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The Secret Iran Intel That Terrified Dems

Sen. Richard Blumenthal sits in classified briefings on the Iran war. But he says you don’t need a security clearance to see that Trump didn’t think this through—and that all signs point to a ground invasion.

Richard Blumenthal
"The present [Trump] gave Iran is so much bigger when he lifted sanctions on them. Billions of dollars are going into Iran’s coffers to kill our troops as a result of his lifting sanctions," says senator Richard Blumenthal. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg/Getty Images
John Heilemann
March 29, 2026

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Richard Blumenthal, the senior U.S. senator from Connecticut, turned 80 last month, but his workload would exhaust a person half his age. Serving on the Armed Services, Homeland Security, Judiciary, and Veterans’ Affairs committees puts Blumenthal at the center of the action on Capitol Hill pretty much all the time—but never more so than right now, as lawmakers are enmeshed in fierce debates over the war in Iran, funding D.H.S., and Donald Trump’s efforts to turn the Department of Justice into an instrument of political retribution.