Trump nominates former deputy surgeon general to lead embattled CDC – US politics live

The president also insisted that he is “not fighting” with Pope Leo XIV.

Trump said it’s “very important” for the pope to understand that Iran is a threat to the world, before falsely claiming the pontiff said the Iranian regime “can have a nuclear weapon”.

Leo did not say that, in fact he initially said that the war was being fueled by a “delusion of omnipotence” without naming Trump. In response, the president launched a social media spat, calling the pope “weak on crime” and catering to “radical left lunatics”.

Trump also said he would be “OK” with public hearings for more Epstein survivors, as suggested by first lady Melania Trump last week.

“But I understand the women didn’t want to go under oath. That’s what I heard,” the president told reporters today. “So Melania felt strongly about it, because she was accused that I met her through Epstein. But it turned out to be totally false.”

The Trump administration has moved to formally enlist foreign governments in a sweeping reorientation of global development policy, directing American diplomats worldwide to seek official support for a “trade over aid” declaration before its introduction at the United Nations later this month.

This would mean a move away from direct aid to poor nations in favor of increased trade, led by private companies.

Principal deputy spokesperson at the state department Tommy Pigott confirmed the initiative on Wednesday, framing it as a rejection of what he called a failed aid model. “The idea that trade and free market capitalism is the surest path to prosperity has been proven by the facts and by history,” Pigott said, adding that those calling for “aid not trade” were “really arguing for lining the pockets of a corrupt NGO industrial complex”.

The new posturing was first reported by the development publication Devex on Tuesday, and the full internal US diplomatic cable was obtained by the Washington Post on Wednesday. The initiative described in the cable is an attack on the obligation of wealthy nations to provide tens of billions of dollars in annual foreign assistance, alongside what the Trump administration characterizes as an endorsement of free-market principles as the primary vehicle for global development.

Ambassador Mike Waltz also previewed the effort during testimony before the Senate foreign relations committee on Tuesday.

Kennedy’s hearing before the House Ways and Means committee is back from recess. An explosive moment took place a short while ago. Representative Steven Horsford, a Democrat from Nevada, spoke about his constituents’ struggle to access health care. “Calm down, congressman,” Kennedy said.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. Health care is personal to me,” Horsford said. “If you can’t answer basic questions, then maybe come prepared next time.”

Kennedy responded that Horsford was getting upset because he didn’t “have much to say”.

RFK Jr’s hearing is now in recess so lawmakers can cast votes.

Earlier, the health and human services secretary had a heated exchange with Democratic representative Terri Sewell, of Alabama, who pressed Kennedy on his reported remarks that black children would benefit from “wellness farms” where they could be “re-parented” while weaning off psychiatric medications.

“Every black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, on SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented, to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens,” Kennedy reportedly said on the 19Keys podcast in June 2024. “You’ll actually have to talk to people.”

Today, Kennedy said he doubted he said that, adding that he didn’t know what “re-parent” means.

“Our nation has a long and painful history of separating Black children from their families,” Sewell said, referring to slavery, Jim Crow laws and systemic racial discrimination in policing and child welfare.

Further to that, Trump has said he’s invited the leaders of Israel and Lebanon to the White House for the countries’ first high-level talks since 1983.

He wrote on Truth Social:

In addition to the statement just issued, I will be inviting the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, and the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, to the White House for the first meaningful talks between Israel and Lebanon since 1983, a very long time ago.

Both sides want to see PEACE, and I believe that will happen, quickly!

Back at Robert F Kennedy Jr’s hearing, representative Blake Moore, a Republican from Utah, spoke of his 10-year-old, Winnie, who is neurodivergent.

When the Trump administration incorrectly said Tylenol use in pregnancy causes autism, he said, “My wife was hurt.” She felt responsible, though they don’t recall if she even took the pain reliever during pregnancy.

“That was a hurtful moment for her,” Moore said, before encouraging Kennedy to continue looking for the causes of autism, which research shows has a strong genetic component.

During his hearing before House lawmakers, Robert F Kennedy Jr faced questions about the decision by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to end the universal recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

Congresswoman Judy Chu, a California Democrat, pushed the health secretary about the move, calling it “incredibly harmful”. Many doctors, including Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a liver specialist by training, have warned that universal innoculation is incredibly effective since hepatits B is very infectious for children and can lead to long-term complications.

Kennedy, however, maintained that babies “essentially have zero risk unless their mother is infected”.

The health secretary said that “parents can assess the risk themselves” and the “state should not make that choice for them”.

Medical experts warn that a negative test result during pregnancy does not guarantee the child will not be infected with the hepatitis B. They point to both false negative results, but also the posibilty that mothers could contract the virus after screening.

Pope Leo XIV has said that the world is being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants” who spend billions on war, in comments that will be seen as another sharp escalation in his almost week-long feud with the White House over the US-Israel war on Iran.

The first American-born pontiff did not mention Donald Trump by name, but used his speech in Cameroon on Thursday to denounce world leaders that invoke religion to justify violence against other nations.

His comments came as US bishops offered their full-throated support to the head of the Catholic church, who has been under fire from Trump for days after speaking out against the Iran war.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” Leo told a gathering at Saint Joseph Cathedral in the western city of Bamenda.

During his opening remarks, Kennedy focused on alleged fraud by home health aides. Federal payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have allowed aides, including family members, to take care of elderly and disabled people. “These are family members were getting paid to do things that they used to do as family members for free, and this is rife with fraud,” Kennedy claimed. “We are paying for fraud now as much as for medicine.”

Kennedy mentioned food dyes, menopause treatments, and cuts to gender-affirming care, while addressing lawmakers on the House Ways and Means committee, but he didn’t mention any of the administration’s controversial actions on vaccines.

Lawmakers brought them up, though.

“Did President Trump approve your decision to end CDC’s pro-vaccine public messaging campaign?” asked Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California.

“You’ve got a lot of misinformation,” Kennedy said. A tense exchange followed, with Sánchez repeating the question several times and Kennedy saying he wanted to address her misinformation and pointing to other global outbreaks, which have not made measles circulate in the US.

“I think you don’t want to answer the question, because I think you know the terrible, terrible decisions that impact very, very real lives, especially the lives of children,” Sánchez said.

Democrats questioning Kennedy are making a point to point out the health secretary’s routine vaccine scepticism.

In a particularly heated back and forth, Mike Thompson, a Democratic congressman asked whether Kennedy has a medical or public health degree.

“No,” the health secretary answered.

“Yet you’re overruling doctors, scientists and public health experts across our country. Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines,” Thompson said.

During his opening remarks, Kennedy issued one of his common refrains. “We stand at a generational turning point. Our children are the sickest generation in modern history,” the health secretary told the House Ways and Means Committee.

Kennedy says he’s referring to chronic illness – perhaps he’s talking about obesity and other health conditions, though he uses the phrase to talk about autism. But in fact, this generation has less infectious disease and Americans still have long expected lifespans. It’s difficult to know what Kennedy means, other than fear-mongering about children’s health and development.

Democrats pushed Kennedy on Medicare fraud, and the hearing quickly turned acrimonious. “Were you shocked to see that 850 people who were suspended for fraud had been reinstated all at once?” Congressman Lloyd Doggett asked. “Your administration was the one that let them all go back to work.”

Kennedy spoke over Doggett several times. “It’s not a credible story,” he said of Trump’s reinstatement of fraudulent Medicare agents.

It’s worth noting that it’s a packed day for Kennedy. He’ll wrap up his first hearing at 12:30pm ET today, before heading to a second round of questions from House lawmakers at a subcommittee of the appropriations committee at 2pm ET.

Donald Trump will spend the first half of the day in meetings at the White House, before heading to Las Vegas, where he’ll talk about tax cuts enacted through his sweeping policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law last year.

He’ll deliver remarks around 4pm PT, but we’ll bring you the latest in case the president speaks to the press before that.

Asked whether there is any update on the welfare of the new Iranian supreme leader, Hegseth says his status “remains the same”.

He adds that Mojtaba Khamenei is believed to be alive, wounded and disfigured.

Caine told reporters today that as of this morning no US forces have had to “board any particular” ships that have defied the blockade.

Earlier this week, experts said that it is unlikely the military would fire missiles or other weapons at tankers, given the risk of an environmental disaster. The most likely option is the US navy will try to force vessels to change course through threats, and if that doesn’t work, they will launch armed boarding parties to take physical control of the ships.

Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Dan Caine says the US military remains ready to re-engage in combat “at literally a moment’s notice”.

He says the blockade covers Iran’s ports and coastlines and applies to all ships, regardless of which flag they are sailing under.

“This includes dark fleet vessels, carrying Iranian oil,” he says.

The defense secretary used his media briefing to again scold they “legacy, Trump hating press” for its “politically motivated animus” that, he claims, blinds reporters from the “brilliance of our American warriors”.

Hegseth urged members of the media, to “open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president.”

This comes after failed peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend, whipsawing oil prices, stalled shipping in the strait of Hormuz and no clear sense of what the two-week ceasefire agreement actually includes.

At his Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth warned that the US blockade of Iranian ports is the “polite way this can go”.

He reiterated that while Iranian officials still claim to control the strait of Hormuz, they don’t have “a navy or real domain awareness”.

Hegseth noted that the regime’s repeated threats to strike ships “lawfully transiting international waters. That is not control. That’s piracy, that’s terrorism.”

When federal agents arrived at Georgia Fort’s front door to arrest her, she knew what to do: be a journalist.

Fort, an independent Minnesota reporter who faces criminal charges after covering a protest inside a St Paul church, took out her phone and spoke directly to the camera, livestreaming to her audience that her lawyer advised her to go with the agents. Her three kids were in the house at the time, she said.

“I’m going to have to hop off here and surrender to agents,” she said in the video on 30 January. “As a member of the press, I filmed the church protest a few weeks ago, and now I’m being arrested for that. It’s hard to understand how we have a constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”

Fort was one of two journalists, alongside Don Lemon, charged for covering the 18 January protest during services at St Paul’s Cities church, where the pastor reportedly works as a field director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I decided to go live [during my arrest] because I felt like it was necessary to be able to tell my story about who I am and my longstanding commitment to journalism,” she said, “and to alert the public that this was a violation of my first amendment rights.”

Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.

US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.

“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”

The latest strike brings the total toll to at least 177 killed, according to a tally compiled by the AFP news agency.

On Monday the US military said that it blew up two boats that it accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor. Then on Tuesday, the military said it killed four more people in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

President Donald Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with what it calls “narco-terrorists” operating in Latin America. But it has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is due to hold a press conference later this morning, in which he expected to update the media on the US-Iran peace talks.

It is due to begin at 8am ET and you can expect journalists to ask him about the impeachment attempt against him as well.

We will bring you any news lines from that here but you can also follow it via our Middle East crisis live blog:

The first impeachment article alleges that Pete Hegseth started the conflict with Iran “without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization by the Congress,” and “knowingly exposing members of the Armed Forces of the United States to substantial and foreseeable risk of injury or death.”

Another article held Hegseth responsible for the strike on an Iranian primary school on 28 February – the day the United States and Israel began bombing Iran – which killed at least 170 people, including students and teachers.

The impeachment resolution is led by Yassamin Ansari, a Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona, and has slim chances of passing due to the Republican majority in the House.

“I’ve introduced Articles of Impeachment against Pete Hegseth for violating his oath, endangering U.S. servicemembers, and committing war crimes, including attacks on civilians and a girls’ school in Minab, Iran,” Ansari wrote on X.

“Only Congress can declare war; his actions demand immediate removal.”

Other allegations included “negligence and reckless handling” of sensitive military information, as well as obstructing congressional oversight, referring to Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes on Yemen.