USS Lincoln carrier to return to port in San Diego after record-breaking deployment – US politics live

Secretary of state Marco Rubio is in Portugal on the last leg of a three-nation tour of Nato allies.

Rubio arrived in Lisbon on Thursday for a brief stop on his return to Washington, a day after delivering a speech in the Greek capital of Athens urging European countries to save Western civilization by upholding the values and traditions of ancient Greece.

Rubio, who began his trip in Iceland, is expected to thank Portuguese officials for supporting US operations in the Iran war by allowing the US to use the Lajes Field air base in Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores islands, which is strategically located for military refueling flights.

The US Air Force has long had a base there under an agreement with Portugal. Unlike neighboring Spain, where socialist leader Pedro Sánchez refused to allow the American military to use Spanish bases to stage operations for attacks on Iran, Portugal’s center-right government granted Washington “conditional approval” to use Lajes Field.

“Portugal is a great ally, very cooperative ally of the United States and a country with which we already have a solid and growing relationship. And we visit these countries in order to reinforce those ties,” Rubio said before departing Athens. “That’s the purpose of the trip.”

As Donald Trump struggled to end the war with Iran, and the Lincoln’s deployment dragged on, reports emerged over the summer of shortages of food and basic supplies, and deteriorating mental health and morale among some crew members, including that two crew members had attempted to jump overboard.

At the time, senior Trump administration officials dismissed the reports. Hegseth claimed they “completely misrepresented” the reality, while Trump, when asked in August whether the deployment had gone on too long, responded, “Not nearly long enough” – a remark that upset some naval families.

The reports about the conditions on the Lincoln caused concern among some military health experts, veterans and families of sailors onboard, and drew outrage from Democratic lawmakers, including several who demanded more information from the Pentagon.

The Lincoln was relieved from its deployment later in August, as the USS George Washington aircraft carrier arrived in the Middle East to take its place.

But in recent weeks, as the Lincoln has headed back to San Diego, a new disclosure about the carrier has renewed scrutiny. Acting navy secretary Hung Cao acknowledged last month that eight service members from the Lincoln and its strike group had attempted suicide during the deployment.

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.

The USS Abraham Lincoln will return home to San Diego later today after supporting the Iran war during a record long deployment of ۲۶۵ uninterrupted days at sea.

For months, there have been widespread concerns since reports first emerged of supply shortages and deteriorating mental health onboard.

In remarks yesterday, however, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth sought to play down the issues, instead condemning “a few folks in the media” who he accused of trying to “turn” the Lincoln’s deployment “into some sort of symbol of dysfunction, or a symbol of low morale or a symbol of a failed mission”.

While Trump administration officials pushed back against accounts of poor conditions, families and veterans warned that the length and intensity of the deployment were taking a toll on both those serving onboard and their loved ones.

As reports of conditions leaked out, the Lincoln soon became a flashpoint in the increasingly contentious debate over the war and, for some, a symbol of the strains and pressures the conflict has placed on the US military and the people serving in it.

Hegseth flew out to the carrier on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive that is typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.

He said that “what makes the US military and the US Navy and all these sailors different is that you adapt and that you’re resilient and you overcome — you finish the mission nonetheless.”

Hegseth told the crew that president Donald Trump “tracked your activities from day one and couldn’t be more proud of what you executed.”

The US carrier, with roughly ۵,۰۰۰ sailors and marines onboard, left San Diego in November ۲۰۲۵, initially bound for the Pacific and expected to return in the spring. But after the US and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, the Lincoln was redirected to the Middle East, to support US operations in the region.

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In other developments:

• In remarks in San Antonio, Texas, Donald Trump tried to channel the anti-Muslim racism that helped get him elected in ۲۰۱۶, by skipping straight from a dire warning that Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it had one to the wild, false claim that Barack Obama could have stopped the Ft Hood gunman, Nidal Hasan, but chose not to.

• Trump repeated his false claim that the war he started with Iran in February was necessary to prevent Iran from destroying American cities like Los Angeles or San Diego in a nuclear attack. In fact, US intelligence agencies assessed in ۲۰۲۵ that Iran had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons in ۲۰۰۳.

• Trump’s midterm rally speech was disrupted up to a dozen times by protesters.

• The Democratic National Committee sued the Trump administration in federal court, asking a judge in Washington to stop the president from using taxpayer funds to air a series of ads promoting himself, arguing that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda.