Trump at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky last week where he campaigned against the district's Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY).

•The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meets this week and concerned about inflation and unemployment, is expected to leave interest rates unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75%, perhaps for the rest of the year.

IDF Assassinates Iran’s Military Leaders – Israeli Defense Forces assassinated Iran’s head of the National Security Council in a Tehran safe house, Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed Tuesday, according to Haaretz. 

“I have just been updated by the IDF chief that (Ali) Larijani and the head of the Basij were killed overnight and have joined Khamenei, the architect of the destruction program, and all the eliminated ‘Axis of Evil’ in the depths of hell,” Katz said. 

Also killed by the IDF were Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij, and his deputy, Rassem Qureshi, in Tehran. 

Apparently trying to dispute Katz’s statements, Iran’s official media said a statement from Larijani soon would be released.

Trump’s test … Meanwhile, President Trump has demanded seven countries provide warships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Germany, the UK and pretty much the rest of Western Europe have refused, NPR’s Frank Ordoñez reports Tuesday on Morning Edition. Euro leaders say the war on Iran is not their war.

That did not sit well with the president.

“Because my attitude is, we don’t need anybody,” he told reporters at the White House Monday. “We’re the strongest nation in the world. We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need them. But it’s interesting. I’m almost doing it not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react.”

Prelude to pull the US out of NATO?

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AAA National Average Unleaded Regular: $3.79 per gallon. Diesel: $5.044 per gallon. Up 80.8 cents and $1.787 respectively, since February 27.

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I’ll Take Cuba – Why not? Cuba has been a thorn in the sides of American presidents since the late-Eisenhower administration, while Iran goes back only to President Carter (though Ike also is credited for the CIA-assisted overthrow of Iran’s last democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and installation of the Shah of Iran in 1953). 

Now President Trump, seeing an opening for another takeover, indicated in his Oval Office press scrum Monday that after the invasion of Venezuela and while the Iranian war rages on, it may be time for the Western Hemisphere communist holdout of the Soviet era. 

“I think Cuba sees the end,” Trump said. “All my life I’ve been hearing about the United States and Cuba. When will the United States do it? I do believe I’ll be the honor of – having the honor of taking Cuba.”

A US “blockade” of oil tankers from Venezuela is hampering Cuba’s efforts to grapple with the island nation’s energy crisis, rare violent protests and pressure from the Trump administration, NBC News reports. Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga told NBC’s George Solis Monday his country is negotiating with the US to allow the Cuban diaspora, especially in Miami – just 229 miles north of Havana -- to invest in Cuba’s private sector and own businesses in their homeland.  –TL

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MONDAY 3/16/26

Trump Strongarms NATO on Straits – President Trump said in an eight-minute interview with the Financial Times Sunday that NATO – and China -- must help reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure their own energy security. 

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the newspaper. Europe and China depend heavily on the Strait for oil, he said, not the US.

But Iran’s choking of the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil passes through, has sent global oil prices skyrocketing. They hovered in the $103-106 per barrel range Monday. 

The president called on China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom to join a “team effort” to reopen the Strait and suggested a planned late March summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping would be called off or delayed.

“If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response” to Trump’s comments to the FT, “I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.”

FCC threat … This came after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who last year managed to get Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspended briefly, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses because of what he called “liberal bias” in their coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran. 

And this in turn followed War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s objections to reports that the Trump administration was not prepared for Iran playing the card it can easily play, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. With the result that global oil prices skyrocket.

"CNN is Lying to Undermine Operation Epic Fury's Crushing Success," reads a headline from the White House official website.

Hegseth says he believes “liberal” media want the US – the Trump administration – to fail in the war.

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest,” Carr said last weekend, according to The New York Times. Carr’s warning comes after Trump Truth Socialed his objections to a Wall Street Journal headline that Iran hit US Air Force refueling planes at the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. 

The Wall Street Journal’s headline: “Five Air Force Refueling Planes Hit in Iranian Strike on Saudi Arabia.”

The story says an official told the newspaper the airplanes were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired. No one was killed in the attack.

Gas and diesel … AAA reports Monday the national average for unleaded regular is $3.718 per gallon, up 73.6-cents since the Friday before the US and Israel launched the war on Iran, while diesel fuel is $4.988 per gallon, up $1.231.

Notable quote … In his acceptance speech as writer and co-director of the Academy Award winner for documentary feature Sunday night, David Borenstein said, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin is about how you lose your country. What we saw when working with the footage is that you lose it through countless small little acts of complicity. When we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of major cities. When we don’t say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it.” –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa