Trump shares dramatic new details about aviator’s rescue in Iran
US President Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday shared new details about the harrowing lengths a U.S. aviator shot down in Iran went through to keep himself alive and the scope of the mission to rescue him.
“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” Trump recounted in a briefing on the operation to the media. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location.”
Trump said the weapons system officer, who ejected along with the pilot from an F-15 fighter jet, was “injured quite badly” and stranded in an area “teeming” with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, militia and local authorities.
The pilot was rescued in a separate and challenging broad daylight mission on Friday.
But finding the second aviator, who landed miles away, was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.
Trump said the U.S. has taken out Iran’s radar and air defense capabilities but the F-15 was shot down by a shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missile.
“They had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky,” the president said.
Trump said the second rescue mission involved involved “hundreds” of service members and 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and others, as well as efforts to deceive the Iranians about where U.S. forces were searching.
“We had seven different locations where they thought, and theywere very confused,” Trump said of the Iranians.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described Iran’s military as “embarrassed and humiliated” by the rescue.
Trump said the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for finding “this little speck” in the mountainous area in which he was hiding.
Ratcliffe, the CIA director, said the U.S. deployed both human assets and “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses” to locate the weapons system officer on Saturday, who was “concealed in a mountain crevice, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.”
Ratcliffe said some of the unique capabilities the CIA used are ones that only the president can deploy and that he would not publicly divulge what they were.
“As an agency, the CIA possesses unique capabilities that only the president can deploy. Some of these capabilities fall under covert action authorities. And because covert means exactly that, I’m not going to be able to tell you everything that you want to know,” Ratcliffe said.
Ratcliffe said finding the downed aviator was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”
“This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected,” he added.
Hegseth said once the airman turned on his transponder, his first message was “God is Good.”
“In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shown through,” Hegseth said.
Trump said once it was determined that the two airplanes used to ferry in troops and equipment could not take off from the soft, wet sand in the makeshift landing area, “we blew them up to smithereens” so that the technology they carried couldn’t be captured by the Iranians.
“And we had a contingency plan, which was unbelievable, where lighter, faster aircraft came in and they took them out. We blew up the old planes. We blew them up to smithereens, because we had equipment on the planes that, frankly, we’d like to take, but I don’t think it was worthwhile spending another four hours there taking it off,” he said.
China’s President Xi Jinping (R) and US President Donald Trump visit the Temple of Heaven on May 14, 2026 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski – Pool/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping feel “very similar on Iran” in wanting the war to end and prohibiting Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the two started their second day of meetings in their high-stakes summit.
“We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar in Iran. We want that to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the [Strait of Hormuz] opened. We’re closing it now. They closed it, and we closed it on top of them, but we want the straits open, and we want them to get it ended, because it’s a crazy thing,” Trump said at a photo opportunity before the two leaders had tea and a working lunch.
Trump said they had discussed a number of issues, “and I think we’re very much in agreement.” Representatives from China did not offer further comment on what was discussed in the meetings.
He also said the two leaders “made some fantastic trade deals.”
Before Friday’s meeting Trump met Xi to tour the gardens at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party leadership compound.
Xi said he picked the location “especially to reciprocate the hospitality extended to me in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago.” Xi said Trump was interested to learn about the plants in the garden including the Chinese roses. Xi said he “agreed” to gift Trump seeds for those roses.
The meetings come amid some tension on the issue of Taiwan — an issue about which Xi issued a stark warning to the U.S. during the leaders’ first sit-down — and questions about the role of China in ending the war with Iran.
Trump was seeking to bolster international support amid a push to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S. war with Iran stretches on. China is Iran’s principal oil consumer.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry, responding to inquiries to confirm whether Trump and Xi discussed Iran, sidestepped the question but reiterated China’s position that the ceasefire and negotiations should continue and that the Strait of Hormuz should be reopened.
“There is no need to continue this war that should not have happened,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said. “Finding a solution earlier is beneficial to the United States and Iran, as well as to the countries in the region and even the whole world.”
“Since the door of dialogue is open, it should not be closed again,” the spokesperson said.
Trump and Xi also attended a state banquet earlier during the visit.
On the first day of the summit, the U.S. president was greeted with pomp and pageantry upon his arrival in Beijing and again before his bilateral meeting with Xi at the Great Hall of the People that lasted for more than two hours.
Regarding the issue of Taiwan, Xi said that if the issue of Taiwan is handled “improperly,” the two nations could “come into conflict,” according to China’s official state broadcaster Xinhua. However, Xi did say that if the issue is handled “properly,” “bilateral relations can remain generally stable.”
Tech and trade have also been key themes during the talks.
Trump said before the trip that he planned to ask Xi to “open up” the Chinese economy. CEOs Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Tim Cook of Apple and Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, among others, traveled with the president to Beijing.
Trump said the business leaders joined him to “pay respects” to Xi.
“We asked the top 30 in the world. Every single one of them said ‘yes,’ and I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top. And they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China, and they look forward to trade and doing business, and it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf,” Trump said.
The White House said one of Trump’s goals going into the summit with Xi is to secure purchasing agreements with China in the aerospace, agriculture and energy sectors and the CEOs traveled with the president to help push for that.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday that the U.S. expects China to buy tens of billions of dollars worth of American agricultural products in the next few years.
“We expect to also see an agreement for double-digit billion purchases … over the next three years, per year, coming out of this visit, and that’s more general, that’s aggregate, that’s not just soybeans, that’s everything else,” Greer told Bloomberg.
Greer didn’t provide any more specifics about the terms of the agreement he said the administration expects.
Before their meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Trump called Xi a “great leader” and touted their relationship.
“Such respect for China, the job you’ve done. You’re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader,” Trump said. “Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true. I always say the truth.”
“We’ve had a fantastic relationship. We’ve gotten along,” Trump said. “When there were difficulties, we worked it out. I would call you, and you would call me, and whenever we had a problem — people don’t know — whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly, and we’re going to have a fantastic future together.”
Xi told Trump that China and the U.S. “both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation.”
“We should be partners, not rivals,” he continued.” We should help each other succeed and prosper together and find the right way for major countries to get along well with each other in the new era.”
ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Mariam Khan, Michelle Stoddart and Kevin Shalvey contributed to this report.
The Open AI logo, which represents the American-based artificial intelligence (AI) research organization known for releasing the generative chatbot language model AI ChatGPT and initiating the AI spring, is being displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on February 28, 2024. (Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Millions of dollars tied to artificial intelligence are pouring into the 2026 midterms.
Interest groups funded in part by AI industry leaders are split on how the government should oversee AI — and that’s already having an impact on political ads, some experts told ABC News.
“It’s sort of an open question as to what regulation is going to look like,” University of Rochester professor David Primo told ABC News. “The stakes are really high because once a regulatory system gets entrenched, it’s really hard to change it.”
An AI-related political group, Innovation Council Action, tied to two of President Donald Trump’s advisors, announced on Sunday that it would spend at least $100 million, The New York Times reported.
The donations associated with the AI sector go beyond party lines. Federal Election Commission filings show that key industry players are pouring money into committees supporting both Democrats and Republicans, with certain groups criticizing candidates who have expressed support for new AI-related laws and others doing the opposite.
“Companies have always tried to shape regulations, and they’ve always tried to shape them in their favor. What we’re seeing now, though, is that the big companies are not united,” Primo said.
With AI’s presence being increasingly felt, some politicians are calling on their colleagues not to accept money from the burgeoning industry.
“Their money will end up being toxic anyway,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., posted on social media. “People are catching on.”
1 industry, different political priorities
In February, Anthropic, the developer of Claude AI, announced it would give $20 million to an organization called Public First Action, explaining that it agreed with most Americans that not enough was being done to regulate AI and that the technology comes with “considerable risks.”
Public First Action spokesperson Anthony Rivera-Rodriguez said that they have already run advertisements thanking Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Rep. Josh Gottheimer D-N.J., for their AI records.
Gottheimer introduced a bill in February that would provide tax credits for companies training workers on AI development.
It is not yet clear who else has contributed to Public First Action, which describes itself as a “pro-regulation” group.
“Public First Action doesn’t disclose its donors,” Rivera-Rodriguez told ABC News. “To date, the project has raised around $50 million. The aligned super PACs will publicly disclose their contributors in their upcoming FEC reports.”
One of Anthropic’s main competitors, ChatGPT owner OpenAI, has voiced support for nationwide “common-sense rules of the road,” but has cautioned that the U.S. should not fall behind other countries.
In an economic blueprint released last year, OpenAI compared AI’s ascent to the rise of the car, pointing out that while the motor vehicle “industry’s growth was stunted by regulation” in the United Kingdom, the U.S. “took a very different approach,” causing the American automobile sector to grow.
FEC disclosures show that OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife each contributed $12.5 million to a group called Leading the Future, which describes itself as supporting candidates who “champion policies that harness the economic benefits of AI and reject attempts to hinder American innovation.”
Committees with links to Leading the Future have already made millions worth of contributions, filings indicate.
One group spent more than $500,000 each in support of North Carolina Republican House candidate Laurie Buckhout and Texas Republican House candidate Jessica Steinmann. The same committee spent more than $700,000 supporting Texas Republican House candidate Chris Gober.
Buckhout, Steinmann and Gober each won their March primaries. All three candidates include similar statements on their websites, mentioning that China cannot overcome the U.S. in the AI race.
Millions spent in Manhattan alone
Nowhere is the role of AI more front and center than in New York’s 12th Congressional District.
Numerous Democrats are running in this Manhattan race, but Assemblyman and former Palantir employee Alex Bores, who co-sponsored New York’s Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, is the candidate who has largely had AI’s focus.
Bores’ website says that he hopes to hold large AI companies accountable and would work to create national safety and privacy requirements.
A PAC associated with Anthropic-supported Public First Action is supporting Bores, Rivera-Rodriguez confirmed. Leading the Future is not.
“Alex Bores is a hypocrite pushing policies that would undermine America’s ability to lead the world in AI innovation and job creation,” Leading the Future spokesperson Jessie Hunt told ABC News.
As of March 16, a super PAC tied to Leading the Future had already spent more than $2.2 million opposing Bores, FEC filings show.
“There’s a few Trump megadonors that made billions of dollars from AI that don’t think there should be any regulation of AI whatsoever,” Bores told ABC News following a recent forum.
With so much AI-related money flowing into races like NY-12 around the country, Primo said these funds are not being spent secretly or for bribery. Instead, the cash is being used to convince voters of who they should elect.
“This might actually be democracy functioning really well,” he said.
A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts which was recently renamed The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the performing arts in Washington, DC on December 29, 2025. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s plan for a “Complete Rebuilding” of the Kennedy Center in Washington has sparked a legal debate over whether he — or Congress — has the power to control the high-profile cultural institution.
The battle began in December, when Trump’s name was added to the building’s facade — above the existing signage that reads “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” — following a unanimous vote by Trump’s hand-picked board of center trustees.
It escalated recently, when Trump announced it would close in July for two years — to make major renovations he said were necessary.
Some members of Congress are pushing back, including in court, alleging Trump’s actions are unlawful and should be reversed.
What does the law say? Here’s a closer look at what the law and history say on the question:
Since Congress created the cultural institution in a federal statute, designating it as a living memorial in 1964 shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s death and then through its expansion in the 2010s, it has been operated by both the executive and legislative branches — contributing to the legal debate.
While the executive branch oversees the appointments of the center’s board of trustees, Congress has the ultimate say on what money gets appropriated and what projects get approved.
The House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies grants the center’s board the power to act on any proposed and approved changes.
According to the top Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Chellie Pingree, the panel has historically controlled all funding, project management and security, separate from the executive branch or what is voted on by the center’s trustees.
Congress has proposed and authorized expansive construction projects, such as the REACH expansion adjacent to the Kennedy Center, designed for artist collaboration, to smaller standard year-to-year maintenance costs.
When Trump’s signature legislation passed in July, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” it circumvented the subcommittee, instead directly appropriating $256,657,000 for “necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures of the building.”
In a statement, the Kennedy Center’s new president, Richard Grenell, a Trump appointee, said, “I am grateful for President Trump’s visionary leadership. I am also grateful to Congress for appropriating an historic $257M to finally address decades of deferred maintenance and repairs at the Trump Kennedy Center.”
The Trump administration has suggested these already appropriated funds will cover any costs of his proposed major renovation.
“It desperately needs this renovation and temporarily closing the center just makes sense — it will enable us to better invest our resources, think bigger and make the historic renovations more comprehensive,” Grenell said. “It also means we will be finished faster.”
Limits on the president’s power? Georgetown University law professor David Super told ABC News that even though the money for those changes is already appropriated by Congress, Trump and his administration do not have total freedom to make decisions.
“The Constitution says that no money shall be drawn for the Treasury except in accordance with an appropriation passed by Congress,” Super said. “He can spend that money for any of the purposes Congress provided it for, and that includes deferred maintenance, repair, restoration, renovation. It does not allow him to rebuild it.”
While Trump has suggested major renovations, no plans have been officially released or shared with the congressional subcommittee overseeing the center. During an Oval Office photo, Trump said the steel would be “fully exposed” but not removed.
“I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel,” he said. “So, we’re using the structure. We’re using some of the marble and some of the marble comes down, but when it’s opened, it’ll be brand new and really beautiful. It’ll be at the highest level.”
Super said if those renovations align with the language of the law Congress has passed, it is within Trump’s legal right both as president — and chair of the Kennedy Center’s board — to go forward. If the renovations go beyond what the law spells out and allows, Super said, his moves would be unconstitutional.
“Some of his remarks about ‘maybe, they will use the marble, maybe they won’t’, imply that he’s planning something much more than renovation or repair,” Super said. “If so, then he would be violating the language of the appropriation, and therefore the Constitution.”
When asked whether the president would keep his plan within the constraints laid out by Congress, White House spokeswoman Liz Hudston told ABC News: “While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for years, President Trump immediately stepped up to rescue and revitalize the institution.”
Hudston also included some intended uses of the funds for maintenance, including “repairing and, where necessary, replacing elements on the exterior of the building,” and “work to bring the Trump-Kennedy Center into compliance with current life safety codes and security standard.”
So far, there are no lawsuits alleging Trump’s proposed renovations to the center are illegal.
The renaming The center’s controversial renaming presents another legal question.
When the building was designated a living memorial in 1964, Congress wrote in explicit language on how the center should be named and operated.
U.S. Public Law 88-260 dictates the U.S. must “be held to designate or refer to such Center as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
“They really left very little to the imagination, and detailed what they wanted the Kennedy Center to be,” Super said, adding, “there are many things Congress creates that it doesn’t name, and that’s left to the president to name, but here is a law saying it shall be known as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
Super said that regardless of what the board of trustees decides, the name will legally remain as written in the statute.
“And as a duly passed law of Congress, this binds you, it binds me, and it binds the president,” Super said. “The money that the president says he wants to spend on renovating the Kennedy Center is money that was appropriated for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, not for the Trump-Kennedy Center. So, if he in fact uses that money, he is acknowledging that its name did not change.”
A former Kennedy Center trustee, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, has filed a lawsuit to stop Trump and the board of trustees from changing the Kennedy Center’s name and wants Trump’s name removed.
U.S. Code § 76j states that “the Board shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
“Because Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress,” Beatty’s lawsuit said. “But on December 18 and 19, 2025 — in scenes more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes than the American republic — the sitting President and his handpicked loyalists renamed this storied center after President Trump.”
Pingree said her subcommittee has been told little about Trump’s plans and that she had instead learned about his proposed changes through social media.
“What’s going to happen now?” Pingree told ABC News, adding,” he tore down the East Wing. Does this mean he thinks he’s going to tear down the Kennedy Center and just rebuild it as a monument to himself?”
With lawmakers beginning discussions on funding for 2027, Pingree said she is working with her Republican counterpart to demand information.
“We will certainly say to them, we’re not going to allocate any money in this cycle until you give us more information about what you’re doing,” Pingree said.
“If that money is currently being used just to keep the place afloat because ticket sales are off and performers won’t perform, then it’s not going to go to the desperately needed. I believe there are some really important things that need to be done to that building,” she said.
