Brett McGurk, the United States' special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter the Islamic State, tendered his resignation Friday in response to President Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
Appointed by former President Barack Obama, McGurk previously planned to leave his post in February, but he will now depart at the end of December. Defense Secretary James Mattis also resigned this week over foreign policy differences with Trump; he will step down at the end of February.
"The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us. It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered," McGurk reportedly said in an email to his staff. "I worked this week to help manage some of the fallout but — as many of you heard in my meetings and phone calls — I ultimately concluded that I could not carry out these new instructions and maintain my integrity." Bonnie Kristian
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is planning on telling allies Japan, South Korea, and Turkey on Monday that the United States will begin sanctioning them if they keep importing Iranian oil, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Sunday.
After the Trump administration pulled the U.S. from its 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, eight countries who received oil from Iran were granted sanctions waivers and told they needed to start looking for alternate energy sources. Greece, Taiwan, and Italy have all stopped importing oil from Iran, but Japan, South Korea, Turkey, China, and India have not, and the waivers expire on May 2. Turkey has been vocal about the fact that it needs Iranian oil to meet its energy needs, with senior officials urging the U.S. to reconsider, AP reports.
President Trump decided on Friday not to extend the waivers, as a way to pressure Iran, officials said. It's unclear if sanctions will start on May 3 if the countries do not immediately stop importing the oil. Catherine Garcia
Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky plays the president on TV, and will soon take on the role in real life, too.
Exit polls show that Zelensky won Ukraine's presidential election on Sunday in a landslide, with 73 percent of the vote. Zelensky, 41, has no previous political experience. He handily beat incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who has conceded defeat.
On the show Servant of the People, Zelensky plays a teacher who accidentally becomes Ukraine's president. Ukraine is at war in its eastern Donbass region, and critics worry that because of his lack of experience, Zelensky, who has ties to billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, won't be able to stand up to Russia or make peace with separatists. Catherine Garcia
An internal Department of Homeland Security memo said that top military and Homeland Security officials are considering classifying fentanyl — a highly potent synthetic opioid — as a weapon of mass destruction, CNN reports. A DHS official confirmed the authenticity of the memo.
Fentanyl is one of the painkillers that has contributed significantly to the opioid epidemic plaguing the United States. It was behind 30,000 of the 72,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017. It has reportedly concerned national security officials for decades because of its potential widespread lethality in terror attacks. Andy Weber, the former assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs, told CNN fentanyl would be "disturbingly easy" to weaponize through the air and water systems.
U.S. officials first noted the danger of a fentanyl attack when the Russian military utilized it in 2002 by pumping it into the ventilation system of a theater in Moscow that had been taken over by Chechen rebels, CNN reports. The action killed dozens inside the theater. Officials from DHS and the Pentagon have reportedly met in recent months to discuss designating the drug a WMD; such a designation would allegedly disrupt its availability on the black market. Tim O'Donnell