Here's a recap of the day so far
Melania Trump, the first lady, told reporters on Thursday that she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. It was unclear which specific accusations spurred the first lady to respond publicly. “I never been friends with Epstein,” Trump said in her statement. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.” – More here.
The push from House Democrats to pass a war powers resolution by unanimous consent failed today, after the pro forma speaker, Republican Chris Smith, did not recognize Democrats. It was always a tall order, given that pushback from even a single member would require Democrats to pursue a formal vote on the resolution.
While it’s largely a symbolic move, Democrats in both chambers have vowed to hold votes again when Congress returns from recess next week. On the steps of the US Capitol, lower chamber Democrats appeared confident that when Congress returns from recess next week, they will have at least a couple of House GOP members who are willing to buck their party and pass the resolution.
Donald Trump told NBC News that he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend. Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.
Melania Trump's claim she and her husband were just 'invited to the same parties' as Epstein and Maxwell undermined by photos of them together at Mar-a-Lago
In her extraordinary statement denying that she ever had “a relationship” with Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender, or his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, Melania Trump cast the existence of photographs of her and her husband, Donald Trump, with the notorious couple as an accidental result of having been invited to the same parties.
“I never been friends with Epstein,” the Slovenian-born first lady said, reading aloud from a written statement. “Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” she added.
However, that contention is undermined by the fact that the most well-known images of the two couples together were taken at Trump’s own club, Mar-a-Lago, on 12 February 2000.
Another photograph taken that same night shows that another Epstein friend, then Prince Andrew, was invited to the same party, and shared a laugh with the future first lady and Epstein.
“The first time I crossed paths with Epstein,” Melania Trump said in her statement on Thursday, “was in the year 2000 at an event Donald and I attended together.”
“Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating [sic] on social media for years now,” the first lady said, apparently misreading the word “circulating” from the written statement. “Be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false,” she added.
The Mar-a-Lago event was held just two days before Donald Trump appeared on the Today Show to announce that he was abandoning his bid to be the Reform Party’s presidential candidate in the 2000 election.
Updated
Melania Trump continued to deny any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse in her public statement.
“My name has never appeared in court documents, the positions, victim statements or FBI in interviews surrounding the Epstein matter,” she said. “I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane and never visited his private island.”
The first lady went on to say that the “false smears” about her involvement with Epstein are coming from “mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals”. She warned that those “looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically” will be met with legal action.
“My attorneys and I have fought these unfound and baseless lies with success, and will continue to maintain my sound reputation without hesitation,” Trump said. She also implored Congress to hold public hearing, to give Epstein’s survivors the opportunity to testify under oath with the power of sworn testimony if they so choose.
Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight comittee, welcomed the first lady’s plea to lawmakers.
The panel continues to investigate the federal government’s handling of the investigation into Epstein’s crimes. “We encourage Chairman [James] Comer to respond to the first lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately,” Garcia said in a post on X.
In her statement, the first lady elaborated that she only met Epstein for the first time in 2000, at a party she attended with her husband. At the time she was known as Melania Knauss. “I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings,” she said. “Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been calculating on social media for years now. Be cautious about what you believe.”
As my colleague Robert Mackey reported earlier this year, a trove of files released by the justice department from the federal investigation into Epstein includes a friendly email that was apparently sent to Maxwell in late October 2002, signed “Love, Melania”.
Although the email addresses of both the sender and the recipient are redacted, a second copy of the same email text also appears in another document released on Friday, which includes a reply from “G. Max”.
The first email, sent on the evening of 23 October 2002, with the subject line “HI!” begins “Dear G!”. The sender says there is a “nice story about JE in NY mag” before asking the recipient about their travels and to call them when they’re back in New York.
In their reply, “G. Max” wrote that while they are already on their way back to the city they will not have time to see the sender, but they would “try and call”.
The email exchange was sent the week that New York magazine published a flattering profile of Jeffrey Epstein that included a photograph of Maxwell with Epstein. While the article was in the 28 October 2002 edition, new issues of the magazine are published one week prior to the cover date.
While the redactions in the documents mean that there is no proof that the exchange was with the future first lady, in her statement today, Trump appeared to reference these emails, although it is unclear if she was definitely referring to this batch of communication.
“My email reply to Maxwell cannot be characterized as anything more than casual correspondence,” the first lady said. “My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.”
Maxwell had socialized with the future Melania Trump in Palm Beach prior to the email exchange. Just over two weeks later, on 11 November 2002, they were photographed together in New York, along with Donald Trump and Naomi Campbell, at a Dolce & Gabbana event.
Just over two months later, in January 2003, Maxwell would present Epstein with a bound volume of 50th birthday greetings from friends and associates, including a crude drawing and enigmatic message in the name of Donald Trump.
Updated
Melania Trump denies any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
First Lady Melania Trump told reporters on Thursday that she “never had a relationship” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. In a televised statement, it was unclear which specific accusations the first lady was responding to exactly.
“I [have] never been friends with Epstein,” she said in her public rebuke. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.”
The first lady went on to say that she and the president were invited to the same parties as Epstein “from time to time” as “overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach”.
Updated
On the Capitol steps today, Democratic congresswoman Madeleine Dean, who led the second impeachment effort of Donald Trump, said that trying to impeach the president again, while Democrats are in the minority in Congress, was not “the best use of our time”.
“Let us get into the majority, let us get a Senate majority and then hold this president to account,” she said.
Trump confirms he asked Netanyahu to be ‘more low-key’ on Lebanon
In that interview with NBC News, Donald Trump also confirmed that he asked Benjamin Netanyahu to be “more low-key” in Lebanon as the US seeks to negotiate with Iran to bring the war to an end.
“I spoke with Bibi and he’s going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key,” Trump said, adding that he believed Israel was “scaling back” its operations in Lebanon (again, there’s been no evidence of that yet).
Earlier, I brought you CNN’s report that the US president had made the request to the Israeli prime minister. NBC News heard the same, reporting that Trump asked Netanyahu to pull back on the strikes to help ensure the success of the upcoming negotiations in Islamabad.
Trump ‘optimistic’ about Iran peace deal even as ceasefire appears strained - report
Donald Trump has told NBC News that he is “very optimistic” a peace deal with Iran was within reach as a diplomatic delegation led by his vice-president JD Vance prepared to head to Pakistan for high-stakes talks aimed at ending the war this weekend.
Iran’s leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” the president said, in line with his administration’s narrative that there’s a disconnect between what Tehran says publicly and privately.
Trump went on:
They’re agreeing to all the things that they have to agree to. Remember, they’ve been conquered. They have no military.
If they don’t make a deal, it’s going to be very painful.
Updated
Democrats show confidence for full vote on war powers resolution
After Republicans blocked Democrats passing a war powers resolution via unanimous consent earlier today, some Democratic representatives spoke to reporters on the steps of the US Capitol.
They appeared confident that when Congress returns next week, they will have at least a couple of House GOP members who are willing to buck their party and pass the resolution.
Given that the Republicans have a slim majority in the lower chamber, Democrats will only need fewer than a handful of lawmakers to join them.
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, who sits on the House armed services and foreign affairs committees, said that she has yet to see an official temporary ceasefire proposal from the administration. This comes after the White House has offered conflicting messages about the terms of a 10 or 15-point agreement with Iran.
“That is part of why we are asking Speaker Johnson to call us back into session so that we can have those briefings and get a sense of what has actually been agreed to, what is really going on, what does this ceasefire really look like, and what is the plan and strategy ahead to get to a real durable end to this war, not just in Iran, but in the broader region,” Jacobs told reporters today.
Updated
Further to that last post, CNN hears that Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to seek direct negotiations with Lebanon came at Donald Trump’s request.
During a conversation Wednesday, Trump asked the Israeli prime minister to scale back attacks on Lebanon and enter negotiations with the Lebanese government about disarming Hezbollah, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
It is unclear if Netanyahu agreed to scale back strikes in Lebanon. An Israeli official reiterated to CNN that there is “no ceasefire at the moment,” adding that “talks will be held under fire” (though that is contrary to what the Lebanese government is seeking, which is ceasefire before talks).
Vice-president JD Vance said yesterday that “the Israelis have actually offered to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon”, but there’s been no evidence of that.
Israeli ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter will represent Israel in forthcoming negotiations with Lebanon, an Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter told CNN.
The first meeting between Israel and Lebanon will take place in Washington at the US state department, according to an Axios reporter on X.
Reuters reports that Lebanon has spent the last 24 hours advocating for a temporary ceasefire to allow for broader talks with Israel, as the IDF ordered people to flee their homes in southern Beirut on Thursday as it warned of more strikes that have already devastated the Lebanese capital.
A senior Lebanese official told Reuters no date had been set yet but Lebanon needed the US as a mediator and guarantor of any agreement. They said the ceasefire would be a “separate track but the same model” as the fragile truce brokered by Pakistan between the US and Iran (which Islamabad and Tehran said included Lebanon, but Washington and Tel Aviv said it didn’t).
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier that he had instructed the start of direct negotiations with Lebanon “as soon as possible”. Lebanon wants a ceasefire before starting any negotiations, a Lebanese government official told AFP.
Israel has provoked international condemnation after it launched its most intense assault on Lebanon of the war so far on Wednesday, killing at least 254 people in airstrikes across the country and injuring 1,165, and jeopardizing the fragile US-Iran ceasefire.
Updated
House Democrats fail to pass war powers resolution by unanimous consent
The push from House Democrats to pass a war powers resolution by unanimous consent failed today after the pro forma speaker, Republican Chris Smith, did not recognize Democrats.
It was always a tall order, given that pushback from even a single member would require Democrats to pursue a formal vote on the resolution.
While it’s largely a symbolic move, top Democrats in both chambers have vowed to hold votes again when Congress returns from recess next week.
Updated
At a Q&A following his address the Ronald Reagan Institute Washington, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said that he “sensed” Donald Trump’s disappointment during his meeting with the president on Wednesday.
“I explained to him yesterday the overwhelming majority of Europeans have done what US asked of them, and what was previously agreed in these circumstances,” Rutte said. “And yes, sometimes it takes a bit of time.”
He reiterated that Nato exists to protect European partners but also the US, and understood Trump’s disappointment “to a certain extent” during their conversation, which he described as “open and candid”.
Updated
Marjorie Taylor Greene pledges to bridge divide and 'sketch something new' with progressive Ro Khanna
Former congresswoman, and longtime Trump ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she would be willing to “go to the whiteboard, and begin to try to sketch something new” with Democratic representative Ro Khanna.
The pair have struck an unlikely alliance after Greene broke with the president last year and supported the bipartisan push to release the justice department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. She has also become an outspoken critic of the ongoing war in Iran since she left Congress earlier this year, and Khanna praised her rebuke of Trump’s threats that a “whole civilization will die” on social media this week.
“We both know the powerful political industrial complex of the Democrat and Republican parties will do anything to stop a right/left true America First coalition supported by ordinary Americans,” Greene said today, while reposting a video from Khanna. “This is likely the only way to break free of the corrupt system from both sides that controls everything, constantly goes to war, and only enriches themselves while average Americans continue to lose.”
On Wednesday, Trump renewed his feud with Greene. “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly,” Trump wrote after Fuller won a special election to retain Greene’s seat for the Republicans in a conservative district of Georgia.
In a letter to colleagues on Wednesday, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, expressed significant doubt in the ceasefire.
“A two-week ceasefire is woefully insufficient,” Jeffries said. “Accordingly, we have demanded that the House come back into session immediately in order to vote on our resolution to permanently end the war in the Middle East.”
The House is on a two-week recess and will not return for formal votes until 14 April.
Republican crossover support for a war powers resolution remains elusive. Representative Nancy Mace, who floated supporting Democrats last month, is now considered unlikely by members of both parties to break ranks.
Representative Don Bacon, a Republican and retired one-star general who backed a war powers measure limiting Trump’s Venezuela policy earlier this year, told Politico he would “listen” before adding: “I want us to defeat Iran. They have murdered Americans for 47 years.”
Meanwhile, Democrat Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said Wednesday that the Senate would vote on an Iran war powers resolution when they return to Washington next week.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has briefed some capitals that US president Donald Trump wants concrete commitments within the next few days for help securing the strait of Hormuz, two European diplomats told Reuters.
The report appears to confirm yesterday’s report in the German economic daily Handelsblatt, claiming Nato was considering a naval mission to secure the strait in a move to “appease” Trump.
The move comes after Rutte’s long meeting with Trump in Washington yesterday.
Donald Trump issued a cryptic message on Truth Social this morning. “None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them!!!” he wrote. Seeming to, once again, scold the alliance for member states’ reluctance to support the president’s military campaign in Iran.
Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato, has said Trump was “clearly disappointed” that the US’s allies had refused to join its war against Iran, following a closed-door meeting in Washington on Wednesday.
Speaking to CNN after his private meeting with the US president, Rutte declined to say directly whether Trump raised his threat to withdraw from the military alliance over the Iran war, but described the exchange as a “very frank, very open” discussion between “two good friends”.
A reminder that on day two of the ceasefire, my colleagues are covering the latest at our dedicated Middle East blog. This includes the news that Iran will allow no more than 15 vessels a day to pass through the strait of Hormuz under the agreement with the US, according to Russia’s state TASS news agency, quoting an unnamed senior Iranian source as saying.
At the White House on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt offered a muddled explanation about which proposal the administration agreed to with Iran, but said that the regime actually put forward a “more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president”. The press secretary also warned that any further disruption to the vital waterway is “completely unacceptable”.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. He’ll spend most of the day in back-to-back policy meetings, which are closed to the press.
The president is set to host a Make America Healthy Again (Maha) roundtable at the White House at 4pm ET. As of now, that isn’t open to reporters, but we’ll let you know if that changes.
A man who has been charged with plotting to firebomb a pro-Palestine activist’s home is tied to a group whose leaders support violence against Palestinians and have platformed a convicted terrorist who fundraises for a violent settler movement in the occupied West Bank.
Video recordings by the group, called JDL 613 Brotherhood, also reveal its leaders possess an obsessive antipathy to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani. They feature the organization’s founder, Yisrael Yaacob Ben Avraham, describing Mamdani as a “Muslim terrorist”, a “cancer”, and his election a “harbinger” of “a creeping Islamic takeover of America”.
Alexander Heifler, who law enforcement officials say is a JDL 613 member, was arrested last month after FBI and New York police department agents foiled an alleged plot to attack the home of the activist Nerdeen Kiswani with molotov cocktails.
The Guardian emailed JDL 631 a detailed request for comment including questions for Yisrael Yaacob Ben Avraham and another member known publicly as Eliezer Ben Avraham. (According to the group’s podcasts, videos and archived pages from the their website, both men are Americans who converted to Judaism as adults. They are not related, and the Guardian is using first names throughout this article to distinguish between them.)
Only Yisrael Yaacob replied, saying that Heifler “was a member for a short period of time” but added that “the JDL 613 does not condone any forms of ILLEGAL VIOLENCE. All of our members sign an anti terrorism statement in [their] application.”
An Indian trade delegation will visit Washington later this month, the US envoy to India said on Thursday, as the two sides resume negotiations over a trade deal.
“The United States and India have previously agreed to a trade deal, and we look forward to welcoming an Indian delegation to Washington later this month,” Sergio Gor said in a post on X, after meeting US trade chief Jamieson Greer.
Donald Trump’s acceptance of a two-week ceasefire in Iran has exposed fresh divisions in his Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, with some supporters expressing vindication and others accusing the US president of betrayal.
The US and Iran both claimed victory after the two countries agreed to pause hostilities following more than a month of war. But the strait of Hormuz remained closed on Wednesday and fighting was still taking place as Israel launched its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon.
Democrats and other critics said Trump had suffered a humiliating strategic defeat given that, for all his apocalyptic bluster, Iran’s regime remains intact and still holds a stockpile of highly enriched uranium while also now exerting control of the strait.
Maga loyalists raced to defend the president. Dinesh D’Souza, a rightwing commentator and film-maker, posted on social media: “Once again, Trump outsmarts the critics. Once again he exposes their inner derangement. Once again he proves he is the adult in the room. Once again.”
The FBI has arrested a former military special operations employee accused of providing classified information to the media, the agency’s director Kash Patel announced on Wednesday.
The US Department of Justice said in a press release that the former employee, identified as Courtney Williams, 40, was arrested on Tuesday and indicted on Wednesday for allegedly sharing classified material with a journalist.
While the journalist is not named in the criminal complaint, Williams was interviewed by the investigative reporter Seth Harp for his 2025 nonfiction book about Fort Bragg, the North Carolina headquarters of the US Army’s Delta Force, a clandestine special operations unit.
The book, titled The Fort Bragg Cartel, examined a string of deaths at the base and the alleged involvement of elite soldiers in drug trafficking.
Williams worked at Fort Bragg for six years, according to the FBI’s criminal complaint. She was a custodian of sensitive documents, including fake passports for undercover agents, and would occasionally field calls related to the unit’s front companies, according to an August 2025 excerpt of Harp’s book published in Politico.
A federal judge on Wednesday halted a move by US president Donald Trump’s administration to end legal protections granted to over 5,000 Ethiopians that have allowed them to live and work in the United States.
The ruling by district judge Brian Murphy in Boston marked the latest legal setback for the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for 13 countries in furtherance of Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
TPS under federal law is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events.
It provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
Democrats demand passage of Iran war powers resolution despite House recess
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Democratic party leaders have vowed to renew the effort to curb Donald Trump’s war in Iran after several days of escalating tactics that culminated in a temporary ceasefire.
Democratic lawmakers plan to seek to pass the war powers resolution introduced by New York representative Greg Meeks via unanimous consent later this morning, when the House of Representatives meets for a pro forma session. There is a press conference scheduled for after.
In a statement on today’s push, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said: “House Republican leadership remains completely silent on the president’s unhinged behavior. Instead, they continue to enable and excuse his dangerous conduct. We will continue to unleash maximum pressure on Republicans to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and join Democrats in stopping the madness.”
Representative Glenn Ivey, of Maryland, will lead the effort, and will invite all members who are in Washington today to join. However, the motion is unlikely to succeed, since a single objection would block unanimous consent and require Democrats to pursue a formal vote on the resolution.
In recent months, several war powers resolutions have failed in Congress after a handful of Democrats voted alongside Republicans. But Trump’s aggressive overtures this week – including a Truth Social post that said “a whole civilization” could be wiped out if Iran did not agree to demands, have pushed some to act.
“We need a permanent end to Donald Trump’s reckless war of choice,” said Jeffries on CNN shortly after Trump announced the two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday.
“House Democrats have demanded that Speaker Mike Johnson immediately reconvene the House back into session so we can move a war powers resolution that will end this conflict permanently.”
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
After a private meeting at the White House with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, Donald Trump seemed to renew his threats against the defensive military alliance for not helping fight the US-Israeli war on Iran, and hinted he could again try to seize Greenland from Nato member Denmark.
Before Trump stepped into his meeting with the Nato secretary-general, and as the ceasefire with Iran seemed to be falling apart on its first day, the president found time to continue a social-media feud with his former ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Speaking to reporters in Hungary, the US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed not to recognize the name of the Vatican ambassador to the US when he was asked about reports that a Pentagon official had reprimanded that Catholic diplomat, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, over the American-born pope’s opposition to US militarism.
At a Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth said that Iran “begged for this ceasefire”, and claimed that Operation Epic Fury “decimated” Iran’s military.
The US justice department announced that the FBI arrested Courtney Williams, a military veteran who later worked in support of Delta Force, a covert commando unit, after she was indicted for “alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist”.
Trump, who announced with some fanfare last year a doubling of tariffs on imported steel, plans to use tens of millions of dollars worth of donated foreign steel to build his $400m White House ballroom, the New York Times reported.
