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WASHINGTON — President Trump has turned to naval blockades to pressure the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and now Iran to meet his demands, but his preferred tactic is confronting a very different reality in the Middle East than in the Caribbean.

Unlike Cuba or Venezuela, Iran choked off a crucial trade route for energy shipments, meaning the longer the standoff persists, the more the global economy will suffer. Tehran also poses a greater military threat than those two adversaries in America’s own hemisphere and requires a sustained military presence far from U.S. shores.

Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz gives it power during a shaky ceasefire because the widening economic risks, especially higher U.S. gas prices in an election year, could force the Republican president to end the blockade on Iran’s ports and coastline, experts say.

“It’s really a question now of which country, the U.S. or Iran, has a greater pain tolerance,” said Max Boot, a military historian and senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iran presents ‘major differences’ from other blockades

The effectiveness of Trump’s use of the world’s most powerful navy to block the trade of Iran’s sanctioned oil and other goods is very much up for debate. But it certainly appears to be intensifying as the war grinds on.

The U.S. military on Thursday announced the seizure of another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the crucial waterway.

Trump also announced he has ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” Iranian small boats laying sea mines in the strait.

But the situation in Iran is not exactly analogous to what is playing out with the U.S. operations in Venezuela and Cuba.

Some experts say Trump’s success in Venezuela probably had more to do with the U.S. military raid that captured leader Nicolás Maduro than American warships seizing sanctioned oil tankers to enforce U.S. control over the South American country.

A U.S. oil embargo on Cuba, meanwhile, has caused the island’s most severe economic crisis in decades. While U.S. and Cuban officials have met recently on the island for rare talks, the financial strangulation has failed to produce the Trump administration’s stated goal of leadership change.

“I do think that the success of the Maduro mission in Venezuela has probably emboldened the president,” said Todd Huntley, director of Georgetown University’s National Security Law Program.

That does not make the situations in Venezuela and Iran similar — geographically, militarily or politically. “There are some major differences,” said Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate general.

While the blockade against Iran has delivered a severe blow to its economy, including stopping freighters from importing various supplies, the country has still been able to move some of its sanctioned oil, ship-tracking companies say.

Iran has rejected Trump’s demands to reopen the strait, where 20% of the world’s oil normally flows, and it has been firing on ships again this week. Stalled shipments through the strait have sent gasoline prices skyrocketing far beyond the region and raised the cost of food and a wide array of other products, creating a political problem for Trump before the November’s elections.

“Blockades are usually just one tool of a mechanism used in a conflict,” said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime history professor at Campbell University in North Carolina. “They can be important. But it’s only one element. And I don’t think it’s going to be enough to convince the Iranians.”

Effectiveness of U.S. blockade called into question

Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, claimed last week that “no ship has evaded U.S. forces.” The command overseeing the Middle East said it has directed 31 ships to turn around or return to port as of Wednesday.

Merchant shipping groups are skeptical.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence said “a steady flow of shadow fleet traffic” has passed in and out of the Persian Gulf, including 11 tankers with Iranian cargo that have left the Gulf of Oman outside the strait since April 13.

The maritime intelligence firm Windward said this week that Iranian traffic continues to flow “via deception.”

Iranian ships have several ways to sneak through the blockade, including spoofing their location tracking data or traveling through Pakistani territorial waters, Mercogliano said. He also noted that the sheer volume of shipping traffic the military needs to screen is a challenging task.

Blockades require patience to work

The last time the U.S. mounted a blockade similar to the one focused on Iranian ships was during the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s, against Cuba, Huntley said.

“And it wasn’t even called a blockade,” he said. “We called it quarantine.”

Some naval blockades over the course of history have had an impact, such as Britain’s blockade on Germany during World War I. “But they tend to be very long-term impacts, whereas Trump is looking for short-term, quick results,” according to Boot, the military historian.

He said Trump probably saw the blockade on sanctioned oil tankers tied to Venezuela as playing a large role in the success of leadership changes in that country. But Boot said it had more to do with the U.S. ousting Maduro and the subsequent cooperation from his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is now the acting president.

“There is no Delcy Rodríguez in Cuba or Iran,” Boot said. “I think his success in Venezuela led him astray, thinking that this was a template that could be replicated elsewhere. He sees it as a huge success at little cost. And, in fact, it turns out to be a unique set of circumstances.”

Finley, Klepper and Toropin write for the Associated Press.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz, announcing the move Thursday a day after Iran again displayed its ability to thwart traffic through the channel.

Trump also announced that a ceasefire in Lebanon would be extended by three weeks.

His post on social media about the small boats came shortly after the U.S. military seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Tehran over the strait through which 20% of all crude oil and natural gas traded passed during peacetime.

“I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be … putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted, adding that U.S. minesweepers “are clearing the Strait right now.”

“I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!” he added.

The decision to extend a pause in fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon came during a meeting at the White House between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the United States.

Meanwhile, it was still unclear when, or if, the U.S. and Iran would meet again in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where mediators are trying to bring the countries together to reach a diplomatic deal ending that conflict.

Negotiations initially planned this week have not happened. Iran insists it will not attend until the U.S. ends its blockade on Iranian ports and ships. The White House insists it will not take part until Tehran opens the strait to international traffic.

Pope Leo XIV, returning home from a trip to Africa, urged the U.S. and Iran to return to talks to end the war.

Footage shows US forces on deck of tanker

The Defense Department released video footage of U.S. forces on the deck of the oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean. The ship had been flying a Guyanese flag, though the South American nation of Guyana said it was not registered there

The footage emerged a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them, in an assault that raised new concerns about the safety of shipping through the waterway.

The powerful head of Iran’s judiciary, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, said three “violating ships” in the strait were “subject to enforcement” Wednesday.

“The show of strength by the armed forces of Islamic Iran in the Strait of Hormuz is a source of pride,” he wrote Thursday on X, claiming the Americans “lack the courage” to approach the strait.

Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, seized earlier by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.

Majestic X previously was named Phonix and had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in contravention of U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Guyana said in a statement the Majestic X was not registered in the South American nation.

“While the name of the vessel has changed, the (International Maritime Organization) number remains recorded in the international database as PHONIX. There is no record of this vessel or name in Guyana’s registry. Therefore, the ship is FRAUDULENTLY flying the Guyana flag,” Guyana’s Maritime Administration Department said.

There was no immediate response from Iran about the seizure.

Trump claims leadership rift in Iran

Trump this week extended a ceasefire to give the Iranian leadership more time to come up with a “unified proposal” on ending the war, while maintaining an American blockade of Iranian ports.

In a post Thursday, Trump claimed a leadership rift between moderates and hard-liners was confounding Iran. “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know!” Trump said.

Trump has repeatedly said during the ceasefire that began April 8 that his team is dealing with Iranian officials who want to make a deal, while acknowledging that his decision to kill several top leaders has come with complications.

Iran’s president and its parliament speaker posted statements on social media declaring the country has no hard-liners or moderates.

“We are all Iranians and revolutionaries,” they said.

A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Trump’s claim of a leadership rift was a “deflection.” Other Iranian officials said on social media that the country was united.

Trump, while speaking to reporters at the White House, pushed back against questions about the conflict exceeding the four-to-six-week timeline that he and aides previously set for the war.

“I don’t want to rush myself,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. “took the country out” militarily in the first four weeks.

“Now all we’re doing is sitting back and seeing what deal” can be made. “And if they don’t want to make a deal, then I’ll finish it up militarily,” Trump said.

He said he would not use a nuclear weapon against Iran.

Meanwhile, three aircraft carriers were in the region after the USS George H.W. Bush arrived in the Indian Ocean. One carrier was in the Arabian Sea and another was in the Red Sea, military officials said.

Talks between Lebanon and Israel lead to truce extension

Trump said a second round of talks between Israel and Lebanon in Washington “went very well” and resulted in a ceasefire extension for Israel and the Hezbollah militant group.

“The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

The latest war between Israel and Hezbollah started after Israel and the U.S. launched attacks on Iran and the Tehran-backed militants fired rockets into northern Israel. The ceasefire first took effect for a 10-day period starting Friday.

Underscoring the truce’s fragility, Israel’s military said it struck missile launchers in Lebanon that had fired into its borders. Hezbollah said it fired at the Israeli town of Shtula in response to Israeli attacks on the Lebanese village of Yater.

Lebanon’s public health ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed three people further north, in the area of Nabatiya. The Israeli military said it killed three militants who launched a missile toward an Israeli warplane.

Each side has accused the other of breaching the truce.

Trump reiterated that the U.S. continues to demand that Iran stop it’s backing of Iranian-allied militias in the Mideast, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, as part of any deal between Washington and Tehran to end the U.S. war on Iran.

“Yeah, they’ll have to cut that,” Trump said to a reporter’s question about aiding Hezbollah. “That’s a must.”

Threats to shipping persist

Since the Feb. 28 start of the war between Iran, Israel and the United States, over 30 ships have come under attack in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

The threat of attack, rising insurance premiums and other fears have stopped traffic from moving through the strait. Iran’s ability to restrict traffic through the strait, which leads from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has proved a major strategic advantage.

Jakob Larsen, the head of maritime security for BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners, said in a note Thursday that most shipping companies need a stable ceasefire and assurances from both sides of the conflict that the strait is safe for transit.

The threat of mines, he wrote, was a “particular concern” if traffic might return to normal levels one day.

___

Madhani reported from Washington, and Keaten reported from Geneva.

___

This story has corrected that the Majestic X oil tanker had been flying the Guyanese flag not the Guinea flag.

President Donald Trump has doubled down on the idea of a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit Airlines rather than a traditional bailout, an approach critics previously described as highly problematic.

Trump reaffirmed his interest in offering the airline a financial lifeline during a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, adding that the plan would involve reselling the carrier once oil prices decline.

“We’re thinking about doing it, helping them out and meaning bailing them out or buying it. I think we just buy it,” he said. 

“We’d be getting it virtually debt free. They have some good aircraft, some good assets, and when the price of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit.” 

TED CRUZ POURS COLD WATER ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLAN TO BAIL OUT SPIRIT AIRLINES: ‘TERRIBLE IDEA’

The remarks came amid talks of a potential financial bailout involving a reported $500 million loan aimed at preserving thousands of American jobs and maintaining a budget-friendly competitor in the airfare industry. 

“It’s in a bankruptcy,” Trump said. “It’s in bankruptcy court. And we’re looking if we could get it for the right price, I’d do it to save jobs.”

Spirit Airlines has faced years of mounting financial challenges that have been pushing the company toward potential liquidation, including multiple Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, failed merger attempts with other low-cost competitors, and rising operation costs driven in part by surging jet fuel prices linked to the conflict involving Iran. 

BIDEN-SCHUMER-PELOSI WOULD DO MORE DAMAGE IN 2 YEARS THAN OBAMA DID IN 8: TED CRUZ

Trump said the strategy would be to put a “smart person” in charge to run the airline properly, wait for oil prices to drop, and then resell the company for a profit once it becomes a valuable asset again.

“We have somebody that wants to run it, do a good job, smart person, and if they run it properly and if prices come down, all of a sudden it’s a valuable asset,” he said.  

A primary motivation for the potential takeover, Trump said, is to protect the livelihoods of what he estimated to be 18,000 staffers.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
FLYYQ	SPIRIT AVIATION HOLDINGS INC	1.11	-0.39	-26.00%

He further emphasized that keeping a large number of airlines in business is important to maintain healthy competition within the industry.

“I’d love to be able to save an airline,” the president added. “You know, I like having a lot of airlines. So it’s competitive.”

He also pointed out that Spirit Airlines had attempted to merge with another airline years ago before the Obama administration had blocked the move, a decision Trump described as a mistake.

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Spirit Airlines previously filed for bankruptcy on two separate occasions, in November 2024 and August 2025, amid mounting losses and unsuccessful merger talks.

In late February, the airline announced that it had reached an agreement with its lenders to exit bankruptcy proceedings. 

The company also introduced a revised business strategy aimed at expanding premium seating options and loyalty programs in an effort to improve financial performance while maintaining its low-cost brand identity.

FOX Business’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the UK if it does not drop its digital services tax on US social media firms.

The digital services tax, introduced in 2020, imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of several major US tech companies.

Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Thursday, the US president said: “We’ve been looking at it and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK, so they better be careful.

“If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.”

The tax targets companies whose worldwide revenues from digital activities exceed £500m ($673m), with more than £25m of the revenues from UK users.

Trump argued the laws, which have long been a source of tension in US-UK relations, targeted “top companies in the world”.

“The UK did it, a couple of other people did it,” he said. “They think they’re going to make an easy buck, that’s why they’ve all taken advantage of our country.”

The digital services tax went unchanged under the UK-US trade deal agreed in May 2025, despite being a point of discussion.

Asked how high the tariff would be, the president said it would be “more than what they’re getting” from the levy. “What we’ll do is we’ll reciprocate by putting something on that’s equal or greater than what they’re doing,” he said.

The latest remarks add to wider strains in US-UK relations, which have deteriorated after Sir Keir Starmer ruled out UK involvement in the conflict in the Middle East.

Earlier this month, Trump suggested the terms of the UK-US trade agreement brokered last year “can always be changed” in an interview with Sky News.

Trump’s comments come months after similar US threats to impose new tariffs and export controls on countries with digital taxes or regulations affecting American tech giants. A number of European countries, like France, Italy and Spain, have a digital services tax.

In a post on Truth Social from August 2025, Trump said he would “stand up to countries that attack our incredible American tech companies”.

“Digital taxes, digital services legislation, and digital markets regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American technology,” he wrote.

“This must end,” he said and vowed that “unless these discriminatory actions are removed”, he would “impose substantial additional tariffs” on the offending nation’s exports to the US.

Downing Street has been contacted for comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, who helped push the term “ fake news ” into the mainstream, now seems to have a new favorite subject: fake math.

During a Thursday event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron to lower the cost of its pharmaceutical products, Trump defended his past claims that prices on prescription medications had been cut by well over 100% — something that is mathematically impossible without manufacturers dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use their product.

Trump acknowledged having boasted that his efforts to lower drug prices had reduced what consumers pay by “500%, 600%.” But he added, “We also sometimes say 50%, 60%” and called it a “different kind of calculation” that could go up to “70, 80 and 90%.”

“People understand that better,” Trump said. “But they’re two ways of calculating” and “either way, it doesn’t make any difference.”

There could indeed be two ways of calculating such things — but the difference is very important. One is correct. The other is nonmathematical.

It was one of several times Trump used his own — but incorrect — math during the drug pricing event. He claimed the 7 1/2-week-and-still-going Iran war actually fell within the four- to six-week timeline he predicted early on. The president also brought up the crowd size for his 2017 inauguration — a subject that led onetime top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to unwittingly make the phrase “ alternative facts ” famous.

Trump’s incorrect take on percentages — something he has long repeated — came just after his health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brought up the issue on his own during the same Oval Office event Thursday.

Kennedy noted that he was reminded of his exchange the previous day with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at a congressional hearing when she said that claiming price cuts exceeding 100% might suggest “companies should be paying you to take their drugs.”

Kennedy said during the hearing that Trump “has a different way of calculating.”

On Thursday, Kennedy argued that drug manufacturers had raised prices on popular medications by more than 100% and that Trump was then cutting the price down substantially — meaning he was wiping out percentages of costs worth more than 100%.

“If the drug was $100, and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise,” Kennedy said — even though that’s incorrect. Six hundred is indeed 600% of the original 100 value, but the increase from one to the other is actually only 500%.

Kennedy then continued, “And the president used that mathematical device.”

But no such device exists for the way Trump characterizes it — at least not when math is done correctly.

Something can increase in price by more than 100%. A product that increases from $1 to $2.10 has increased by 110%. But prices cannot be reduced by more than 100% without being pushed to a value of $0 — or reduced 100% of the full price — and then into negative territory, where consumers presumably would need to be paid for using a product.

In a subsequent question-and-answer session with reporters during the price announcement event, meanwhile, Trump offered another dash of fake math for how long the war in Iran, which began Feb. 28, had been going on.

Asked about the war having exceeding the four to six weeks he originally suggested it would last, Trump argued that he’d actually met his own timeline because Iran’s military was “decimated” by then.

The U.S. and Iran agreed to a ceasefire this month, and Trump announced this week that he was extending it. But neither side says the war is over, and a conclusion that hasn’t been achieved certainly didn’t occur in the four to six weeks that have already elapsed.

Trump also brought up his 2017 inaugural crowd size issue on Thursday, when talking about renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He noted that Martin Luther King Jr. had drawn hundreds of thousands of people to the National Mall for his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 and claimed: “I had the same exact crowd. Maybe a little bit more,” arguing that pictures of both events backed him up.

“I actually had more people,” Trump added. “But that’s OK.”

The Trump administration fired its top naval official on Wednesday in a move unrelated to the ongoing naval blockade of Iran’s strait of Hormuz, but instead over over an internal dispute about shipbuilding.

The Pentagon confirmed that John Phelan, who ran a private investment fund in Florida and was a Donald Trump donor, had been ousted as the navy secretary. His departure – the first of any service secretary in the Trump administration – came in the same week that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two container ships in the strait of Hormuz, claiming maritime violations and transferring them to Iranian shores.

But the firing was seemingly unrelated to the conduct of the war. People familiar with the situation told the Guardian the causes included poor relationships with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the powerful deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg; and Phelan’s own deputy, Hung Cao, stretching back many months.

The people familiar with the situation said there was also a Pentagon view that he was moving too slowly on shipbuilding reforms Trump personally wanted and there was also reportedly an ongoing ethics investigation into the navy secretary’s office. Feinberg, they said, had sought to consolidate all navy shipbuilding and major acquisition responsibilities – with one source saying he appears to have prevailed.

According to the New York Times, Feinberg had also moved to strip Phelan of authority over major shipbuilding programs, one congressional official told the publication.

Though the timing of Phelan’s removal is unusual, the endgame had been on the horizon since October, when Hegseth fired Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison, shortly before Cao’s confirmation. That move functionally removed the powerful aide who helped Phelan restructure navy offices in a way that would sideline Cao and other under secretaries.

Cao, a former navy officer and Republican Senate candidate who ran in Virginia against Tim Kaine in 2024, more closely aligned with Hegseth’s approach to cultural issues within the military. He was named acting navy secretary.

Phelan’s dismissal is the latest in a cascade of departures that has now included the departure of at least five high-ranking cabinet and military officials since the start of the war with Iran. Three cabinet secretaries have departed in four weeks: Kristi Noem from homeland security, Pam Bondi as attorney general and on Monday Lori Chavez-DeRemer, from the labor department. Republican senators are also privately warning that further upheaval is coming.

Politico reported that GOP lawmakers believe the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the FBI director, Kash Patel, are all at risk of losing their positions. One Republican senator described Trump’s mindset to the outlet as: “He’s in a bad mood. He’s preparing to really let a lot of them go.”

Separately, Iran’s foreign minister has called the US blockade of Iranian ports “an act of war” and a ceasefire violation. The White House dismissed Iran’s seizure of two commercial vessels as “piracy”, insisting the naval blockade remains “incredibly effective”. The strait of Hormuz, just 34km wide at its narrowest, handles roughly 20% of global seaborne oil trade.

Trump had praised Phelan at the time of his appointment, calling him “one of the most successful businessmen in the country”.

Updated on: April 23, 2026 / 9:26 PM EDT / CBS/AP

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President Trump said Thursday that he was weighing a taxpayer-funded takeover of Spirit Airlines with the intent of reselling the struggling budget carrier after oil prices drop.

The president confirmed his continued interest in offering Spirit a financial lifeline after a lawyer told a U.S. Bankruptcy Court that the airline was in advanced talks with the U.S. government on a financing deal that would allow Spirit to emerge from Chapter 11 protection. 

“They have some good aircraft and good assets, and when the prices of oil goes down, we’ll sell it for a profit,” Mr. Trump said, speaking at an unrelated Oval Office event. “I’d love to be able to save those jobs. I’d love to be able to save an airline.”

“And we’re looking, if we could get it for the right price, I’d do it to save the jobs,” the president said.

Mr. Trump stoked speculation of a deal to save Spirit on Tuesday when he encouraged a buyer to rescue the airline and suggested the federal government could help keep it afloat. 

The White House has attempted to blame Spirit’s predicament on the Biden administration, which in 2023 sued to stop JetBlue Airways from buying Spirit for $3.8 billion. A little more than a year before Mr. Trump replaced Joe Biden as president, a federal judge in Dallas blocked a proposed Spirit-JetBlue merger, saying it would drive up airfares for passengers.

The president said he had “a smart person” in mind who could potentially run Spirit and that he believed the airline could get back on solid financial footing.

“And they have some very good slots too, which are pretty valuable,” the president added, referring to scheduled times allocated for airlines to take off or land at airports when demand exceeds available capacity.

Following the president’s comments Thursday, Spirit Airlines President & CEO Dave Davis said in a statement: “We are grateful for President Trump’s support and look forward to continuing to work with him and his Administration on a solution that protects thousands of jobs, preserves and enhances competition and helps ensure Americans continue to have access to affordable fares.”

Spirit has struggled with losses for years. The airline filed for Chapter 11 protection in November 2024 and again in August 2025. With the Iran war driving up jet fuel costs for all airlines, creditors earlier this month expressed doubts about Spirit’s ongoing viability, raising the possibility that the airline recognized for its bright yellow planes would be forced to sell its assets and cease operating.

Before Mr. Trump’s comments about the government buying the airline outright, Marshall Huebner, a lawyer with Davis Polk who is representing Spirit, said during a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in New York that government financing would make a reorganization possible and help Spirit be more competitive.

Details of a potential deal were shared with all three of the company’s primary creditor groups, Huebner said.

It was not immediately clear how a federal acquisition would differ from the terms that were under discussion. The size and terms of the financing aid were not shared publicly.  

CBS News reported earlier this week that the Trump administration is in advanced discussions with Spirit about a bailout. A financing package could include a loan of up to $500 million, in exchange for warrants that would allow the federal government to take a potentially substantial ownership stake, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

While the federal government has stepped in to help the airline industry broadly in the aftermath of 9/11 and during the COVID-19 pandemic, propping up a single carrier is an unusual move.

Spirit Airlines is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and employs about 15,000 people. About 6,000 of those employees are based in Florida. 

“A lot of people work for Spirit. We care about the people that work for Spirit in this industry,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS News earlier this week. “The question will be, can we do anything to save Spirit and make it viable, or would we be putting good money into a company that inevitably is gonna be liquidated? And that’s a decision that our teams look at and the president has to be briefed on and, and we’ll make a decision together.”

Several lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, also balked at the idea of a bailout. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wrote on X on Wednesday that a deal for Spirit would be a “terrible idea.” 

“If Spirit’s creditors or other potential investors don’t think they can run it profitably coming out of its second bankruptcy in under two years, I doubt the US Government can either,” Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, posted on X. “Not the best use of taxpayer dollars.”

The union that represents the airline’s pilots, on the other hand, voiced “strong support” for a rescue deal.

“Spirit is the reason so many Americans can afford to visit family, travel for work, or take a vacation,” said Capt. Ryan P. Muller, chair of the Spirit Airlines ALPA Master Executive Council. “When Spirit enters a market, fares go down.”

As of the end of last year, Spirit owned 48 planes and leased another 83, all of which were part of the Airbus A320 family. It announced plans last month to reduce its total fleet to 76 to 80 planes by the third quarter of this year, as part of its bankruptcy restructuring process. The airline also owned 18 spare engines and had 16 under lease as of last year.

Spirit’s relatively young fleet has made it an attractive acquisition target. But previous buyout attempts from budget rivals like JetBlue and Frontier were unsuccessful both before and during Spirit’s first bankruptcy.

Kris Van Cleave contributed to this report.

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• Sean Duffy
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President Donald Trump touted plans Thursday to coat the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in an “American flag blue” hue, one of the president’s latest construction efforts to refashion government buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C.

Trump said he was inspired to oversee renovations after a friend visited from Germany and noted its decay.

“He said, ‘it’s filthy, dirty. The water is disgusting looking. It’s not representative of the country,’” Trump recalled during a White House event Thursday on drug prices.

Trump posted a video speaking about the renovation of the over 2,000-foot-long pool on Truth Social, shortly before his White House event with reporters.

“Right now, it’s got no water in it because it was in terrible shape. It was filthy, dirty, and it leaked like a sieve for many years,” Trump said in the video. “So I actually went over, went with Secret Service and a group of people, and I took, took a look at it.”

The president said there were initial plans to remove the granite in the pool and replace the stone, but that process would have cost $300 million and taken more than three years to complete.

Instead, Trump said he contacted his own private contractors to clean the stone and then coat it in a new color, which he described as “American flag blue.”

“We scrubbed the surface of the existing granite that’s been there since 1922. We then grouted all of the granite, fixed it up,” Trump said in the video. “It took about two weeks, and now we have a nice, clean surface on which we’re putting an industrial grade swimming pool topping.”

Trump said the project is expected to cost between $1.5 and 2 million dollars and will be completed “long before July 4” for the country’s 250th celebration.

“In another couple of weeks, we’re going to have the most beautiful reflective pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial that you’ve ever seen,” Trump said at the White House.

Trump has pledged to overhaul the pool in the past. The president said in a post on Truth Social last month that he and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum were “working on fixing the absolutely filthy Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.”

The pool, the site of historical events such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, had its last major renovation in 2012 in a $34 million project that lasted almost two years.

Trump’s efforts to revamp the reflecting pool come alongside a number of other construction projects spearheaded by the president across Washington, D.C., including his plans to build a $400 million ballroom and military bunker in the East Wing of the White House and a major renovation of Kennedy Center.