Politics
Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew
As a conflict between India and Pakistan escalated, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Thursday that it was “fundamentally none of our business.” The United States could counsel both sides to back away, he suggested, but this was not America’s fight.
Yet within 24 hours, Mr. Vance and Marco Rubio, in his first week in the dual role of national security adviser and secretary of state, found themselves plunged into the details. The reason was the same one that prompted Bill Clinton in 1999 to deal with another major conflict between the two longtime enemies: fear that it might quickly go nuclear.
What drove Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio into action was evidence that the Pakistani and Indian Air Forces had begun to engage in serious dogfights, and that Pakistan had sent 300 to 400 drones into Indian territory to probe its air defenses. But the most significant causes for concern came late Friday, when explosions hit the Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad.
The base is a key installation, one of the central transport hubs for Pakistan’s military and the home to the air refueling capability that would keep Pakistani fighters aloft. But it is also just a short distance from the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which oversees and protects the country’s nuclear arsenal, now believed to include about 170 or more warheads. The warheads themselves are presumed to be spread around the country.
The intense fighting broke out between India and Pakistan after 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed in a terrorist attack on April 22 in Kashmir, a border region claimed by both nations. On Saturday morning, President Trump announced that the two countries had agreed to a cease-fire.
One former American official long familiar with Pakistan’s nuclear program noted on Saturday that Pakistan’s deepest fear is of its nuclear command authority being decapitated. The missile strike on Nur Khan could have been interpreted, the former official said, as a warning that India could do just that.
It is unclear whether there was American intelligence pointing to a rapid, and perhaps nuclear, escalation of the conflict. At least in public, the only piece of obvious nuclear signaling came from Pakistan. Local media reported that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had summoned a meeting of the National Command Authority — the small group that makes decisions about how and when to make use of nuclear weapons.
Established in 2000, the body is nominally chaired by the prime minister and includes senior civilian ministers and military chiefs. In reality, the driving force behind the group is the army chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir.
But Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, denied that the group ever met. Speaking on Pakistani television on Saturday before the cease-fire was announced, he acknowledged the existence of the nuclear option but said, “We should treat it as a very distant possibility; we shouldn’t even discuss it.”
It was being discussed at the Pentagon, and by Friday morning, the White House had clearly made the determination that a few public statements and some calls to officials in Islamabad and Delhi were not sufficient. Interventions by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had little effect.
During his interview with Fox News, Mr. Vance had also said that “we’re concerned about any time nuclear powers collide and have a major conflict.” He added that “what we can do is encourage these folks to deescalate a little bit.”
According to one person familiar with the unfolding events who was not authorized to speak publicly about them, serious concerns developed in the administration after that interview that the conflict was at risk of spiraling out of control.
The pace of strikes and counterstrikes was picking up. While India had initially focused on what it called “known terror camps” linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group blamed for the April attack, it was now targeting Pakistani military bases.
The Trump administration was also concerned that messages to de-escalate were not reaching top officials on either side.
So U.S. officials decided that Mr. Vance, who had returned a couple weeks earlier from a trip to India with his wife, Usha, whose parents are Indian immigrants, should call Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly. His message was that the United States had assessed there was a high probability of a dramatic escalation of violence that could tip into full-scale war.
By the American account, Mr. Vance pressed Mr. Modi to consider alternatives to continued strikes, including a potential off-ramp that U.S. officials thought would prove acceptable to the Pakistanis. Mr. Modi listened but did not commit to any of the ideas.
Mr. Rubio, according to the State Department, talked with General Munir, a conversation made easier by his new role as national security adviser. Over the past quarter-century, the White House has often served, if quietly, as a direct channel to the Pakistani army, the country’s most powerful institution.
Mr. Rubio also called Pakistan’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, and India’s nationalistic external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, whom he had met on Jan. 22 in Washington.
It is not clear how persuasive he was, at least initially.
The State Department did not hold a press briefing on Saturday about the content of those calls, instead issuing bare-bones descriptions of the conversations that gave no sense of the dynamic between Mr. Rubio and the South Asian leaders. But the constant stream of calls from Friday evening into early Saturday appeared to lay a foundation for the cease-fire.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the negotiations credited the involvement of the Americans over the last 48 hours, and in particular Mr. Rubio’s intervention, for sealing the accord. But as of Saturday night, there were reports that cross-border firing was continuing.
Mr. Sharif, the prime minister, made a point of focusing on the American president’s role. “We thank President Trump for his leadership and proactive role for peace in the region,” he wrote on X. “Pakistan appreciates the United States for facilitating this outcome, which we have accepted in the interest of regional peace and stability.”
India, in contrast, did not acknowledge any U.S. involvement.
It is far from clear that the cease-fire will hold, or that the damage done may not trigger more retribution. Pakistan brought down five Indian planes, by some accounts. (The Indian side has not commented on its losses.)
Pakistani intelligence, the senior official said, assessed that India was trying to bait Islamabad into going beyond a defensive response. India wanted Pakistan to use its own F-16 fighter jets in a retaliatory attack so they could try to shoot one down, the official said. The jets were sold by the United States because Pakistan is still officially considered a “major non-NATO ally,” a status President George W. Bush bestowed on the country in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The senior Pakistani intelligence officer said the American intervention was needed to pull the two sides back from the brink of war.
“The last move came from the president,” the official said.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Gilad Thaler, Jon Miller, Stephanie Swart, Rafaela Balster, Whitney Shefte and Nikolay Nikolov
May 29, 2026
Politics
Federal judge orders Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center, says only Congress can rename it
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A federal judge on Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, said the iconic venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress, ruling that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees overstepped its “statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming” the building.
As part of his ruling, the Trump administration will be required to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and eliminate any references to a “Trump-Kennedy Center” from official materials.
TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER’S BOARD VOTES UNANIMOUSLY TO APPROVE $257M RENOVATIONS AND TWO-YEAR CLOSURE
A sign is displayed on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building. (Getty Images)
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Roma Daravi, the Trump Kennedy Center vice president of public relations, said the board plans to appeal the decision.
“We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BOARD VOTES KENNEDY CENTER TO BE RENAMED ‘TRUMP-KENNEDY CENTER,’ LEAVITT SAYS
President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box during a tour of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2025. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s name must be removed from he iconic venue. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Cooper previously denied a request for a preliminary injunction filed by a preservation group to block the planned two-year closure of the Kennedy Center for a rehabilitation project.
Trump secured $257 million from Congress as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to address disrepair and deferred maintenance of the Kennedy Center, which critics say has been neglected and mismanaged before Trump intervened.
The funds appropriated by Congress are spent on maintenance, repairs, security, and capital projects related to the building and site.
Beatty, who serves as an ex officio member of the board, praised Friday’s ruling.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
Workers install Donald J. Trump signage above the existing Kennedy Center sign in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
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Trump’s name was added to the venue last December following a unanimous decision by the board. In February 2025, Trump was elected chairman of the Kennedy Center board after removing 18 trustees appointed by former President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON — A framework agreement to end the U.S. war with Iran is all but settled, pending sign-off from the presidents of the two warring sides, President Trump said Friday, projecting optimism that a deal could finally be at hand.
Yet doubt cast a shadow over the diplomatic process entering the weekend as Trump faced a politically fraught decision to enter an agreement that would invariably require significant concessions to Tehran.
The negotiations have faced severe headwinds in recent days, with both sides accusing the other of violating a fragile ceasefire that has largely stopped the fighting since April.
On his Truth Social site, Trump said he had summoned his top aides to the White House Situation Room to decide on the deal.
The agreement would see an end to the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and the removal of Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway through which 20% of the world’s energy supply passes each day. The strait, Trump wrote, will reopen with “no tolls” for “unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
And “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb,” Trump wrote, noting that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for nuclear weapons, “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED.”
“No money will be exchanged, until further notice,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said the deal would require Iran to disavow the continuation of its domestic nuclear program — a diplomatic feat never before achieved throughout a quarter-century of international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear work.
It is unclear whether Tehran would go that far. And Iran’s negotiators expressed defiance on Friday, stating that there was “no trust in guarantees or words” from the American side.
“No step will be taken before the other side acts first,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament. “We do not gain concessions through dialogue, but through missiles.”
It remains unclear when the Trump administration would ease sanctions on Iran, how extensive that relief would be, or what form it would take — questions that fueled Republican criticism of the Obama-era nuclear deal more than a decade ago.
The working diplomatic document would formally extend the existing ceasefire for 60 days, allowing for a more detailed negotiation to take place over Iran’s nuclear program. But the truce as it currently stands is on perilous ground. Iran launched a ballistic missile on Thursday at Kuwait, a close U.S. ally, after American forces took “defensive” actions against Iranian missile launchers and mine-laying boats it had launched in the strait.
The war has proved historically unpopular with the American public, and has seen oil prices soar since the U.S. military, in partnership with Israel, launched its first strikes against Iran in February.
Bessent said he is hopeful that oil prices would drop quickly once an agreement is signed. But industry analysts say the effects of the war on the oil market could last for months, if not years, with the stability of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz now in question for commercial shippers.
While oil has dropped to under $100 a barrel, markets appeared skittish on Friday over the prospects for a deal, with mixed messages appearing to emerge out of the region.
It is also unclear whether a U.S. agreement with Iran would in any way bind Israel’s hands in its military operations, either in Iran or in Lebanon, where an Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah, has vowed to keep up the fight.
Israel has ramped up strikes against Hezbollah targets in recent days, jeopardizing a delicate ceasefire negotiated with the Lebanese government, a deal encouraged by the Trump administration in order to grease the wheels for its talks with Tehran.
Trump has been uncharacteristically silent on the prospects of an agreement in recent days, expressing cautious optimism in limited exchanges with reporters.
“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president’s going to sign,” Vice President JD Vance, who has led the U.S. diplomatic team, told reporters, noting that “the nuclear stuff” is still subject to negotiation. “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points.”
“I do think that we’ve made a lot of progress here,” Vance added. “Hopefully we’ll continue to make progress, and the president will be in a position where he can endorse the agreement. But obviously, that’s still TBD.”
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