标签： North America

March 2025 emerged as an unplanned, high-stakes stress test for U.S. counterterrorism authorities, with a rapid string of violent incidents that put years of warnings about eroded national security capacity to the test. The month began with a gunman wearing an Iranian flag shirt under his outer layer opening fire at a Texas bar, leaving three people dead. It continued with a homemade explosive attack outside the New York City mayor’s residence, followed by a fatal shooting on a Virginia college campus and a car-ramming targeting a Michigan synagogue, both occurring on the same afternoon in mid-March. By the end of the month, federal agents had taken a man into custody for threatening to carry out a mass shooting at an Ohio mosque.

For dozens of current and former national security officials who spoke to ProPublica on condition of anonymity over fears of administration retaliation, this string of attacks is not a random coincidence—it is the warning sign they predicted when President Donald Trump redirected massive amounts of counterterrorism resources to his mass deportation campaign shortly after returning to office in 2025. They had long cautioned that shifting personnel and cutting funding would leave the U.S. vulnerable if rising global tensions sparked domestic threats, a risk that has become immediate now that the U.S. is engaged in open war with Iran, a nation long designated a state sponsor of terrorism. Today, with leadership turnover widespread and critical institutional expertise gutted from security agencies, officials warn the country is facing a dangerous and underprepared standoff.

At the center of growing scrutiny is Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism adviser tapped to draft a national strategy to tackle both international and homegrown extremist threats. Gorka first promised the strategy was “imminent” nearly a year ago, repeatedly pushed back its release date—claiming it was “on the cusp” of being unveiled in July, October, and January—and as of mid-2025, no public document has been released, and no explanation for the delay has been offered.

Current and former counterterrorism personnel say when the strategy is finally released, it will likely prioritize political positioning over evidence-based intelligence, offering little actionable guidance to address threats that have grown sharper after a year of deep cuts across national security agencies. A former senior official who served in the first Trump administration summed up the widespread concern: “Strategies are only worth the amount of resources you put into them. We’re entering very dangerous territory.”

Gorka’s path to this high-stakes role is a study in the transformation of U.S. counterterrorism policy during Trump’s second term. Born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, Gorka built his career in the post-9/11 cottage industry of self-styled terrorism experts, where he gained a reputation for hardline, often inflammatory rhetoric framing counterterrorism as a civilizational conflict between the West and Islamist militants. Civil liberties watchdogs and former colleagues have long criticized his framework for maligning Islam and targeting ordinary American Muslims, claims Gorka has repeatedly dismissed as absurd, framing his work as focusing on radicalization rather than the faith as a whole.

Gorka’s first stint in the first Trump administration ended after just seven months, when he was forced out by moderate White House staffers amid widespread criticism over his ties to a Hungarian far-right group with historic Nazi ties (ties he continues to deny) and questions over whether he could obtain a full security clearance. After leaving office, he hosted a right-wing podcast and appeared in commercial ads before the 2024 election that returned Trump to power paved the way for a phoenixlike comeback. His unwavering loyalty to the MAGA movement earned him the top counterterrorism role, a position he has called a 25-year dream job.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, Gorka largely flew under the radar as the administration focused on dismantling federal agencies and building a restrictive, heavily armed immigration enforcement force. But the outbreak of war with Iran has pushed his role back into the spotlight, as experts warn that depleted security capacity leaves the U.S. exposed to retaliatory attacks at home and abroad.

The extent of that depletion has become increasingly clear in recent weeks. CNN recently reported that just days before U.S. military operations against Iran began, FBI Director Kash Patel purged a dozen counterintelligence agents focused on monitoring Iranian threats, part of a wider purge that has removed roughly 300 counterterrorism specialists from the bureau. Former officials say losing this many trained experts at once has been devastating for the granular, relationship-driven work of preventing terrorist attacks.

A former senior Justice Department official explained: “I don’t think about it in raw numbers. I think about the wealth of expertise and knowledge that has been cut across all levels. What you lose is that nuance — with a smaller team, you can only go so deep.” An FBI spokesperson defended the bureau’s work, noting that agents disrupted four domestic terrorist plots in December 2024 alone and saying the bureau continuously realigns resources to protect the American public.

Leadership turnover has compounded the resource gaps. Gorka’s original supervisor, former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, was reassigned to the U.S. mission to the United Nations following the Signalgate scandal, leaving oversight to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is already overwhelmed by managing the Iran war. Just last month, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in protest of the Iran conflict, arguing it was pushing the U.S. toward decline and chaos. Gorka publicly condemned Kent as an “utter disgrace” and has since been reported by The Washington Post to be angling for the open role himself, a move that would give him expanded power but likely face a contentious Senate confirmation fight.

Government budget documents confirm the widespread strain: the Justice Department’s National Security Division has openly acknowledged it faces “unprecedented personnel constraints,” with a 40% drop in the number of national security prosecutors and growing struggles to keep up with rising caseloads. At the State Department, former officials say the entire dedicated counterterrorism Iran threat prevention team was eliminated, and remaining Iran specialists were reassigned to regional offices where counterterrorism is just one of many competing priorities. While some specialists shifted to immigration enforcement have been reassigned back to counterterrorism following the outbreak of war, experts say the sudden reshuffling has disrupted ongoing investigations, as personnel must spend weeks or months catching up on stalled cases.

Ben Connable, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who now leads the nonprofit Battle Research Group, explained the risk: “If you’ve dropped all the cases and have taken people off the target set for an extended period of time, you can’t just drop back in and pick up where you left off. The men and women who are back on that portfolio are going to have to play catch-up, and that conveys risk.”

Even basic public transparency around threat levels has stopped. The Department of Homeland Security has not issued a public national terrorism advisory bulletin, the regular update that alerts the public to changing threat levels, since September 2024, and has not released its annual mandatory Homeland Threat Assessment since Trump returned to office. A DHS spokesperson blamed the delay on a Democratic-led shutdown of the department.

Gorka’s leadership style has deepened concerns among serving and former officials. A mercurial, bombastic figure with a thick British accent, Gorka has openly reveled in U.S. counterterrorism strikes, describing targeted militants as “human filth” and bragging about watching a 2025 strike in Somalia that turned a recruiter into “a cloud of red mist,” a description he has repeated dozens of times in public appearances. He often screens declassified footage of strikes for audiences, leaving multiple State Department staffers who attended one event horrified by what they described as glee over graphic violence.

Counterterrorism analysts say Gorka’s claims of massive battlefield success—including his claim that the administration has killed 759 “leading jihadis” since taking office—are heavily exaggerated. Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, noted that there are fewer than 10 high-profile leading Islamist militants active globally, making Gorka’s count implausible, and most of those killed are likely low-level foot soldiers. Critics also note the administration eliminated the Pentagon office tasked with tracking civilian casualties from U.S. strikes, leaving uninvestigated reports of civilian harm in Somalia, Yemen, and other active operation zones.

When ProPublica reached out to Gorka for comment for this report, he declined, responding with insults on social media and calling the inquiry a “putrid piece of hackery.” He defended the administration’s record, noting it has rescued more American hostages in its first year than the Biden administration rescued in four full years. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended Gorka’s work and the administration’s restructuring, arguing that the changes have made the U.S. foreign policy apparatus more responsive to threats and claiming “our homeland is more secure than ever.”

Even as pressure builds to release his long-promised national counterterrorism strategy, Gorka has sidelined traditional interagency input, telling colleagues he is drafting the entire document himself with no input from partner federal agencies. One official briefed on an early draft described it as little more than a superficial listing of broad threat categories, with no actionable plans to address gaps in capacity. When asked most recently about the release date at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, Gorka said he had been told to cut the massive document down to a shorter length and would submit the revised draft for presidential approval, asking the audience to “keep your fingers crossed” for a timely release.

For national security analysts, the delay, depleted resources, and leadership chaos add up to a dangerous moment for U.S. homeland security. Writing in an op-ed, Clarke and terrorism scholar Jacob Ware noted that a clear public strategy could help address uncertainty at a time when “defenses are divided, disorganized and under-resourced.” As they put it: “In counterterrorism, inattention can be deadly.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a candid interview with CNBC on Tuesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump shared his latest outlook on diplomatic negotiations with Iran, saying he remains confident that Washington will ultimately reach a favorable agreement with Tehran even as he ruled out extending the current temporary ceasefire, which is set to expire this Wednesday.

When discussing the shifting landscape of Iran’s leadership, Trump argued that the removal of the country’s top former figures has created an unexpected shift in the negotiation dynamic. “We’ve taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate things in one way, but these leaders are much more rational,” he told the business news network. Trump also suggested that Iran has little alternative but to reach a negotiated settlement with the United States, adding “I think they have no choice.”

Pressed on whether he would consider extending the current truce to create more time for diplomatic dialogue, Trump offered a definitive rejection of the idea, saying “Well, I don’t want to do that.” The comment comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, with the clock ticking down on the temporary ceasefire that has paused active military clashes between the two sides in recent weeks. The rejection of an extension has left regional observers watching closely to see whether diplomatic progress can be achieved before the truce lapses, or whether active hostilities will resume after Wednesday.

In a high-profile alignment with conservative Christian politics that underscores deep divides over religion’s role in U.S. public life, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump is set to feature in a marathon continuous Bible reading event organized by right-wing Christian groups, just weeks after he sparked backlash over controversial AI-generated imagery and opened a public rift with Pope Leo XIV.

The week-long initiative, dubbed “America Reads the Bible,” launched on April 18 at Washington D.C.’s Museum of the Bible, timed to coincide with commemorations of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Trump’s contribution, a pre-recorded reading from the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles, will air during the event’s Tuesday evening programming. The passage he will deliver is a favorite among U.S. Christian conservatives, widely interpreted as a divine promise that national healing and blessing follow collective repentance and spiritual turning.

The event has drawn dozens of prominent public figures, including senior members of the Trump administration: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are both participating, sharing their own selected biblical passages throughout the week. Hegseth, a longtime advocate for elevating Christian influence in government, has already integrated explicit biblical references into official Pentagon press briefings and regularly leads department-wide prayer gatherings, reflecting the broader Trump administration’s open embrace of the New Christian Right movement that frames Christianity as a foundational, non-negotiable element of U.S. national identity. This stance stands in quiet tension with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition on government establishment of a national religion, a line that conservative Christian activists have long pushed to reinterpret.

Event organizers frame the project as a deliberate effort to encourage what they call a “return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped our country.” According to event organizers, Trump’s reading was pre-taped earlier in the White House Oval Office, eliminating any need for an in-person appearance at the museum. The core line of his selected passage reads: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Trump’s participation comes amid two unfolding religious controversies that have put his relationship with faith and institutional Christianity under renewed scrutiny. First, the president is currently engaged in a public dispute with Pope Leo XIV, who recently slammed U.S. military action in Iran during an official visit to Cameroon. In that address, the pontiff issued a sharp rebuke to leaders who “manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” Though the Pope did not name Trump directly, the comment was widely interpreted as a critique of the president’s blending of faith and foreign policy. Speaking to reporters last Friday, Trump pushed back openly, saying “I have a right to disagree with the Pope.”

Second, the event comes just days after Trump drew criticism even from some of his own religious supporters for sharing a pair of AI-generated images that cast him in messianic terms. The first image depicted Trump with visual parallels to Jesus, appearing to heal sick people. After facing backlash, Trump removed the post, claiming he had originally interpreted the image as portraying him as a medical doctor rather than a Christ-like figure. He quickly replaced it with a second AI-generated image showing Jesus embracing Trump, paired with the caption: “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” That post remains online.

A sitting Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, has formally stepped down from her congressional seat, capping off a high-stakes ethics probe that uncovered more than two dozen rules violations spanning campaign finance misconduct and misuse of federal disaster funds. The 46-year-old lawmaker, who first won election to Congress in a 2022 special election, had been on the brink of a rare full-chamber expulsion vote after the bipartisan House Ethics Committee released its damning factual findings earlier this month.

The core of the allegations against Cherfilus-McCormick centers on her alleged misuse of millions in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding. Federal prosecutors have charged she and an unnamed co-conspirator diverted roughly $5 million in disaster relief funds from a FEMA contract that her family-owned health care company held. According to charging documents, the funds were funneled to friends and family members, who then redirected the money back to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 special election campaign as falsely labeled personal campaign donations.

In her public resignation announcement shared via social media, Cherfilus-McCormick has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, framing the congressional investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Arguing that the Ethics Committee blocked her legal team from mounting a full and fair defense while the parallel federal criminal proceeding was ongoing, she said she chose to step down rather than engage in what she called partisan political games. “Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away,” her statement read, adding that the overlapping investigations left her unable to properly defend herself against the claims.

If the case against her goes to trial and she is convicted on all federal charges, Cherfilus-McCormick faces a maximum potential sentence of 53 years in federal prison. Her criminal trial was recently delayed until February 2027, giving both legal teams additional time to prepare their cases.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters last week that the Ethics Committee’s findings left little room for dispute, noting that the bipartisan panel had uncovered “clear and convincing evidence” of rulebreaking and that Cherfilus-McCormick’s removal from Congress was all but guaranteed. “The Ethics Committee has gone through all of its processes, and they found some alarming facts,” Johnson said. “I think the facts are indisputable at this point.”

Cherfilus-McCormick’s exit marks the third high-profile congressional resignation in April 2025, all from members who opted to step down rather than face formal expulsion votes. Earlier this month, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell and Republican Representative Tony Gonzales resigned their seats ahead of expulsion proceedings stemming from separate sexual misconduct allegations. The last time the full House voted to expel a sitting member was in 2023, when New York Republican George Santos was removed from office – the first congressional expulsion in two decades prior to this month’s string of departures.

A contentious Capitol Hill confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, former Federal Reserve governor and U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, devolved into sharp clashes between Warsh and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, with explosive allegations ranging from undue presidential influence to unanswered questions about ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The high-stakes showdown has put the future of the central bank’s long-held independence and U.S. monetary policy trajectory in the national spotlight.

Leading the opposition against Warsh was Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee that oversees the confirmation process. Warren opened with a searing accusation that Warsh would serve as nothing more than Trump’s “sock puppet” at the central bank, a claim that set the tone for the entire hearing. Trump has publicly pushed for deep interest rate cuts, arguing that looser monetary policy is required to stimulate continued growth in the U.S. economy, and has openly signaled he expects Warsh to align with his policy agenda if confirmed. Warren warned that placing a pliant leader in charge of the Fed would give Trump unprecedented access to the central bank’s policy tools, which he could exploit to enrich himself, his family, and his close allies in the Wall Street financial sector. When pressed directly on whether he would act as a loyalist to the president, Warsh pushed back firmly, telling the committee “Absolutely not.” He reaffirmed that the Federal Reserve’s institutional independence is non-negotiable and essential to its function, vowing to protect the central bank’s self-governance if he is confirmed to the post.

Beyond the question of political influence, Warren also pressed Warsh on his extensive undisclosed financial holdings and potential connections to Epstein, the convicted paedophile financier who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Warsh has publicly disclosed that his personal assets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including a stake in an investment fund valued at no less than $100 million. However, he has refused to detail the underlying assets held by that fund. In her questioning, Warren asked whether the fund holds stakes in companies linked to Trump or his family, entities that have been tied to money laundering, Chinese-controlled firms, or financing vehicles created by Epstein. Warsh declined to give a direct answer to the question, only stating that he plans to fully divest all of his conflicting financial holdings if and when he is officially confirmed to the chairmanship. Warsh’s name appears multiple times in Department of Justice court records connected to the Epstein case, though court officials have emphasized that a mention in the files does not inherently indicate any wrongdoing on Warsh’s part. Warsh also used the hearing to deny widespread reports that he had struck a quid pro quo deal with Trump: cutting interest rates in exchange for the Fed chair nomination. “The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period, and nor would I ever agree to do so if he had, but he never did,” he stated. This denial was directly contradicted by Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, who cited a 2025 Wall Street Journal report that claimed Trump had pressured Warsh to commit to lower borrowing costs during a private meeting. The hearing took place just hours after Trump told CNBC in an interview that he would be “disappointed” if Warsh did not move to cut interest rates immediately after taking office. Interest rate decisions made by the Federal Reserve ripple through every corner of the U.S. economy, impacting everything from residential mortgage rates and consumer auto loans to corporate borrowing costs for small and large businesses alike.

While support and opposition to Warsh’s nomination largely broke along partisan lines, the process hit an unexpected snag from within the Republican caucus: Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina became the lone GOP member to withhold his support for the nominee. Notably, Tillis is not running for re-election in the upcoming cycle, and he clarified that he does not oppose Warsh personally, praising what he called Warsh’s “extraordinary credentials” for the role. However, Tillis has placed a hold on Warsh’s confirmation, demanding that a congressional inquiry into outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell over cost overruns on a Federal Reserve building renovation project be dropped before he will allow a vote on the nominee. Trump has had repeated public and private clashes with Powell over the Fed’s monetary policy over the course of his presidency. Tillis argued that the cost overruns, while “unfortunate”, were “legitimate”, citing unforeseen structural issues with the century-old existing building and global increases in construction material costs that drove up the final budget. If Warsh is not confirmed by May 15, the end date of Powell’s current term, Powell has stated he will remain in the post until a successor is confirmed. Tillis’s blockade makes it increasingly likely that Powell will stay on in the role beyond his scheduled term end.

Beyond the political clashes, Warsh used the hearing to outline his policy agenda for the central bank if confirmed, revealing plans to overhaul core Fed practices around inflation measurement and public communication of monetary policy. In his opening remarks, Warsh criticized the Fed’s longstanding practice of “forward guidance”, the system of public communications that signals the likely future path of interest rates to markets and the public. He argued that this policy has become “unhelpful” to market stability, saying he prefers “messier” Fed policy meetings that do not rely on “rehearsed scripts” for public announcements. Warsh also pledged to implement a “new inflation framework”, signaling that he plans to abandon the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index that the Fed has relied on for decades to set its inflation targets. It remains unclear exactly what metrics Warsh would adopt to replace PCE, or how his new framework would change the Fed’s approach to monetary policy going forward. When pressed by Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware on his previous calls for “regime change” at the Fed – with Rochester asking whether he planned to fire regional Fed presidents who participate in monetary policy voting – Warsh clarified that he was calling for change to policy frameworks, not a purge of sitting Fed officials.

Amid escalating armed conflict between the U.S.-Israel coalition and Iran that has roiled global energy markets, former U.S. President Donald Trump has enacted sweeping emergency energy measures, drawing on wartime federal authority to ramp up domestic energy production and stabilize volatile consumer energy costs. On Monday, Trump signed five separate presidential memorandums activating the 1950 Defense Production Act, a decades-old law that grants the executive branch expanded powers to compel and support domestic industrial output to meet national security needs.

The five executive actions target five core pillars of U.S. energy security: domestic petroleum production, coal development, liquefied natural gas (LNG) expansion, general energy infrastructure upgrades, and modernization of the national power grid. As outlined in the official directives, the law will be used to allocate federal funding to a broad portfolio of domestic energy projects that are deemed critical to shoring up supply amid the Middle East crisis.

Enacted at the start of the Korean War, the Defense Production Act has long been a standby tool for U.S. presidents responding to national security and public emergencies, granting expansive authority to align domestic industrial capacity with pressing defense and public stability requirements. This latest activation comes as the Trump administration faces growing political pressure from voters and industry stakeholders to rein in skyrocketing prices for oil, gasoline, and electricity, all of which have spiked in recent weeks amid conflict-related supply chain disruptions in the global energy market.

Media reports confirm that a wide range of projects will qualify for federal support under the new memorandums. Eligible infrastructure includes existing and new coal-fired power plants, domestic oil refining facilities, and manufacturing sites that produce critical electrical grid components including gas turbines and transformers – a category of equipment that has already faced widespread national shortages in recent years, exacerbating grid reliability challenges across multiple U.S. regions.