Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, we dig into why Democrats are still setting their sights on Kristi Noem even after President Donald Trump fired her as homeland security secretary. Plus, Kristen Welker lays out three key questions about the war in Iran.
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— Adam Wollner
Democrats aren’t done with Kristi Noem
By Natasha Korecki and Scott Wong
Kristi Noem may be out as head of the Department of Homeland Security, but Democrats are still demanding a “reckoning.”
Democrats met news of Noem’s ouster with a cascade of calls for accountability. They ranged from a potential probe into the legality of contracts cut during her tenure to a perjury investigation after her congressional testimony, to even a push for impeachment to keep her from holding public office in the future.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats vowed to probe Noem’s time as homeland security secretary if they took back power in the November midterm elections, while at least two congressional candidates called for a future criminal prosecution.
“We need a reckoning with the fact that there were murders that took place under her watch. There was mass violence and violation of people’s civil rights and civil liberties. There’s been intense corruption, and there’s been rampant lying in the courts and disobeying of court orders,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who will be chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee if Democrats win this fall, said in an interview. His panel has oversight of federal immigration enforcement.
“We need to have a cleaning of house at the Department of Homeland Security,” he added, “and a repudiation of all of these terrible policies of corruption, cover-up, lying and authoritarian violence against citizens and immigrants.”
Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a member of House Democratic leadership who is also on the Judiciary Committee, vowed investigations would come.
“She abused her power. She engaged in corruption. She spent millions of taxpayer funds on a luxury jet fleet with beautiful bedrooms, and her masked federal agents killed Americans,” Lieu, the vice chair of the caucus, told NBC News. “We’ll definitely investigate anyone within DHS who violated criminal law.”
Lieu outlined potential lines of inquiry after Noem’s tumultuous tenure, from the deaths of detainees on her watch to the surveillance of Americans who were observing immigration officers and the controversial purchase of a luxury jet fleet.
And Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., still wants Noem to be impeached to ensure that she does not hold public office in the future, an aide said.
“We still have to impeach her, Melt ICE, and dismantle DHS,” Ramirez wrote on X. Ramirez met with Noem just last week and demanded her resignation.
➡️ Related: Trump tells NBC News he ‘wasn’t thrilled’ with Noem’s $220M ad campaign on self-deportation, by Garrett Haake
3 key questions about the Iran war
Analysis by Kristen Welker
Nearly one week since the U.S. and Israel began launching strikes against Iran, there are still many questions about the next steps and the political fallout.
1. How could this war come to an end?
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning.
Trump has said he wants to decimate Iran’s nuclear program, saying in an interview with TIME magazine, “They can’t have a nuclear weapon. That’s number one, two, and three. Number four, no ballistic missiles.”
But Trump has also suggested he wants to see new leadership in Iran, telling NBC News’ Garrett Haake in a phone call, “We want to go in and clean out everything. We don’t want someone who would rebuild over a 10-year period.”
“We want them to have a good leader. We have some people who I think would do a good job,” Trump said, without offering specifics.
2. How long will this war last?
Trump has argued the war is ahead of schedule and is promising the U.S. will get out in a matter of weeks. But he has left open the possibility that American troops will be on the ground, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that he is “confident” his country could counter a ground invasion.
Trump told Garrett that Araghchi’s remark was a “wasted comment.”
“It’s a waste of time. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose,” Trump said.
3. How will Americans respond?
Our latest NBC News poll shows 54% of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran, while 41% approve. And a majority of voters (52%) say the U.S. should not have taken military action against Iran, while 41% say it should have and 7% say they aren’t sure.
The poll finds 90% of self-identified MAGA-aligned Republicans back the strikes, but there have been some vocal critics among high-profile Trump supporters.
It remains to be seen whether Americans’ views of the war will shift as it continues, with more potential casualties and as gas prices spike. The administration is scrambling behind the scenes to find ways to address those higher gas prices.
But the longer the war stretches out, the more it runs the risk of complicating the president’s political standing.
We’ll delve into the latest on the war in Iran on “Meet the Press” this Sunday with Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Steve Kornacki will also join to break down the results from our latest NBC News poll.
➡️ Related: Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on the location of U.S. forces, sources say, by Dan De Luce, Monica Alba, Gordon Lubold and Julie Tsirkin
🗞️ Today's other top stories
- 💼 Jobs report: The U.S. shed 92,000 jobs in February and previous months of growth were not as strong as previously reported, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in a report that will raise alarms about the state of the economy. Read more →
- 🇨🇺 Up next?: As Trump suggests that Cuba could soon fall, his administration has begun exploring whether federal prosecutors could charge members of the regime or the Communist Party with crimes. Read more →
- 📝 Epstein saga: The Justice Department released previously unseen documents from the Epstein files that included new summaries and notes from interviews the FBI conducted with a woman from South Carolina who made allegations against the late sex offender and Trump. Read more →
- 🗳️ Bowing out: Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, announced he will drop his bid for re-election but will serve out the rest of his term in Congress after he admitted to having had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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