Donald Trump orders new sanctions against Iran's supreme leader and associates
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Donald Trump has signed into force new "hard-hitting" sanctions against Iran, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as tensions continue to rise between Washington and Tehran
Mr Trump said that the issue of the US drone downed by Iran last week “could probably add that into this” but that the sanctions were “something that was going to happen anyway.”
The president is also facing criticism on multiple fronts as the week begins, including domestic outcry over the treatment of migrant children held in “filthy” border detention centres. Meanwhile, questions have been raised after documents were released showing the president's transition team "red flagged" the appointed of a senior general for a top administration post over his opposition to the use of torture.
After postponing the mass deportation of immigrants at the request of Democrats over the weekend, the president gave an interview to NBC’s Meet the Press in which he fielded questions about possible Russian election hacking in 2020, the state of the US economy, and the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Meanwhile, as Mr Trump went after Iran, the 2020 race to take on the president is in full swing.
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The biggest headlines of the day on that front came from Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg. Mr Sanders drove the day by introducing an ambitious plan to make public college and universities free — and a significant reduction in American student loan debt.
Mr Buttigieg, meanwhile, faced conflict in South Bend, where an officer involved shooting of a black man has laid bare the racial tensions in that city and across the country.
That is the first time the White House press room has been used for a full briefing in more than 100 days. The White House is currently without a full-time press secretary after Sarah Sanders' resignation.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said the new executive order signed by President Trump will lock up "billions" of additional dollars in Iranian assets, squeezing the country further amid escalating tensions with Washington.
He added that the US did not consult with allies on the new sanctions.
US sanctions have also imposed on eight senior commanders of Navy, Aerospace, and Ground Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Treasury Department said in a statement.
"These commanders sit atop a bureaucracy that supervises the IRGC's malicious regional activities, including its provocative ballistic missile programme, harassment and sabotage of commercial vessels in international waters, and its destabilizing presence in Syria," the department added.
Things are seeming pretty shaky for Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of Southbend, Indiana, who has charmed many in the Democratic primary race so far.
Mr Buttigieg was in South Bend over the weekend, to try and sooth raw tensions in his city after a police shooting there in which a 54-year-old black man was killed.
His campaign has been dogged by questions about his ability to draw support from black voters, and the town hall he held over the weekend didn't assuage many of those fears — he was met with jeers and stark criticism upon his return to South Bend.
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