WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress responds to President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, lawmakers who served on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan are making their voices heard in a war debate that has taken on intensely personal meaning.

Many admit mixed feelings, taking satisfaction in seeing vengeance taken on the leadership of an Iranian regime that has targeted U.S. service members for decades, yet fearful that another generation of soldiers could soon face the same combat experiences that they did.

“Do I take gratification? You know there’s the Marine side of me: Yeah, of course,” said Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose company suffered some of the heaviest losses on the U.S. side during the Iraq War. “I know they killed a lot of American soldiers, American Marines. But do I also understand that I have a responsibility not to let my lust for revenge drive my country into another war?”

Experiences in the post 9/11 wars are also coloring the decisions of the Trump administration, given that top officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were once deployed to Iraq.

Gallego, like others on Capitol Hill, leaned heavily on his firsthand experience of fighting in the wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as he assessed the Iran conflict. Lawmakers wore bracelets etched with the names of friends killed in battle, told stories of coming under attack from Iran-backed militant groups and reflected on their own life-changing injuries suffered during combat.

Veteran lawmakers are wary of war

While the initial votes on Iran saw Congress divide mostly along party lines, with Republicans backing Trump’s actions and Democrats warning of an extended conflict, veterans in both parties share deep reservations about entering the conflict.

“As somebody who knows a lot of friends that didn’t come home and a lot of Gold Star families, that’s why the week before the attack, I was actually one of the ones that was talking about caution and why we needed to avoid at all costs getting into another long, drawn-out Middle Eastern war,” said Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a former Navy SEAL who left college to enlist the week after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Crane said his concerns were partially assuaged by briefings from the Trump administration that indicated to him the president is not planning a drawn-out war. He voted against a war powers resolution that would have halted attacks on Iran unless Trump got congressional approval.

But Crane said wars are never straightforward. “I’ve been on military operations that did not go to plan many times, and so I understand the nature,” he said, adding that he was calling for the Trump administration to approach the conflict with “humility and caution.”

Gallego and other Democrats worried that it was too late for that approach. They paid tribute to the six U.S. military members who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait and worried that there could soon be more American casualties.

“War is dirty, and mistakes happen,” Gallego said. The longer the conflict drags on, he added, the more chance there will be for U.S. military members to be killed. He said he saw that in Iraq when friends would be killed by seemingly random shots from enemy combatants.

Still, many Republicans argued that it was necessary to attack Iran to stop a regime that for decades has helped train and arm militant groups throughout the Middle East. Republican Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led the debate on the House floor against the war powers resolution.

Mast, who served as an Army bomb disposal expert, now uses prosthetic legs after receiving catastrophic injuries from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. “Me especially, many of my other colleagues, no one wants to see our military go into combat or war,” he said.

Then he added, “But Iran’s terror, which has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, it has to stop.”

Trying to push soldiers to forefront of war debate

Important questions loom for Congress as the conflict with Iran unfolds and spreads to other parts of the Middle East. The price for the operation is already likely running into the billions of dollars, likely forcing the Trump administration to soon seek billions in funding from Congress. The outbreak of war has also scrambled global alliances and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Shadowing it all is the potential of another drawn-out conflict. Lawmakers said they owe it to their fallen comrades to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“To me, it’s to speak out. It’s to say another generation should not go fight in an open-ended, ill-conceived regime change war in the Middle East,” said Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, his hand moving to a bracelet etched with the names of friends who were killed during his two Army combat tours in Iraq.

Others remembered how frustrated they became with Washington during their service, especially as soldiers tried to fight with insufficiently armored vehicles and not enough troops.

“I know what it was like to be on the very end of the receiving line of the decisions made in Washington,” said Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who entered the Army as a private before being promoted to a captain and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crow said that front-line soldiers often suffered “because people stopped asking tough questions. People stopped being held accountable. Congress stopped voting on it.”

Another veteran, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, said that was one of the reasons she sought a congressional seat in the first place. As a Blackhawk helicopter pilot with the Illinois National Guard, Duckworth lost her legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq.

“I ran for Congress so that when the drums of war started beating once again, I’d be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully considered the true cost of the war,” she said. “Not just in dollars and cents but in human lives.”

Anthropic is suing the Trump administration, asking federal courts to reverse the Pentagon’s decision designating the artificial intelligence company a “ supply chain risk ” over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology.

Anthropic filed two separate lawsuits Monday, one in California federal court and another in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., each challenging different aspects of the Pentagon’s actions against the company.

The Pentagon last week formally designated the San Francisco tech company a supply chain risk after an unusually public dispute over how its AI chatbot Claude could be used in warfare.

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” Anthropic’s lawsuit says. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

The Defense Department declined to comment Monday, citing a policy of not commenting on matters in litigation.

Anthropic said it sought to restrict its technology from being used for two high-level usages: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials publicly insisted the company must accept “all lawful uses” of Claude and threatened punishment if Anthropic did not comply.

Designating the company a supply chain risk cuts off Anthropic’s defense work using an authority that was designed to prevent foreign adversaries from harming national security systems. It was the first time the federal government is known to have used the designation against a U.S. company.

President Donald Trump also said he would order federal agencies to stop using Claude, though he gave the Pentagon six months to phase out a product that’s deeply embedded in classified military systems, including those used in the Iran war.

Anthropic’s lawsuit also names other federal agencies, including the departments of Treasury and State, after officials ordered employees to stop using Anthropic’s services.

Even as it fights the Pentagon’s actions, Anthropic has sought to convince businesses and other government agencies that the Trump administration’s penalty is a narrow one that only affects military contractors when they are using Claude in work for the Department of Defense.

Making that distinction clear is crucial for the privately held Anthropic because most of its projected $14 billion in revenue this year comes from businesses and government agencies that are using Claude for computer coding and other tasks. More than 500 customers are paying Anthropic at least $1 million annually for Claude, according to a recent investment announcement valued the company at $380 billion.

Anthropic said in a statement Monday that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”

Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, U.S. Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. It posted a video on X that showed a small boat being blown up as it floated on the water.

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists.”

In a meeting with Latin American leaders on Saturday, Trump encouraged them to join the U.S. in taking military action against drug-trafficking cartels and transnational gangs, which he said pose an “unacceptable threat” to the region’s national security.

To that end, Ecuador and the United States conducted military operations this past week against organized crime groups in the South American country.

With Saturday’s gathering, Trump aimed to demonstrate that he remains committed to focusing U.S. foreign policy on the Western Hemisphere, even while waging a war on Iran that has had repercussions across the Middle East.

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the U.S. over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat strikes also drew intense criticism following the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary, while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The United States and Iran have offered sharply different accounts of the sinking of an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean last week, with Washington rejecting Tehran’s claim the vessel was unarmed and Iranian officials insisting it was operating in a noncombat role.

The United States Indo-Pacific Command on Sunday rejected Iran’s claim that the warship IRIS Dena was unarmed when it was sunk in a submarine attack in international waters off Sri Lanka on March 4. In a statement on X, INDOPACOM called Iran’s assertion that the vessel was unarmed “false.”

The response followed strong objections from Tehran, which has repeatedly characterized the warship as defenseless, saying it was returning home after taking part in a naval exercise.

An Indian navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said the Iranian vessel was not “entirely unarmed” and had taken part in drills alongside other countries’ warships.

Some experts have, however, suggested that visiting ships at such events typically do not carry a full combat load of live munitions unless scheduled for live-fire drills. They say even during the sea phase of exercises, ships generally carry only tightly-controlled ammunition limited to specific drills.

Rahul Bedi, an independent defense analyst based in India, said the vessel may have used some limited non-offensive ammunition during the naval exercises, but protocol requires “the participating platforms to be unarmed.”

“The precondition of participating in such a parade, or such a ceremony, is that it (the vessel) comes unarmed. That is the precondition of the Indian Navy and it’s a precondition of most navies when they hold such similar sort of fleet reviews,” Bedi said.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh said Friday that the warship, sunk by a U.S. torpedo, had not been carrying weapons and accused Washington of targeting a ceremonial vessel.

“That vessel was by invitation of our Indian friends, attending an international exercise. It was ceremonial. It was unloaded. It was unarmed,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

The IRIS Dena was sunk on March 4 in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka after being struck by a torpedo fired from a U.S. submarine, according to American and Iranian officials. The Sri Lankan navy rescued 32 sailors and recovered 87 bodies.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the IRIS Dena as a “prize ship” and said it “died a quiet death.” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the attack as “an atrocity at sea” and stressed that it had been “a guest of India’s Navy.”

Disputes over whether the vessel was armed have intensified tensions over the incident, which occurred as it was returning from multinational naval exercises in India, and raised questions about whether it was operating in a noncombat role when it was attacked.

India’s defense ministry said in a statement after the exercises that “live firings as part of surface gun shoots, as well as anti-air firings, were also undertaken” by participating vessels.

The warship’s sinking highlighted how the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is spreading beyond the Middle East.

Two other Iranian vessels — the IRIS Bushehr and IRIS Lavan — are docked in Sri Lanka and India after seeking assistance from the two countries.

Associated Press writer Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report.

Or even that he has reignited long-dormant speculation that he could become president.

It’s that Rubio, in little more than a year, is becoming arguably the most consequential U.S. secretary of state in decades by ditching the last vestiges of the post-World War II international order in exchange for regime change and spheres of influence.

The capture of Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and the bombing of Iran are the latest mile markers of a U.S. foreign policy racing ahead with none of the constraints that tamed global conflict over the last 80 years.

As much as this transformation reflects Trump’s impulsive style, it would be an oversight to ignore the influence of Rubio, 54.

Trump himself characterized the 2003-2011 Iraq War as a “big, fat mistake” and vowed in his campaign that his deal-making prowess would keep America out of wars.

There’s also the “America First” sect in MAGA, populated by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Vice President JD Vance. It opposes prolonged military entanglements overseas and ride-or-die alliances with Israel and Europe in favor of nativism at home and embracing authoritarians abroad.

“This is not the United States’ war, ” Carlson said last week, one of the many conservative commentators to criticize the Iran attack. “This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives to make the United States safer or richer.”

But since January, Rubio’s neoconservative interventionist worldview has been clearly winning over Trump, a nod to skills he honed during his eight years in the Florida Legislature.

The Tampa Bay Times this month spoke to a half-dozen Republican and Democratic legislative leaders who witnessed Rubio’s climb through the state House of Representatives.

“When I heard he got this job, I thought it would suit his skill set,” said Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat who was the minority leader in the House when Rubio was speaker from 2006 to 2008. “He reads the room exceptionally well. I was impressed by his ability to navigate competing pressures.”

Gelber, who went on to serve as Miami Beach mayor, said he had little, if anything, good to say about the other members of Trump’s Cabinet. “But Marco?” he added. “He’s not easy to dislike.”

Rubio rises in Florida

Rubio arrived in Tallahassee in 2000 as a 28-year-old lawyer whose political experience was as a West Miami commissioner.

With incumbents tossed out for the first time because of the debut of term limits, Rubio’s freshman class was the largest in history, making up more than half of the total 120 seats in the House. Even in that crowd, party leaders immediately saw his potential.

“He could get up and speak about anything without a note in front of him,” said Mike Fasano, Pasco’s tax collector who was then House majority leader. “He had a gift, he still does, of attracting people to him.”

The House speaker in Rubio’s first year, Tom Feeney, said leaders noticed his discipline early. During the 2000 Bush v. Gore legal battle over ballot-counting in Florida that would decide the presidency, state House Republicans limited those who could talk publicly about the recount.

“Marco was one of the few people we trusted,” Feeney said. “He was a good messenger on a very high-stakes issue.”

Having grown up among Cuban exiles and other immigrants in Miami who fled authoritarian regimes, Rubio had another characteristic setting him apart. While most lawmakers come to Tallahassee with parochial concerns, Rubio was contemplating the world beyond.

“Foreign policy in South Florida is a daily issue,” said U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who was in the Florida Senate when Rubio first arrived in Tallahassee. “You have a large Cuban community that’s there because of (former Cuban President Fidel) Castro. You have a large Venezuelan community that’s there because of (former Venezuelan Presidents) Hugo Chavez and Maduro. You have Nicaraguans and Colombians. You can’t live in Miami without living foreign policy.”

It wasn’t until after Rubio rode a tea party wave and beat former Gov. Charlie Crist in the 2010 U.S. Senate race that he threw himself professionally into foreign affairs.

As Florida’s junior senator, he helped author an immigration reform bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for some immigrants living in the country without legal authorization.

It was a confusing time for the GOP. After incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama defeated Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, some Republicans thought the party had to soften its image with Hispanic voters. At the same time, another strain in the party grew hostile toward immigrants. The birther movement, which grew out of Trump’s questioning of Obama’s citizenship, targeted Rubio for a time.

Ultimately, the anti-immigrant passions won out, and Rubio turned against his own legislation.

Frustrated by the gridlock in the Senate, Rubio embarked on a bid for the presidency.

It didn’t end well for Rubio. Looking back, those who admired his equanimity in Tallahassee felt he let himself down by taking potshots at Trump during a 2016 presidential debate.

“If you were to ask him what his greatest regret was, I think he’d tell you it was his ad hominem attack,” Feeney said.

Through a spokesperson, Rubio declined to be interviewed for this story.

Like others who blistered Trump — such as Vance and current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — Rubio has since repaired his relationship with the president.

Rubio pivoted that same year and won reelection to the Senate, where he continued to add foreign policy credentials. He saw himself as an heir to Ronald Reagan as he crusaded against communism abroad.

That meant standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and supporting Ukraine, siding steadfastly with Israel, and pressuring the authoritarian regimes in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.

When Trump tapped him eight years later to be his secretary of state, Rubio had become the leading statesman of the Republican establishment.

Balancing act

Almost from his start in Trump’s Cabinet, Rubio seemed intent on ingratiating himself with the president, even if it meant abandoning causes he had supported as a national security hawk.

Overnight, Rubio went from calling Putin a tyrant and championing Ukraine “as long as they were willing to fight” to regarding the Russian dictator as a reliable negotiating partner and the Ukraine war as a stalemate that needed to be settled.

He played enforcer to Trump’s immigration policies, supporting the deportation of people who had fled countries led by communist regimes, such as Cuba and Venezuela.

He oversaw the gutting of $40 billion in annual aid to nations around the world, soft power the U.S. had deployed since World War II on programs like the Marshall Plan to support human rights and counter the pull of communism.

As Rubio rejected the same foreign policy tools and strategies he had once utilized, his former colleagues in Florida theorized that he was playing a long game with Trump of giving America Firsters what they want — up to a point.

“He’s balancing in a way that’s hard to do,” said Feeney, who served in Congress from 2003 to 2009.

“He understands what his role is,” said Diaz-Balart. “The secretary of state doesn’t establish the foreign policy, the president does.”

A consistent hardliner on Venezuela, Rubio received much of the credit for the Jan. 3 military strike that captured Maduro and his wife. The U.S. now controls the country and its vast oil reserves, which it is withholding from Cuba — an embargo that’s further weakening that regime.

During the State of the Union a month later, Rubio was the only Cabinet member Trump mentioned and complimented. The president suggested history will regard Rubio as the best secretary of state. The rest of his Cabinet, meanwhile, is in turmoil. Trump’s firing this week of Kristi Noem, his Homeland Security secretary, could be the first in a string.

“My guess is that (Rubio) has tremendous credibility with the president at this point,” said Tom Lee, who was Florida Senate president when Rubio was two years from House speaker. “He’s the star of the Cabinet. Unlike others in the administration, he’s not a cheerleader. He’s supportive, he steers the ship, but he lays low and defers to the president.”

Fasano said the key is what Rubio doesn’t do.

“Hegseth attacks people,” he said. “When did you see Marco do that? He’s been really quiet, but I’d say over the last few weeks, he’s become the most influential Cabinet member.”

The Iran bombing, which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was viewed as another triumph for Rubio, even as it drew more fire from those on the right suspicious of nation-building.

“With this Iran thing, I don’t see how the math works in our favor,” said Matt Walsh, a conservative commentator and self-described American Firster, in an X post. “Or at least it seems highly unlikely that it will work in our favor. And so I’m against it.”

For now, at least, Rubio has a growing record of foreign policy wins.

“It was a stunning 10-out-of-10 success with Venezuela,” said Patrick Hulme, a foreign policy professor at the University of Florida. “Nobody killed. You get Maduro in a crazy risky raid. From that, Rubio gets more trust from the president. You could draw a direct line from the Maduro raid to the Iran attack.”

But the risks are great and, with no clear succession plan or long-term strategy of what comes next, the Iran war could easily slip into a quagmire or intensify into an expanded conflict, Hulme said.

“If this Iran invasion goes south, who knows?” Hulme said. “You can see Trump saying, ‘This Rubio guy pushed me into this,’ and gets rid of him. But if it goes well, success builds upon success, and we’ll be in Cuba by the end of the year.”

©2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump promised that 2026 would be a bumper year for economic growth, but instead it has kicked off with job losses, rising gasoline prices and more uncertainty about America’s future.

In his State of the Union address less than two weeks ago, the Republican president confidently told the country: “The roaring economy is roaring like never before.” The latest batch of data on jobs, pump prices and the stock market suggests that Trump’s roar has started to sound far more like a whimper.

There is a gap between the boom that Trump has predicted and the volatile results he has produced — one that could set the tone in this year’s midterm elections as he tries to defend his party’s majorities in the House and Senate. With Trump’s tariffs drama ongoing, the war in Iran has suddenly created inflationary concerns regarding oil and natural gas. To the White House, it is still early in the year and stronger growth is coming.

No signs of a jobs boom

“WOW! The Golden Age of America is upon us!!!” Trump posted on social media Feb. 11 after the monthly jobs report showed gains of 130,000 jobs in January.

Since then, the job market has evaporated in worrisome ways.

Friday’s employment report showed job losses of 92,000 in February. The January and December figures were revised downward, with December swinging to a loss of 17,000 jobs. Monthly data can be rocky, but a trend has emerged that shows an enduring weakness. Without the health care sector, the economy would have shed roughly 202,000 jobs since Trump became president in January 2025. Still, his administration notes that construction job gains outside of the housing sector point to future hiring growth.

Trump often brags that jobs are going to people born in the United States, rather than to immigrants. But the latest report punctured some of that argument.

The unemployment rate for people born in the U.S. has climbed over the past 12 months to 4.7% from 4.4%. This means a greater share of the people who Trump said would get jobs because of his immigration crackdown are, in fact, searching for work.

Prices at the pump are going up

“Slashing energy costs is among the most important actions we can take to bring down prices for American consumers,” Trump said in a February speech in Texas just before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. “Because when you cut the cost of energy, you really cut — you just cut the cost of everything.”

The president has repeatedly told Americans that keeping gas costs low would be key to defeating inflation. He has talked up the decline, citing figures that were far below the national average to assure the public that driving was getting cheaper.

But the strikes against Iran that began Feb. 28 have, for the moment, crushed that narrative. Prices at the pump have jumped 19% over the past month to a national average of $3.45, according to AAA. The investment bank Goldman Sachs warned in an analyst note that, if higher oil prices persist, inflation could rise from its 2.4% reading in January to 3% by the end of the year.

The administration is banking on plans to contain any energy price increases, essentially betting that either the conflict will end shortly or the administration can succeed in getting more tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump advisers on Sunday sought to assure anxious Americans that surging fuel prices are a short-term problem.

“We never know exactly the time frame of this,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNN’s “State of the Union. “But in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing.”

Stocks are off their highs

“You know, we set the all-time record in history with the Dow going to 50,000,” Trump said Thursday at the White House.

This frequently repeated talking point has grown stale. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of Trump’s preferred measures of success, has dropped 5% over the past month. Stocks are up during his presidency, just as they were previously when Democrat Joe Biden was president. The recent decline could be reversed if the war with Iran ends and companies see solid profits over the next year and beyond. The recent dip, however, should be a warning sign as the administration has stressed the importance of more people investing in the stock market through vehicles such as “Trump accounts” for children.

The stock market has become a barometer of how people feel about the economy, with stock investors tending to have more confidence and those without money in the markets being more pessimistic.

Joanna Hsu, the director of the University of Michigan’s surveys of consumers, noted that in February a “sizable” increase in sentiment among people owning stocks “was fully offset by a decline among consumers without stock holdings.”

Productivity is up, but workers aren’t benefiting

Trump can point to a win in that the economy has become more productive — generating more value for each hour of work. That is a positive sign for long-term growth in the U.S. and a reflection of its strong tech sector.

Business sector labor productivity climbed 2.8% in the fourth quarter of last year, the Labor Department reported Thursday. But the challenge is that the gains might not be spread to workers in the form of higher pay as labor’s share of income last year fell to the lowest level on record, noted Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit aligned with liberal economic issues.

Economy grew at a faster pace under Biden

“Under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation, meaning low growth and high inflation — a recipe for misery, failure and decline,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

The scoreboard tells a far different story, one that makes Biden’s track record in 2024 look better than Trump’s performance last year. The U.S. economy grew at a 2.8% pace during Biden’s last year, compared with 2.2% under Trump in 2025.

As for inflation, the primary measure used by the Federal Reserve is the personal consumption expenditures price index. It was 2.6% in both 2024 and 2025.

Trump has staked his economic argument on doing better than Biden. But while he has avoided the inflation spikes that haunted Biden’s presidency, he has not delivered stronger growth or more hiring.

The University of North Florida poll found likely midterm election voters were split evenly, with 48% approval and 49% disapproval of the Trump administration’s handling of immigration, one of his signature policy priorities.

The overall numbers somewhat obscure the depth of feeling on both sides; 33% of Florida voters strongly approve of the way the Trump administration is handling immigration and 41% strongly disapprove.

The views of Florida’s no party affiliation/independent voters — a critical voting bloc that can swing elections — are striking. The poll found 60% of no party independents disapprove (49% strongly) and 36% approve (20% strongly) of the Trump administration’s handling of immigration.

Sean Freeder, a University of North Florida political scientist and director of the Public Opinion Research Lab, that is a political warning sign for Republicans as the midterm elections approach.

“If I was a Republican right now, being 25 points underwater (among NPA/independents) on Trump’s signature issue of immigration … it would make me nervous,” he said.

The poll conducted by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab was released Wednesday, the day before Trump fired the chief implementer of his administration’s immigration policy, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Almost none of the Floridians surveyed had no opinion on the question of Trump administration immigration policy. Just 3% said they didn’t know or didn’t answer.

The poll showed significant differences between Democrats and Republicans and large gender and age gaps:

— Among Democrats, 80% strongly disapproved and 9% somewhat disapproved for a total disapproval of 89%.

— Among Republicans, 62% strongly approved and 22% somewhat approved for a total of 83%. (Because of rounding, total percentages are sometimes different than the sum of their parts.)

— Among men, 58% approved of Trump’s handling of immigration. Among women, 57% disapproved.

— Among voters 55 and older, 54% approved of the administration’s handling of immigration; 69% of voters 18-34 disapproved.

Trump effect

The net negative view of Trump administration immigration policy was 1 percentage point. Disapproval of the way Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is handling its job is higher — 13 percentage points.

For all voters surveyed, 55% said they disapproved of the way ICE is handling its job and 42% disapproved. As with the overall immigration policy question, just 3% said they didn’t know or didn’t answer.

Strong disapproval (48%) was far greater than strong approval (27%).

ICE has been receiving intense blowback for the way it has rounded up and treated people who are, or are suspected of, being in the U.S. illegally, and the turmoil that accompanied massive immigration enforcement this year in Minnesota.

Freeder said the higher disapproval for the ICE question could be because the immigration policy question included Trump’s name and the ICE question didn’t.

Freeder said that may have meant some answers to that question reflected respondents’ overall views of Trump. Supporting that possibility, he said, is that the views of the Trump administration’s handling of immigration (48% approve; 49% disapprove) closely tracked voters’ overall views of Trump (45% favorable; 48% unfavorable.)

“When we ask people about Trump’s handling of immigration, it’s pretty similar to Trump’s numbers,” Freeder said.

“When we ask people (about ICE) without using Trump’s name, all of a sudden we go down to a negative 15.” He said people, including Republicans, are more critical “when Trump’s name is not on the table.”

ICE details

Women’s assessments of ICE were overwhelmingly negative, with 33% approving and 62% disapproving — which is negative 29 points. Men approved of ICE 53% to 45% — a net positive of 8 percentage points.

Younger voters, age 18-34, 76% disapproved of ICE. For voters 55 and older, 49% disapproved.

Democratic disapproval was overwhelming. Republican approval was extremely high, but not as lopsided as Democratic disapproval.

Among Democrats 92% disapproved, including 88% who strongly disapproved.

Among Republicans, 78% approved, including 54% who strongly approved. Republican disapproval stood at 19%, including 14% who strongly disapproved.

No party affiliation/independent voters were also opposed to the way ICE does its job.

Among NPA/independent voters, 69% disapproved, 57% strongly. About a quarter of independents approved, split between somewhat and strong approval.

Driver’s licenses

With nationwide attention on immigration enforcement, elected officials who favor cracking down have advocated for more restrictions on drivers, including in Florida.

The poll found broad support — 61%-37% — for a policy rolled out last month that requires people to take all Florida driver’s exams for knowledge and skills in English. Previously exams could be given in other languages.

The policy change was implemented by the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, run by an executive director picked by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Strongest support for the policy comes from Republicans (84%). No party affiliation/independent voters support the idea 60%-40%. Among Democrats, 66% are opposed.

Men are far more supportive (70%) of the policy than women (54%).

There is also a significant age gap. Voters 18-34 are split, 48% in support and 49% opposed. Voters 55 and older support the policy, 65%-33%.

Florida poll finds widespread affordability worries. Most voters ready to cut property taxes.

Overall concern

Immigration enforcement, and control of U.S. borders, was a pillar of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, and helped convince many people to vote for him.

It’s not a top-tier issue in early 2026.

Affordability was cited as the top issue by 50% of people surveyed. Immigration was cited as the most important problem facing Florida today by just 8% of Florida voters, in third place behind political division and polarization at 12%.

Fine print

The poll of 786 likely Florida midterm election voters was conducted by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab.

The poll, which used live callers for interviews by phone and online surveys distributed by text message, was conducted Feb. 21 through March 2.

The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points for the full survey.

However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and younger and older voters, would be higher because the sample sizes are smaller.

Political writer Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

Cardoso, 22, had immigrated from Cuba to Tampa in 2023. She was seeking a haven after her grandmother was killed in an act of political violence.

Cardoso, who’d been studying to be an art teacher, envisioned a future in the United States free from persecution — a place to raise a family. When she learned she was pregnant in August, she longed to fill her home with baby clothes and build a crib.

But weeks into her pregnancy, Cardoso was swept up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. During months of detention with few medical checkups, Cardoso didn’t even know how many weeks along she was.

She was in Florida lawfully under a rule that lets Cubans who have been in the U.S. for at least a year apply for permanent residency. She had a pending green card application. Still, Cardoso was shipped to a South Florida detention center. Days later, she was transferred out of state. By late September, she made a third stop in rural New Mexico. She’d stay for months as her body changed and her baby grew.

Medical experts agree that detaining people during pregnancy poses major safety risks, and immigration policy states that doing so should be extremely rare. But amid the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations, advocates say experiences like Cardoso’s indicate a disregard for the health of women and children.

ICE officials did not respond to questions about the agency’s policies regarding pregnant detainees or the specifics of Cardoso’s case.

“I felt afraid,” Cardoso told the Tampa Bay Times in Spanish. “Afraid for me, afraid for my baby because I could lose it.”

Left in the dark

Cardoso was kept in South Florida for half a month.

Prenatal care was sparse, she said, and so was information about her health. One day, she felt faint and nearly passed out.

Staff took her to a hospital, where she got an evaluation, but she said she wasn’t given access to her medical files or told about the health of her baby before she was returned to her cell.

It was just weeks earlier that she had been arrested in a parking lot of an Orlando shopping center. She had been there with four friends when two were caught stealing sunglasses. Security footage later showed Cardoso wasn’t with them at the time, but police took her into custody anyway. Records show she was charged with coordinating theft. Her attorney is filing a motion to dismiss the case.

Shortly after her arrest, ICE stepped in.

In 2016, ICE policy discouraged the detainment of pregnant women, but two years into the first Trump presidency, the agency reversed course. Leading medical groups, like the American Gynecological Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, condemned the decision.

“All pregnant women and adolescents held in federal custody, regardless of immigration status, should have access to adequate, timely, evidence-based, and comprehensive health care,” their joint letter read. “The conditions in DHS (Department of Homeland Security) facilities are not appropriate for pregnant women or children.”

In 2021, the Biden administration reissued the directive, noting that pregnant women should be detained only in extraordinary circumstances, such as when they pose a danger or a flight risk. ICE must then monitor detainees’ health, give them comprehensive pre- and postnatal care and evaluate each week whether detainment is still appropriate.

Though the second Trump administration has yet to officially rescind those directives, reports and public records indicate a pileup of concerning cases.

There was the 17-year-old from Honduras who was detained in Louisiana last year before being flown to a center in Fort Lauderdale at 36 weeks — beyond the point when doctors advise against flying. There was the woman detained in Broward County who, according to 911 logs, reported a possible miscarriage. Recently, federal judges have condemned ICE’s treatment of pregnant and nursing detainees, citing cramped conditions and mothers being separated from nursing infants.

When Cardoso was moved across the country, she felt alone in the dark.

A risky environment

Before Cardoso arrived at Otero County Processing Center on a swath of New Mexico desert, the place had made headlines when a 32-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant died in custody in June 2024. Authorities released minimal information on his death.

About 30 miles north of El Paso and the Mexican border, the center has held thousands of detained immigrants — and has amassed a history of civil rights complaints and reported violations.

In 2021, ICE personnel wrote a letter to the center’s operating company outlining concerns about inadequate staffing and “standards compliance,” as well as a shortage of medical services. Around the same time, an immigration advocacy group found that the most common complaints from those at Otero concerned medical access.

At Otero, Cardoso knew the living conditions were bad for her baby. Research indicates that stress can make complications like pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes more likely. But constant commotion and the threat of deportation made stress an inevitability.

To pass time, Cardoso would try to spend her days asleep, rising from the metal bunk bed she shared with another woman only when food was served.

“There were 50 of us in one cell,” Cardoso said. “One room for 50 people.”

On arrival, Cardoso went through medical examinations that were standard for Otero detainees, but she said she went months without specialized care. She said the center didn’t have ultrasound machines to perform sonograms so she didn’t get imaging. Instead, staff placed a stethoscope against her belly to make sure her baby’s heart was beating.

Cardoso said she was not the only pregnant woman at Otero — there were many. Whenever they gathered, she said, all they could talk about was the uncertain future.

As days, then weeks, then months passed, a new fear emerged: What would happen if she gave birth there?

Holding out hope

After nearly three months at Otero, Cardoso said she was taken out of the center for a doctor’s appointment. Clinicians performed an ultrasound and did blood work.

She learned she was having a baby girl.

But once more, Cardoso said, she was denied access to her medical records and given no insight into her health, including how far along her pregnancy was. This was Cardoso’s first pregnancy. She didn’t know what symptoms to look out for or how to keep her baby healthy, especially without the guidance of a doctor.

Regular appointments with specialists are vital to keeping mothers and babies safe, said Dr. Nicole Teal.

Teal, who studied medicine at the University of South Florida, is an OB-GYN who specializes in high-risk pregnancies at UC San Diego Health. She said diagnosing complications and treating them early is crucial. That means getting lab work, imaging and genetic testing, often in the first trimester. Failing to treat complications can be fatal.

“It’s really inhumane,” Tampa immigration attorney Sam Badawi said of Cardoso’s case.

Badawi learned about Cardoso in September after a family member reached out. The lawyer decided to represent her pro bono, getting bar certified in New Mexico to be able to do so. He said her case highlights a substandard level of care for detainees, noting that detention centers are often in rural areas with limited health care and long journeys to hospitals or clinics in an emergency. The New Mexico town where Cardoso was held is designated as a health care provider shortage area, meaning it has too few physicians to meet needs.

Without Badawi’s help, Cardoso said she was likely to be sent to Ecuador via an agreement between the countries that allowed the U.S. to send asylum seekers to places it deems safe. Recently, a federal judge ruled the agreement to be illegal. The issue is likely to go before the Supreme Court. Cardoso had never been to Ecuador. She knows nobody there.

In February, after Badawi filed a challenge to Cardoso’s detainment, ICE temporarily released her. If she’s denied a green card, she could still be deported. And if she is detained again after giving birth, she could be separated from her baby.

“This is far from over,” Badawi said.

Since returning to Tampa, Cardoso has been experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. She can’t sleep — the mattress feels too soft, her home too quiet, and she has nightmares in which she’s still imprisoned. She flushes the toilet multiple times, a habit from the detainment center where the plumbing was unreliable. Though she returned to a wardrobe that no longer fits, she’s too afraid to venture out to buy maternity clothes.

Recently, Cardoso had an appointment at the hospital where she expects to give birth next month. She said she was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, perhaps triggered by trauma.

She desperately wants to enjoy her early days of motherhood. She said she is trying to be strong and to hold onto hope — for her baby, but also herself.

She is trying.

©2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit at tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Rumored sales or leases to Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been abandoned in places such as Mississippi, Tennessee and New Hampshire in part due to local elected Republicans urging the Trump Administration to look elsewhere.

But so far in Orlando, there’s no similar movement against ICE’s plans to create a detention center in a warehouse park off of State Road 528. The site here is further from population centers than some of the proposals that have failed, and the opposition has been more muted.

The Orlando facility is among several dozen the Department of Homeland Security would like to purchase around the country to greatly increase federal detention space for President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The investment is part of about $45 billion allocated to the agency under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and could help achieve top ICE official Todd Lyons’ goal to make the agency into the “Amazon Prime for human beings.”

The warehouse would be a so-called “processing center” capable of holding about 1,500 detainees at a time, held for an average of one week.

While the reaction has been quieter compared to other states, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost believes local opposition has been enough to keep the federal agency from moving forward for now.

“I think it’s still in a bit of limbo. We’ve made great efforts both on the official side and the advocacy side,” said Frost, D-Orlando. “As a result of that advocacy, it hasn’t gone anywhere as of yet.”

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and the Board of County Commissioners are expected to formalize their opposition this coming week in the form of a resolution. The statement argues a facility would burden the county’s “infrastructure, public resources and municipal services.” It also notes that such a facility could be harmful to the region’s reputation as an international tourism destination.

“The Orange County Board of County Commissioners hereby unequivocally and categorically opposes the conversion of any existing industrial warehouse(s) within Orange County for the establishment of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility or detention facility…” it reads.

ICE didn’t respond to questions about whether the Orlando location is still under consideration. Nor did the Georgia-based TPA Group, which owns the property, nor did HLI Partners, the Winter Park real estate company that was marketing the site.

Local officials have struggled to get intel about the plan from the property owner or from the feds. Several have unsuccessfully tried to contact TPA or HLI, which for a period last month played a Rick Astley song if its listed number was dialed.

City Commissioner Roger Chapin last month sent an email to Republican U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, as well as U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, urging them to ensure the federal government respects local regulations and processes.

“A facility of this nature, if it were to bypass local zoning laws, located within Orlando could raise important procedural questions under local zoning codes, land-use regulations, infrastructure capacity and public safety planning,” he wrote.

About two weeks later, Moody’s office sent only a brief reply, acknowledging the note.

In all, 10 warehouses across the U.S. have been purchased by the federal government for a collective $894 million, according to Project Salt Box.

But 12 sales have been canceled, with at least seven more, including in Orlando, still under consideration.

In many of the canceled sales, advocacy from coalitions of officials, including members of congress, governors and local leaders – both Republicans and Democrats – has been critical.

For instance, in Merrimack, N.H., town manager Paul Micali said ICE’s proposal to open a detention center there sparked an uproar in the residential community of about 30,000. He said when the town got word that ICE was considering it, they immediately contacted their state and federal representatives, as well as Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte, to oppose it.

“The first thing that worked is we got on it right away,” he said. “We got our state delegation, our federal delegation and our governor involved right away. This was a bipartisan effort by everybody.”

Ultimately, Ayotte met with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and on Feb. 24 announced that the facility wouldn’t move forward.

In Mississippi, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker wrote a letter to Noem opposing a potential warehouse conversion in Byhalia, Miss. because it would harm economic development and potentially overwhelm infrastructure. DHS ultimately decided not to pursue that site any further.

In Oklahoma City, Republican Mayor David Holt announced a property owner there wouldn’t sell to the feds after local opposition, and in Texas, a billionaire Trump donor also decided against selling his property to the Department of Homeland Security.

Amid the blowback, the Trump administration has worked behind the scenes throughout the country to bolster support for the facilities, the Washington Post reported. DHS has distributed talking points to some local Republicans in places like New Hampshire and Maryland, and also held closed-door meetings with members of congress from Pennsylvania and Mississippi. It’s unclear if such an effort has been made in Florida.

Orange County faces a different political reality than many of the places with bipartisan opposition. The local power structure at the city and county level is mostly Democratic, and unlikely to influence the Trump administration. Meanwhile, local and state Republicans have been either quiet or gung-ho on the warehouse idea.

Gov. Ron DeSantis hasn’t weighed in on the Orlando site, but he has fervently spearheaded the state’s own detention facility at Alligator Alcatraz in South Florida.

And Byron Donalds, the Republican frontrunner in the contest to succeed DeSantis, has enthusiastically supported the Orlando warehouse plan, while blasting governor’s race rivals Demings and Democrat David Jolly for their opposition.

“Jerry Demings & David Jolly are fighting to block this facility – we’re not going to let that happen,” Donalds, R-Naples, posted on X in January after appearing with about a dozen GOP activists at the warehouse.

The location itself is also much further away from residential areas than some of the other sites, located about 8 miles east of the Orlando International Airport in an isolated warehouse park. The large Sunbridge development is planned nearby, but there are no current residents anywhere near it to complain.

Opponents still have one major card to play. Frost and other Central Florida officials such as orange County Commissioner Nicole Wilson have cited the potential impacts to the region’s all-important tourism economy such a facility could have.

Frost said local hotels heard from travelers earlier this year as rumors swirled that ICE had booked hundreds of hotel rooms for a potential enforcement operation here.

“It’s going to be a thing that all tourists hear about when they come to Central Florida,” he said. “People have to throw everything they can at this to try to oppose this.”

And it looks like the atmosphere of distrust created over last year’s budget disagreements is still evident, as some of the top items being pushed by legislative leaders and Gov. Ron DeSantis — all Republicans — seem unlikely to cross the finish line.

The Legislature is bogged down in a bottleneck of bills and even key GOP priorities like finding a way to cut property taxes, haven’t cleared both chambers.

To get a budget approved by Friday, both chambers have to agree on a spending plan by Tuesday to allow for a required 72-hour cooling off period before they can take a final vote.

“We are not getting close enough, and it is looking tough for us to end on time,” House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, told reporters this week. The two chambers “have a fundamental disagreement on what the budget should look like for the state of Florida,” Perez said.

After looking at the state’s somber three-year financial outlook, Perez said he wants to ensure that future legislatures have the same flexibility he has had “to make the right decisions to give the largest tax cut in state history.” That won’t be possible unless they tighten their belts now, he said.

State economists predict a $3.7 surplus this year but deficits of $8.1 billion over the next two years.  “I don’t think I am very flexible on wanting to spend more money,” Perez said.

Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, has said he believes he has a good relationship with Perez and felt confident about a budget agreement. Yet two of his top priorities – funding for struggling rural counties and money for school vouchers – appear dead as Perez has no intention of taking up those items.

The House has proposed a $113.6 billion budget while the Senate has proposed a $115 billion budget.

The impasse is puzzling considering those opening offers are only $1.4 billion apart, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at University of Central Florida.

“That’s less than a 1% difference,” Jewett said, but unless both sides are willing to compromise it may as well be larger.

State law requires them to eventually come to an agreement. They can’t begin to parse out the funding for each state department and line item until they can agree on the bottom line, and those budget decisions can also prompt disagreements.

“Fast is not on the menu this session,” Perez said.

Last year, the Legislature didn’t finalize its budget until two weeks before the annual budget cycle ended because the House and Senate quarreled over how to close a $4 billion spending gap. Perez thought he reached a compromise with Albritton over sales taxes, but Albritton backed out of the deal several days later.

That spending plan was signed by DeSantis on June 30, the last day of the budget year.

“Right now the odds of holding a special session on the budget are pretty high,” Jewett said.

The budget isn’t the only issue that splits the House and Senate.

The House moved quickly on DeSantis’ request to come up with a property tax reduction plan to present to voters in November. The House plan would, with voter approval, wipe out all but education-related homestead taxes.

Albritton has said he wanted to take a measured and cautious approach to the complicated topic of property taxes. But the Senate has never unveiled a plan of its own, and it also has not taken up the House plan.

DeSantis has hinted at a special session on property taxes, saying there is no reason to rush something that won’t come before voters until November.  

Meanwhile, the Legislature has moved slowly on many bills, with some debated at length and progressing through one chamber only to be stalled in the other. With only 43 bills out of 1,895 filed this year approved by both chambers, the Legislature is off last year’s pace, when 295 bills out of 1,950 were approved.

Lawmakers recently spent hours arguing over measures to preempt local governments from funding activities that fall under a vague and broad definition of diversity, equality and inclusion, stop them from restricting greenhouse gases, and prevent them from regulating urban sprawl. They also entertained a proposal that would place new restrictions on voting and a measure that would make it even more difficult for teachers unions to recertify their membership.

As of Friday, those bills were still moving between the two chambers.

Bills in limbo include one that aims to prohibit developers from charging “forever fees” on community amenities like pools, tennis courts and club houses, a measure to restore the Ocklawaha River to its natural state, and an amendment that would put severe limits on the ability of counties to control large-scale development in counties’ rural boundaries.

Among the bills that are nearly dead are the governor’s push for regulating AI at the state level and a bill to make it easier for parents to get vaccine exemptions for school children. While those bills cleared the Senate they have not been heard in the House and likely won’t be, Perez said.

And a bill passed in the House to lower the age to buy guns from 21 to 18 hasn’t moved in the Senate and seems unlikely to get new life in the last week.

House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, called it a wasted session that did nothing to solve the problems that Floridians care about the most — affordable housing and property insurance. Bills filed by Democrats to address those issues did not advance.

“They certainly have a lot of dysfunction going on right now,” she said of the GOP.