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Good morning,

Did everyone see that Duke-UConn ending last night? What a moment! Always a treat to see Duke choke like that.

It's 7 a.m. on Monday as I keep one eye on President Trump's Truth Social feed to see how he will attempt to juice the market before this holiday-shortened trading week opens. If you were going to put boots on the ground in Iran, Thursday night might be the time to do it, with markets closed for a long weekend. Just sayin'. Trump's Sunday night market pump happened on AF1, with POTUS telling the press pool Iran had agreed to allow 20 oil tankers through Hormuz today as a "tribute” to the US. It didn't work, though. Oil futures continued their rise overnight, with Brent crude on track for its biggest monthly rise in history.

Part of that is because the Houthis have finally joined the fighting. The Yemen-based and Iran-backed militant group started launching missiles at Israel over the weekend for the first time in this war. This is important because the Houthis' sphere of influence involves the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another one of these shipping chokepoints through which about 5M barrels of oil a day transit. So, if the Houthis can take those barrels off the market, that's more leverage for the Iranians. 

Trump is also signaling interest in a special mission to extract Iran's stockpile of uranium; a complex and uber-risky op that would make the Bin Laden raid look like a JV game. On Saturday, Trump told everyone to watch Mark Levin's show on Fox that night. Levin is one of these cretinous, ancient, neocon warmongers who suddenly seems to have the president's ear to a degree that would sure embarrass me if I were one of these America First mouthpieces (cough, Megyn Kelly, cough) who thought they were going to have relevance in this administration. Even Fox is probably shocked Levin has become so influential. He’s on Saturday nights, when cable nets schedule shows they don't expect anyone to actually watch.

Along with Lindsey Graham, Mark Levin is being used to telegraph Trump's wargaming. (Aside: With Congress on a well-deserved vacation, Graham was spotted by TMZ at Disney World this weekend. Kind of a weird place to holiday for a single, childless old man, no?). Levin's show on Saturday night was focused on how we need to go in and "get the uranium," which Trump hilarious refers to as "the nuclear dust."

The IAEA believes Iran has roughly 1,000 lbs. of uranium in various stages of enrichment buried at two nuclear facilities that we hit last June. A special-forces mission to “go get it” would require US troops to fly in, secure those sites, find and excavate the uranium — likely while coming under all kinds of enemy fire — and get it out of the country without upsetting the radioactive material. Military experts say the whole op could take a week to complete, and success is far from guaranteed.

Now, the fact that Trump is telegraphing all this via Levin and select leaks to Axios and the WSJ suggests this is a red herring. Presidents don't tend to sketch out how special-forces missions will go ahead of time. My gut is that the uranium is the negotiating chit, and Trump is talking to the Iranians through the US media about what a deal to end to the war could look like. And it would involve Tehran handing over the “nuclear dust.” Hard to imagine them ever doing this, but that’s what I think is going on between the lines.

Getting inside Trump's head on this stuff is difficult, so I called up someone last week who knows how Trump thinks better than most: Geraldo Rivera. My conversation with the great Geraldo is up on our podcast and YouTube feed this morning. I asked him whether he saw this war coming, given his decades-long personal relationship with Trump, as well as what he makes of the admin's vice grip on Cuba. I also wanted to hear him explain how his friendship with the president never recovered after Geraldo broke with him over January 6, and we ended with a discussion on how the GOP lost a generational opportunity to win over Latino voters for good. It was a fun convo. Geraldo is one of the most misunderstood people in media, btw. You might think of him as a tabloid journalist, or former Fox News shouting head, or from the famous incident with Al Capone's vault. But he's actually a broadcast visionary who was one of the first to understand how to fuse shoe-leather reporting with opinion journalism. Go watch his reports from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, like this one where he tells Sean Hannity to his face that the situation on the ground was way worse than Fox was reporting. It’s not an exaggeration to say watching these reports in real-time inspired me get into this business. And now here I am talking to the man himself. What a world!

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Carlo Versano is Newsweek's Director of Politics and Culture. He has in-depth knowledge and experience covering a range of topics and stories over a 20-year career in the news business. Carlo joined Newsweek in 2024 after a stint at The Messenger. Before that, he was an Emmy-winning producer at NBC News. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond and the New School. You can get in touch with Carlo by emailing [email protected].

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Broadcasting titan and veteran war correspondent Geraldo Rivera shares his insight on what's going through Donald Trump's mind as he launches another unpopular regime change operation in Iran. From Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio to the president himself, Rivera debriefs Carlo the on the administration's wartime psyche.

Watch the newest episode here. ⬅

By Alex J. Rouhandeh

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has released a new Organizing and Political Playbook designed to carry the party to victory in the 2026 midterms and increase its long-term competitiveness as Democrats aim to take new ground in Republican states and rid themselves of their 2024 demons.

Newsweek is the first to report the existence of this playbook, which the DNC states is the first of its kind and exists to share organizing “best practices” across the Democratic ecosystem.

Here’s what to watch for this week in Washington:

Pay close attention to the president’s next move in Iran this week as thousands of additional service members have been deployed to the Middle East for a potential ground invasion of Iran. In response to questions about a potential invasion, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Post, “it’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality. It does not mean the President has made a decision.”

Meanwhile, reports suggest US-Iran talks will take place in Pakistan this week, although details are still unknown.

Also for your radar: the Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the birthright citizenship case on Wednesday. 

Plus, the National Capitol Planning Commission is set to host the final vote for Trump’s ballroom project.

Of course, you’ll also be hearing a lot about DHS shutdown talks this week as no deal appears in sight with the partial shutdown already breaking records... and as Carlo mentioned, both chambers of Congress on spring break.

After some rest, I'm returning with a story that's dominated the news from my part of the hemisphere: Cuba's energy crisis and a potential breakthrough that just happened.

For months, the Trump administration has blocked oil shipments to Cuba, threatening any country that tries to send fuel to the island. The result has been daily blackouts lasting up to 15 hours, severe fuel shortages, soaring prices, and a population struggling to survive. Some American influencers have been documenting the crisis in real time, showing what life looks like on an island pushed to the breaking point.

Then Sunday happened. A Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of oil was allowed through the blockade. Trump confirmed it on Air Force One, saying he had no problem with Russia sending oil to Cuba. It buys the island a few weeks of relief, but it also signals something unexpected: the administration is willing to compromise.

The bigger question remains: Will the blockade force the Cuban government to collapse? Trump and Rubio are counting on it. But some analysts point out that Cubans are not Venezuelans. They've survived the Soviet collapse, the Special Period, decades of embargo. The real test is whether this regime can hold out longer than Washington expects.

“It’s a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.”

— President Trump responding to a question about leadership at the Future Investment Initiative in Miami.

Newsweek is part of the Trust Project, which focuses on honesty, accuracy and fairness in journalism. Read more about our best practices. To get in touch with our newsroom with suggestions on how to point out possible errors, please contact us at [email protected].