The Daily Brief - Mar. 19, 2026
The latest on congressional testimony by top intelligence officials, Pentagon funding, and more
These are today’s top stories, delivered straight to your inbox. Read below to catch up on all the news you might’ve missed.
Pentagon Funding and War Powers Resolution
The Pentagon requested $200 billion from Congress for the war with Iran. The funds would be in addition to its current budget of more than $800 billion for the fiscal year.
“Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys,” said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He also said that the size of the request was not fixed and “could move.” President Trump later defended the request, saying, “We’re asking for a lot of reasons, beyond even what we’re talking about in Iran.”
Separately, the Senate on Wednesday declined to limit Trump’s war powers in Iran. A resolution proposed by Sen. Cory Booker would have required the president to “remove the United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or a specific authorization for use of military force.” The Senate rejected the measure by a 53–47 vote, with Republican Rand Paul siding with Democrats to vote in favor and Democrat John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposition. It was the third time the Senate has voted down such a resolution.
Energy Disruption
Oil prices rose following attacks on Persian Gulf energy infrastructure.
On Wednesday, Israel attacked facilities tied to Iran’s part of the offshore South Pars natural gas field, which it shares with Qatar. Iran responded by attacking oil facilities in several Arab Gulf states, including Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest terminal for liquefied natural gas.
On Thursday, the price of Brent crude, the world oil benchmark, hit $119 per barrel before settling around $111. Immediately before the war it was trading around $70 per barrel. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was more than $3.88 on Thursday, up from $2.98 the day before the war started.
Iranian attacks on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have stopped most Middle Eastern oil from leaving the Persian Gulf, although Iran continues to export much of its own oil, mainly to China. US officials have said that reopening the strait is a priority and called on other nations to help with the effort.
Counterterrorism Official Under Investigation
Joe Kent, the counterterrorism official who quit earlier this week over the Iran war, is under investigation by the FBI for possibly leaking sensitive information.
Sources with direct knowledge said the investigation was started before Kent resigned, with one saying it had been going on for months.
A source told Axios that Kent is thought to have given information to Tucker Carlson and a conservative podcast host. The FBI was also looking into whether he leaked intelligence on Israel and Iran.
WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Kent’s claims in his resignation letter, including that President Trump started the war in Iran because of pressure from Israel and the media, was “insulting and laughable.”
Newsbreak
New York Times bestselling author and Duke University professor Kate Bowler offers a profound, funny, and deeply human case for joy that doesn’t depend on everything getting better.
You can’t always be happy, but you can be joyful, anyway.
We live in a culture convinced that chasing happiness will optimize our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our lives. But in the meantime, bad news usually stays bad: illness, chronic pain, grief, and disappointment don’t obey our timelines or vision boards. We are left wondering why, if we’re doing everything right, life still feels so hard.
Honest and bracingly tender, Joyful, Anyway proves that experiencing joy does not depend on resolving everything that makes life difficult. Drawing on a decade of living with serious illness and a lifetime studying America’s obsession with progress, Kate Bowler shows why people so busy chasing happiness miss out on actual joy.
Intelligence Chiefs Testimony
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other intelligence leaders —including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel — testified before the House of Representatives today at the Worldwide Threat Assessment hearing.
Both Gabbard and Ratcliffe refused to answer questions about whether Iran was close to achieving a nuclear weapon. In her testimony, Gabbard reiterated comments from yesterday’s Senate hearing stating that President Trump — not the intelligence community — was responsible for deciding whether or not Iran constituted an “imminent threat” to the US before the war began. She would only say that Iran “maintained the intention to rebuild its infrastructure and nuclear enrichment capability” after last year’s US strikes on nuclear sites in the country.
Gabbard also said that before attacking Iran, President Trump was briefed on the potential impacts to oil and gas prices.
Rep. Elise Stefanik asked Gabbard about Joe Kent, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned this week in protest of the Iran War. Gabbard said she was concerned by Kent’s statements that Israel used misinformation to lure the US into war with Iran, and she acknowledged that the US and Israel have different objectives in the war, with Israel being focused on dismantling Iranian leadership, while the US’s goals are to destroy Iran’s weapons infrastructure.
Liam Conejo Ramos
A judge has denied the asylum claim for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy photographed wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack when he was detained by immigration enforcement officers in Minneapolis. According to a lawyer for the family, after the Trump administration requested that the family’s asylum application be terminated without a hearing, an immigration judge in New York agreed and ordered them to be deported.
The family includes Liam, his parents Adrian Conejo Arias and Erika Ramos, and his 13-year-old brother.
The family has appealed the judge’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and will be allowed to stay in the country until the case is decided. If the appeal is denied, the family could be deported to Ecuador.
Cesar Chavez Abuse
Civil Rights leader Cesar Chavez — who was one of the most influential and respected leaders in the farmworkers movement in the 1960s — is now being accused of repeated sexual abuse of girls and women.
A New York Times investigation, which took years, included interviews with several women who said Chavez abused and raped them, some when they were children.
One girl was only 13 years old when she says the abuse started. Chavez was 45. She said it went on for years. Another woman said she was 12 when he first assaulted her. Both said he started grooming them when they were only 8 or 9 years old.
Dolores Huerta, an activist who worked side-by-side with Chavez in the United Farm Workers movement, said that she had two sexual encounters with him, including one where she was raped. Both times she got pregnant.
She hid the pregnancies and gave the children to other families to raise. She said she never spoke out because she was afraid it would hurt the labor movement she had worked tirelessly for. Huerta is now 96 years old, and this is the first time she’s talked publicly about what happened.
The New York Times used 23andMe to determine Chavez had at least four children with three women who were not his wife.
Chavez died in 1993 but up until now he has been revered for his work. Schools, parks, buildings, and streets have been named after him, and events are held in cities around the country on March 31 for Cesar Chavez Day.
The LA Times says momentum is building to strip his name from those places, and the Cesar Chavez Foundation canceled the upcoming celebrations. California lawmakers also said Thursday they will rename Cesar Chavez Day to “Farmworkers Day.”
Mullin Moves Forward
Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to become Homeland Security Secretary has moved forward despite Republican Rand Paul voting against him.
Democratic Senator John Fetterman voted yes to advance his nomination.
All cabinet secretary nominees must first be moved forward by a Senate committee vote. In this case, that’s the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Paul. The final committee vote was 8-7.
His nomination will now go to a vote in the full Senate, where he is expected to be confirmed.
Post Office
US Postmaster General David Steiner told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that the Postal Service could run out of money by October or November of this year.
Steiner informed members of the Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, which oversees the service, that the USPS lost $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024 and $9 billion in fiscal year 2025. In the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, it lost almost $1.3 billion.
“We’re in a crisis,” Steiner said.
He asked lawmakers to let the Postal Service raise the cost of postage, close post offices, or end six-day-per-week mail service in order to remain solvent. Any of these steps would require the approval of Congress.
Thank you for highlighting Kate Bowler’s book
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