official who now sits on the Third Circuit.

“Judge Bove wrote memoranda about and directed immigration enforcement investigations and decisions against student protesters on college campuses — particularly at Columbia University, where Mr. Khalil was enrolled,” Khalil’s attorneys argued in a new filing.

Trump DOJ Watch: Bondi on the Outs?

President Trump has openly talked about firing Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with Lee Zeldin, the former congressman who is now the EPA administrator.

Jan. 6 Never Ends

• Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman on the Trump DOJ’s settlement with Mike Flynn: “It’s a rigged carny game, in which the marks are the American people. And Flynn won’t be the last to try his hand at it.”

• In a flurry of filings — sealed and unsealed — attorneys for accused Capitol Hill pipe bomber Brian J. Cole Jr., signaled that their defense will include a counter-narrative that a former Capitol Police officer who was briefly investigated by the F.B.I. was the real culprit.

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