Pentagon IDs 7th US service member killed in Iran war
The Defense Department has identified Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky., who succumbed to his injuries following a March 1 attack on his base in Saudi Arabia. DoD
(WASHINGTON) — The Defense Department on Monday identified another U.S. service member who died following the opening wave of Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, marking the seventh U.S. service member to die in the war with Iran.
Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, died Sunday from injuries he sustained during a March 1 retaliation strike on U.S. troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia from Iran.
“He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved,” Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, the top officer for Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement. “That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.”
Pennington enlisted in the Army in 2017 as a supply specialist and was assigned to the 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado. He is set to be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, the Army announced.
Pennington was working at a strategic radar installation responsible for early warning against incoming missile threats, a critical node in the U.S. military’s missile-defense architecture, according to a source familiar with the situation.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of the other six American service members killed in the war’s opening hours, after an Iranian drone struck in Kuwait. All six were killed in the same attack.
Even as the ceremony underscored the war’s early toll, the president and senior Pentagon officials have been preparing the public for the likelihood that more casualties are ahead.
“The president’s been right to say there will be casualties,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.”
Hegseth cast the losses as a grim but familiar feature of war for a country that has spent more than two decades fighting in the Middle East.
“Especially our generation knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets,” he said. “But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the South Lawn before boarding Marine One at the White House on January 16, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Tom Brenner/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — From the campaign trail to Capitol Hill, a growing number of Democrats have said they believe President Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses in his first year back in office.
But with their focus on the midterms, fewer elected Democrats are willing to commit to impeaching Trump if they win back control of the House, given likely Republican control of the Senate and potential for backlash from voters.
Trump has predicted that Democrats will impeach him if they retake the House, and Republicans plan to make that threat a key piece of their midterm messaging.
“They will do anything to stop the Trump agenda,” Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said of Democrats. “People, if they don’t want a two-year president, who they voted for pretty overwhelmingly in 2024, can’t allow the House to flip.”
Instead, many Democrats said they are focusing on the cost of living and the state of the economy.
“There’s a lot for me to be concerned about,” said Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Democrat from Virginia.
Vindman is an Army veteran and former national security official who played a role in raising concerns about Trump’s 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the center of his first impeachment.
“The American people are concerned about costs, and meanwhile, the president is pursuing foreign adventures,” Vindman told ABC News.
Impeachment calls have picked up in 2026 amid the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the Justice Department’s investigations into Trump’s perceived opponents. A number of progressive Democrats from liberal districts and candidates in crowded blue-seat primaries have called for the impeachment of Trump and key cabinet officials.
Democrats are also setting their sights on Cabinet officials: More than 80 Democrats have cosponsored Illinois Democrat Rep. Robin Kelly’s articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem following the deployment of federal agents to Minnesota and the killing of a Minneapolis woman by a federal agent.
Still, Democratic leaders are moving cautiously ahead of the midterms, when they will need to gain at least three seats to win control of Congress.
“If candidates and members of Congress are not relentlessly focusing on people’s everyday lives, they are making a mistake,” former Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos, who led the House Democrats’ campaign committee, told ABC News.
“There’s so much of what President Trump has done, is doing, will do that can be labeled ‘impeachable offenses,’ but in the end what good is it going to do? Even if the House has the votes, the Senate will not go along with it,” she said.
The House has already rejected two impeachment pushes from Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Texas. In June, 128 Democrats voted with Republicans to block his charges over the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities without approval from Congress.
In December, just 23 Democrats voted with Republicans to kill a second effort focused on Trump’s comments about Democrats who posted a social media video urging service members to refuse illegal orders, while another 47 voted present.
In a statement after that vote, House Democratic leaders called impeachment a “sacred constitutional vehicle” requiring a “comprehensive investigative process” that had not taken place.
“None of that serious work has been done, with the Republican majority focused solely on rubber stamping Donald Trump’s extreme agenda,” Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Pete Aguilar and Katherine Clark said, arguing that voting “present” allowed them to “continue our fight to make life more affordable for everyday Americans.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said there’s “definitely a rising clamor for impeachment.”
“Of course, it requires a majority vote of the House to get there, but we need a structured method of thinking through all the lawlessness and criminality taking place,” Raskin said.
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old activist who is running for Congress in Illinois, has argued that Democratic leaders need to “grow a f—ing spine,” and do more to challenge the Trump administration.
She has spoken out and protested against ICE activities in Chicago, and has pleaded not guilty to charges that she interfered with law enforcement during a protest outside an ICE facility in Illinois last fall that went viral on social media.
“One of the most critical failures in American politics is how our leaders have instilled this feeling that we shouldn’t fight for the world we want to see, that we shouldn’t take measures towards a future that we want to live in,” she told ABC News.
“Impeachment is just another tool in the accountability machine that’s supposed to work, but it doesn’t,” she said.
Raskin, who would lead impeachment proceedings in a Democratic House, said he would be “moving very quickly” in the next two months on “announcing a systematic way of thinking” about the various actions of the Trump administration that Democrats find objectionable, and potentially worth investigating.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, speaks during a news conference, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As the partial government shutdown continues, Democrats have sent their counteroffer to Republicans and the White House — outlining their demands to fund the Department of Homeland Security and reform the embattled agency.
The specifics of the proposal, sent late Monday, remain unclear. ABC News has reached out to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office for more details, though the New York senator has been reticent to negotiate openly through the press.
President Donald Trump has said he will sit down with Democrats to negotiate.
“I will,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he returned to Washington from Florida on Monday, though he didn’t give any timeline. “But you know, we have to protect our law enforcement. They’ve done a great job.”
The shutdown, now in its fourth day, is affecting DHS agencies like the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Secret Service — as Democrats demand reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
A majority of DHS employees are expected to work during the shutdown, though without pay — the second time in recent months after the record-long, 43-day government shutdown last fall.
Meanwhile, Capitol Hill remains nearly empty with lawmakers on recess. They’ve been told to prepare to return to Washington on 48-hours notice if a deal comes together. If not, lawmakers aren’t scheduled to return until next week.
Democrats have asked for a range of new restrictions on immigration enforcement, including a mandate for body cameras, judicial warrants before agents can enter private property — rather than administrative warrants — and a ban on ICE agents wearing face masks. They also want stricter use-of-force policy and new training standards for agents.
Republicans have objected to many of those demands, with the exception of some openness to body cameras.
On Air Force One late Monday, Trump said, “I don’t like some of the things they’re asking for. We’re going to protect law enforcement. We are going to protect ICE.”
ICE is continuing operations because of a $75 billion infusion provided in Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” that was passed by Congress last summer. More than 93% of ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are expected to continue working during the shutdown.
The DHS funding fight erupted after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, by federal agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24 — just weeks after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a mother of three, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
White House “border czar” Tom Homan, who last week announced an end to the Minneapolis surge, said that the current partial government shutdown has had no impact on the administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
“ICE has continued to enforce the law across the country. They’re already funded,” Homan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “Now the ICE officers won’t be getting paid. But they’re getting used to that, it seems like. So, no, the immigration mission, the reason why President Trump was elected to be president, continues.”
Schumer, on Sunday, continued to argue for reforms to ICE.
“These are common-sense proposals,” Schumer said on CNN. He added, “ICE is rogue, out of control.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, appearing on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, declined to say if there were any points Democrats were willing to concede in the fight over DHS funding.
“Well, we’re willing to have a good-faith conversation about everything, but, fundamentally, we need change that is dramatic, that is bold, that is meaningful and that is transformational,” Jeffries said.
ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
In this handout image provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Boxer (LHD 4) departs from Naval Air Station North Island January 14, 2004 in San Diego, California. (Tiffini M. Jones/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Three Navy ships carrying 2,200 Marines left San Diego earlier this week for a previously scheduled deployment to the Indo-Pacific, but two U.S. officials tell ABC News their ultimate destination is likely the Middle East.
The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is aboard the USS Boxer, the USS Comstock and the USS Portland — along with 2,000 sailors.
If it receives final orders to the Middle East, joining the 31st MEU, it will be an increase of close to 9,000 additional forces to the region.
The 31st MEU is still on its way to the Middle East from Asia after receiving orders from the Pentagon last Friday. Those Marines and ships are likely to arrive in the region sometime next week.
It will take two weeks for the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group to get to southeast Asia, then additional time to make its way to the Middle East if it gets final orders to go there.
Included in the MEU: ground forces, a logistical element and aviation units that include fighter jets, MV-22 Ospreys and attack helicopters.
Last week’s deployment of the 31st MEU to the Middle East has sparked speculation as to whether they might be used to seize Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf — crucial to Iran’s oil trade — or carry out raids on the Iranian shoreline around the Strait of Hormuz.
For now, the U.S. Navy Third Fleet says the 11th MEU is conducting routine operations in its area of operations.
“An integral part of U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. 3rd Fleet operates naval forces in the Indo-Pacific to conduct routine training that ensures the continued warfighting readiness of Navy and Marine forces operating in the area,” the U.S. Navy Third Fleet said in a statement.
