Fresh strikes on southern Iran were launched by U.S. military forces early Tuesday morning targeting Iranian missile sites and vessels attempting to lay anti-shipping mines in the contested Strait of Hormuz.

The post U.S. Launches Fresh Strikes on Iran Hitting Missile Sites, Minelaying Vessels appeared first on Breitbart.

AUSTIN, TX – President Donald Trump has a new target this week as he takes aim at Republican critics — longtime GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

Trump is targeting Cornyn as “VERY disloyal” as he backs Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major Trump ally and MAGA firebrand, in Tuesday’s combustible and expensive runoff election for the GOP Senate nomination in the right-leaning state. The ballot box showdown serves as the latest tests of Trump’s immense grip over the Republican Party and the strength of his endorsements in GOP nomination races.

The winner of the runoff will face off against rising Democratic Party star state Rep. James Talarico in the general election in a race that is among a handful that may decide if the Republicans hold their slim 53-47 majority in the Senate. Talarico, who topped progressive star Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a vocal Trump critic, in the March primary, is trying to become the first Democrat in nearly four decades to win a Senate election in Texas.

The Senate contest is the most high-profile showdown on a ballot that also includes Democratic and Republican runoffs for Texas Attorney General, as well as key primary battles for four U.S. House seats, including a Democratic Party runoff in the 35th Congressional District where one of the two candidates in a social media post proposed converting an ICE detention center into a prison for American supporters of Israel.

TRUMP BACKS MAGA ALLY PAXTON IN TEXAS SHOWDOWN WITH CORNYN

Trump’s targeting of Cornyn comes three weeks after the purging five state senators in Indiana’s primary who had opposed his push for congressional redistricting, a week and a half after helping to oust Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana — who five and a half years ago voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial – and one week after defeating vocal GOP critic Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky.

The Texas runoff is also being held one week after Trump endorsed Paxton, after sitting on the sidelines in the race for months.

“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote in a social media post last Tuesday.

The two heated rivals topped a crowded field of contenders in the early March primary, with Cornyn edging Paxton. But since neither cleared the 50% threshold, the nomination race headed into overtime.

Trump, in backing Paxton, said that “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

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Pointing to the senator’s past criticism of him, Trump added, “John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency.”

Cornyn, in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff, emphasized his support for the president and his agenda.

“President Trump has called me a friend and a good man, and we’ve worked with him closely for both terms of office,” the senator said.

Paxton, who grabbed significant national attention the past dozen years by filing lawsuits against the Obama and Biden administrations, disagreed.

“John Cornyn fought Trump on the border. And you can go back over about a decade and see that he was not for the border wall,” Paxton charged in an interview on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show.”

CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME

Paxton also argued that the senator “fought the president’s reelection. He fought him in 2024, said his time had passed, and he fought him in 2016. So this is not a pro-Trump guy. I don’t know if we could be more different on the Republican issues than John Cornyn and me. So there is a vast difference between the two of us.”

Cornyn pushed back.

“I don’t know how much more with him I could be than 99.3% of the time,” the senator told Fox News Digital.

“I want him to be successful. I want America to be successful, and I want Republicans to be successful. But you know, in the end, as I said, Texans are the only ones going to be able to make a choice, and I think Texans can be pretty independent,” Cornyn added.

Paxton has faced a slew of scandals and legal problems that have battered him over the past decade. In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach Paxton, but he was eventually acquitted of all charges by the state senate.

And Paxton is dealing with a very messy divorce, with his wife citing “biblical grounds” based on “recent discoveries” in filing last year to end their marriage.

Cornyn, who is supported by Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has repeatedly argued that if Paxton is the GOP’s nominee, the party will be forced to spend millions of dollars to keep the seat from flipping and that Republicans down-ballot will suffer.

“He’s gotten more and more emboldened as he’s gotten away with all the scandal and mischief that now is very well known, but were he to be the nominee and be exposed to general election voters, especially independents, I think it’s going to be a very rocky time,” the senator predicted.

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And pointing to Talarico, who hauled in an eye-popping $27 million in fundraising during the first three months of this year, Cornyn said “there will be an incredible tsunami of Democratic funds coming in against Paxton, were he the nominee. Conversely…if I am the nominee…we’ll be able to shoulder the burden pretty much on our own. I won my last general election by 10 points. I think I can do similarly against somebody who’s as far left and radical as James Talarico.”

While Paxton has shifted his ads to target Talarico in the wake of the Trump endorsement, Cornyn and allied groups continue to blast Paxton.

“I don’t think anybody could honestly argue that we haven’t fought hard to make the case here,” Cornyn said of his campaign.

And he emphatically said he’s “worked too long and too hard to help build the Republican Party in Texas, and in the United States Senate, and to keep Texas the envy of the nation when it comes to opportunities and pursuing the American dream, to let that go, to squander it, and let it go without a fight. So I’m still optimistic on the outcome, but obviously it depends on who shows up.”

The other statewide runoff in Texas is for attorney general, in the race to succeed Paxton.

In the expensive GOP showdown, four-term Rep. Chip Roy is battling state Sen. Mayes Middleton, the president of an independent oil and gas company.

Middleton, who edged Roy in the March primary, has dished out roughly $17 million of his own money to back his campaign. But Roy, a former Texas assistant attorney general and former chief of staff to conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, received a late surge in fundraising from major backers.

“We’ve gotten the financial support necessary to compete with my self-funder opponent, who’s got his inheritance money that he can just spend,” Roy highlighted in a Fox News Digital interview on the eve of the runoff.

Roy has argued that Middleton’s lack of courtroom experience would make him a poor attorney general.

“Having been the first assistant attorney general makes me ready on day one, but it’s also that I’ve been a prosecutor, I’ve been in court, I’ve sat in front of a judge, stood in front of a judge, argued cases, and he has never done any of those things. And we think those things should matter,” Roy emphasized.

Middleton has pushed back, questioning Roy’s conservative credentials and run ads claiming Roy’s “betrayed MAGA” as he’s pointed to the times the congressman has broken with Trump over policy.

“Chip Roy has someone that has spent a decade fighting the president. He actually said President Trump committed impeachable conduct on the House floor,” Middleton told Fox News Digital. “Instead of spending 10 years fighting President Trump, what have I done? I’ve spent 10 years, fighting to defeat the left, which is what matters the most in this race.”

But Roy, responding, said “everyone knows that I’m a longtime defender and supporter of the president’s agenda, of the America First agenda, the MAGA agenda, but I’m also an independent thinker who will stand up and make the case. And pointing to Middleton, Roy charged, “MAGA is not something you just buy. My opponent thinks you can buy the brand.”

Middleton returned fire, arguing “Chip Roy is putting out there that he is a top ally to President Trump when the exact opposite is the case.”

Roy, showcasing his electability, said “I beat Democrats before in a tough race” and that he “knows how to win.”

The winner of the GOP runoff will likely face Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson, who came close to clinching his party’s nomination in the primary. Johnson is facing off against former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski.

Also in the spotlight are Democratic and GOP runoffs in the redrawn majority-Latino 35th Congressional District,

Democratic Party leaders are slamming housing activist and sex therapist Maureen Galindo for her Instagram post on imprisoning American Zionists at an ICE detention center. She added that the prison would have a castration facility for pedophiles, which she claimed would likely include “most of the Zionists.

She also said that her rival in the runoff, Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia, should be tried for treason over his support for Israel.

The comments have spurred support for Garcia, who’s running as a moderate. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Texas Democratic Party, Talarico, and even progressive champion Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have backed Garcia.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face off against either Republican state Rep. John Lujan or Carlos De La Cruz, an Air Force veteran and brother of Rep. Monica De La Cruz of Texas.

In the solidly blue, Houston-based 18th Congressional District, 78-year-old Democratic Rep. Al Green will face off with recently-elected 38-year-old Rep. Christian Menefee, for a seat redrawn last year by Republicans as part of their congressional redistricting push.

Democratic Rep. Julie Johnson is running against former Rep. Colin Allred in the Democratic-dominated, Dallas-based, 33rd Congressional District.

And in the newly drawn 9th Congressional District, a right-tilting seat in the Houston area, Trump-endorsed Army veteran Alex Mealer faces Abbott-endorsed state Rep. Briscoe Cain.

Here’s the usual media narrative: Donald Trump did something awful (or outrageous, or borderline crazy), and the Republicans in Congress are wimps who won’t stand up to him. 

Rinse, dry, repeat. 

But that changed dramatically in the last few days. 

The new story line:

Donald Trump did something beyond the pale and the brave Republicans are standing up to him. 

They’re mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore. 

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If you don’t recall this happening before in Trump’s second term, that’s because it hasn’t.

So now you have the press and much of the GOP marching in lockstep. 

It’s a revolt. Practically a revolution. And while most journalists love intra-party strife on both sides (such as the Dems’ dumb 2024 autopsy), they particularly relish a development that seems to be breaking, or at least loosening, Trump’s iron grip on power. 

There was something about Trump’s decision to use $1.8 billion largely for those convicted of crimes on Jan. 6 that was a bridge too far. Some of these people had attacked and injured police officers, seized members’ offices and chanted for Mike Pence’s hanging.

The money came from the settlement of Trump’s suit against the IRS. He had legitimately been wronged by the leaking of his tax returns to the New York Times — showing he had (legally) paid no income tax in 10 out of 15 years, and just $750 in two other years. 

But it was awkward because the head of the government was suing one of its agencies. The leaker, a former IRS contractor, was sentenced to five years in prison. 

This is the culmination of a five-year effort by the president to recast the protestors, who he had summoned to Washington and directed to march to the Capitol, as patriots, not lawbreakers. That is inconveniently contradicted by the relentless violence we all saw on our television screens as the riot unfolded. It was one of the darkest days in American history, aimed at stopping Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

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The coverage has been exploding as even many Republicans on the Hill have vehemently objected to what critics call a “slush fund.”

When Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former defense lawyer for Trump, met with Senate Republicans, things exploded.

“My guess is there’re probably 45 senators in the room, at least half of them were blasting the attorney general. … They were screaming at the acting attorney general,” said Sen. Ted Cruz., who called it a “full-on revolt.”

Mitch McConnell, no fan of the president, put it this way: 

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong – Take your pick.”

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who just lost his primary thanks to Trump, said on X:

“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries and paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability.”

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, on CNN, described the entire effort as a “galactic blunder.”

One senator, Tommy Tuberville, defended Trump’s plan as aimed at “hundreds of innocent patriots.”

After the fiery session on the so-called “anti-weaponization” fund, GOP leaders — concerned about having to vote on the fund — killed a scheduled vote on a $72-billion measure to crack down on illegal immigration. 

They also refused to approve the $1 billion for the White House ballroom that the president is obsessed with building.

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The media are suddenly full of praise for these rebelling Republicans, who, with a few exceptions, are not generally viewed as allies.

The most likely outcome, in my view, is a mushy compromise that includes some modifications on how the awards are made. That’s usually how the Hill deals with tough questions. 

But ultimately, as on most issues, Donald Trump will probably get his way, the culmination of his dogged campaign to whitewash the unsavory image of the Jan. 6 lawbreakers. 

Footnote: The timing can’t be coincidental. Many Republicans–along with Democrats and the likes of the Wall Street Journal editorial page–are openly criticizing the outlines of a Trump agreement with Iran.

“Doesn’t make too much sense to me,” said Sen. Thom Tillis.

A “60-day ceasefire — with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith — would be a disaster,” said Sen. Roger Wicker.

While the details are still being negotiated, the main objection is the U.S. bowing to Iran’s demand to deal with nuclear issues later on — with no time limit–once the Strait of Hormuz and other questions are resolved.

Lindsey Graham, a war hawk and pal of the president, says the vaguely defined delay on nuclear weaponry “makes one wonder why the war started to begin with.”

Maybe the previously unthinkable idea of Republicans openly challenging Trump is catching on.