Closing summary
This concludes our live chronicle of the second Trump administration to a close, on a day when the president casually suggested that the US ally Oman had to “behave” or “we’ll have to blow ‘em up”. Here are the latest developments:
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In a new interview with CBS News, Jill Biden, the former first lady, said that she was “frightened” as she watched her husband, then-president Joe Biden, freeze up during his disastrous 2024 debate against Donald Trump. Pressed to explain what happened, Jill Biden said: “I don’t know what happened. I mean as I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke’. And it scared me to death.”
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CNN reports that the US Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation of E Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5m civil judgment against Donald Trump in 2023, when a federal jury found that he had sexually abused her in 1996 and defamed her in 2022 when he denied attacking her.
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Two House Democrats, Don Beyer of Virginia and Dina Titus of Nevada, announced that they plan to introduce a bill that would “explicitly prohibit construction of President Trump’s proposed ‘triumphal arch’ outside Arlington National Cemetery”.
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Cam Higby, a rightwing activist disguised as a pro-Palestinian activist, disrupted a news conference with the Democratic congressmen Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey.
Trump's justice department reportedly opens criminal investigation of E Jean Carroll, who won sexual abuse case against Trump
CNN reports that the US Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation of E Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5m civil judgment against Donald Trump in 2023, when a federal jury found that he had sexually abused her in 1996 and defamed her in 2022 when he denied attacking her.
According to CNN’s sources, who were not named, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in testimony in her two civil lawsuits against Trump, one for allegedly sexually abusing her in a department store dressing room in 1996, and the second for defamation.
The apparent legal theory prosecutors are pursuing is a claim that Carroll lied in a 2022 deposition when she said she had received no outside funding for her lawsuit.
Nearly six months later, before the trial started, Carroll’s attorneys informed the judge and Trump’s lawyers that a nonprofit funded by Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn co-founder, had paid some legal fees and expenses. Carroll’s lawyers said she never met or spoke with anyone from the nonprofit. The judge allowed Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, to question Carroll again in a second deposition.
Excerpts from Carroll’s videotaped depositions with Habba were included in a new documentary, Ask E Jean, which opened last week in New York.
Juries later awarded Carroll millions of dollars in damages, which the president is appealing. Trump has appealed the $5m in damages in the sexual abuse case judgement and $83m in the defamation case. Trump has repeatedly tried to have the awards thrown out.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel in New York already dismissed the claim that Carroll had lied in her deposition in 2024. In their opinion affirming the judgement against Trump, on 30 December 2024, the judges wrote:
Ms. Carroll plausibly represented that she had forgotten about the limited outside funding counsel obtained in September 2020 when this question was first posed to her in 2022, and the additional discovery did not indicate otherwise. Rather, it showed that Ms. Carroll simply was not involved in the matter of who was or was not funding her litigation costs. Ms. Carroll testified that, after her counsel informed her in September 2020 that they had received some outside funding, she did not speak with her counsel about this topic again until the spring of 2023 and did not even know the funder’s political position or why they were partially funding her lawsuit. Therefore, by the time of her deposition in October 2022, Ms. Carroll had not spoken with her counsel about the matter of outside funding for over two years.
The New York Times reports that the investigation was opened by Andrew Boutros, the US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who was appointed by Trump.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, defended Trump in the Carroll case, and has recused himself, sources told both CNN and the Times.
Boutros is currently at the center of an inquiry himself, after a defense attorney for an anti-ICE protester whose case was dismissed told a federal judge in Chicago on Tuesday that he has “reason to believe” that Boutros had personal contact with the grand jury in the case.
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Anti-ICE protesters in New Jersey unmask rightwing influencer disguised in keffiyeh
Protesters outside an immigration detention facility in New Jersey discovered that a videographer who heckled two Democratic congressmen while covering his face in a keffiyeh on Wednesday was Cam Higby, a rightwing influencer who works with Turning Point USA, the late Charlie Kirk’s advocacy organization.
Earlier in the day, protesters outside the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, where detainees are on hunger strike, reportedly became suspicious of the videographer, who concealed his face in the black and white Palestinian scarf while holding a selfie-stick in one hand and, at one point, a Polymarket-branded mic in the other.
Video recorded by an Intercept reporter, Noah Hurowitz, showed that Higby loudly heckled the congressmen, Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler, shouting anti-immigrant rhetoric at them during a news conference, while his head was still covered in the kind of keffiyeh worn by pro-Palestinian protesters.
Then, as Higby’s own video, and a second clip shot by the protest reporter Ford Fischer showed a protester tried to pull the scarf from around his neck while one of her colleagues said: “Take off that fake-ass keffiyeh. You’re not about Free Palestine; you’re a fake, infiltrator”.
As Higby was chased away from the protest by activists, he briefly paused to take what looked like a pair of Meta Ray-Ban sunglasses from his backpack, as ICE officers stepped in to guard him from the anti-ICE protesters.
Higby, a rightwing influencer who makes a living filming himself confronting leftwing protesters, was one of the the supposed experts who attended the White House Antifa roundtable last October, to brief Donald Trump on antifascism.
While his social-media profile highlights “Undercover Infiltrations” as a speciality, in his remarks at the White House, Higby cast himself as a reporter unfairly targeted by antifascists. “I’m attacked every time I do my job. When I leave my house to go to work, I’m violently assaulted. I’ve had guns pulled on me. I’ve been bear-sprayed. I’ve been beaten down. I’ve been almost killed,” he said.
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Singer Morris Day says he is not performing at Trump administration event: 'It’s A No For Me'
Hours after the Trump administration announced a not quite star-studded lineup of musical acts for its Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington this summer, one of the announced performers, Morris Day, made it clear that he would not, in fact, be performing.
Day posted a graphic on Instagram with a red circle and a line through it with the message: “Contrary to rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing at ‘the Great American State Fair’”.
The singer added, in a caption: “It’s A No For Me”.
Day’s name and photo was included on a poster published earlier in the day by Freedom 250, the organization producing the event to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding in partnership with the White House.
The musicians who have not (yet) denied that they will take part are: Martina McBride, Young MC, C+C Music Factory, Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, the Commodores, Flo Rida and Bret Michaels.
As some observers pointed out on social media, four of those acts are currently taking part in a nationwide I Love the 90s tour, including the surviving member of Milli Vanilli, a German pop duo that lost their Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990 after it was reveled that they did not sing on the record but just lip-synched in music videos and on stage.
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Trump administration re-imposes sanctions on Francesca Albanese, UN expert on human rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation
The Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on Wednesday against Francesca Albanese, an Italian lawyer who was appointed by UN Human Rights Council to monitor human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
An entry on the US treasury department’s website was updated on Wednesday to include Albanese, two weeks after a federal judge had temporarily blocked US sanctions against her for criticizing Israel’s war on Gaza, calling it a likely violation of her free speech rights.
Albanese was appointed US special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in 2022, a role filled by an independent expert.
House Democrats to introduce bill to block construction of Trump's 'triumphal arch'
Two House Democrats, Don Beyer of Virginia and Dina Titus of Nevada, announced on Wednesday that they plan to introduce a bill that would “explicitly prohibit construction of President Trump’s proposed ‘triumphal arch’ outside Arlington National Cemetery”, they said in a statement.
Given that the Democrats are in the minority, and their Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act would need two-thirds majorities in both the House and the Senate to override a veto from Trump, the legislation has little chance to become law, but it does focus resistance to the planned 250-foot knock-off of the Arc de Triomphe the president insists he can build without congressional authorization.
Renderings of the giant monument Trump said last October would be in honor of himself show that it would obstruct the view of the Lincoln Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.
Beyer, who represents a Northern Virginia district that includes Arlington National Cemetery (ANC), and whose parents, grandparents, and sister are buried there, said:
Arlington National Cemetery is sacred ground, the resting place for some of our nation’s greatest heroes. It is unthinkable that we would desecrate this hallowed space to build a monument to Donald Trump’s ego.
Trump’s vanity project would waste taxpayer money, brazenly violate existing law, and become yet another vehicle for his corruption. The Administration has also given no consideration to potential harmful effects on the region including impacts on air safety and traffic on major roadways.
“Worst of all, Trump is not trying to build this arch to commemorate national heroes, servicemembers who lie in Arlington National Cemetery, or to celebrate freedom. He did not dedicate it to the American people or our country’s greatness. Asked who this arch is for, Trump said, simply: ‘me.’
Representative Titus added: “As President Trump strips away the necessary safety nets from Americans who are struggling to afford their basic needs like groceries and healthcare, he builds his unauthorized, grandiose Triumphal Arch. While destroying historical monuments and artifacts important to our American identity, he is erecting monuments to honor himself.”
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Jill Biden tells CBS News she thought Joe Biden was 'having a stroke' during 2024 debate
In a new interview with CBS News, Jill Biden, the former first lady, said that she was “frightened” as she watched her husband, then-president Joe Biden, freeze up during his disastrous 2024 debate against Donald Trump.
Asked if she was horrified as she viewed the debate, the former first lady said: “I wasn’t horrified, I was frightened, because I had never, ever seen Joe like that – before or since. Never.”
Pressed by the interviewer, Rita Braver, to explain what happened, Jill Biden said: “I don’t know what happened. I mean when, as I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke’. And it scared me to death.”
The comments were made in an interview that will air in full on Sunday.
The admission from the former first lady prompted immediate reactions from hosts of the podcast Pod Save America, former aides to Barack Obama who called for Joe Biden to immediately drop out of the presidential race in the aftermath of the debate. Biden did, eventually, step aside, but only after sustained pressure from Democrats, in the face of resistance from the president’s closest advisors and family, who insisted that he was fine.
“Those of us who agreed with Jill Biden’s actual assessment (i.e., people who could see and hear) were told by the Bidens and the campaign and the online dead-enders that we were all wildly overreacting and that his debate performance was fine -- even good!” Barack Obama’s former speechwriter Jon Favreau wrote.
“I think this is how most voters felt while watching that debate, and why it was obvious that Biden had to drop out of the race,” Favreau’s co-host Tommy Vietor added. “The impression left by Biden’s performance was unfixable, and pretending otherwise was insulting to voters.”
As the MS NOW correspondent Akayla Gardner noted, immediately after the debate, Jill Biden stood on stage with Joe Biden and told him: “you did such a great job; you answered every question, you knew all the facts!”
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The day before Donald Trump’s first term ended in 2021, he inked a pardon for Elliott Broidy, a scandal-plagued Republican fundraiser and former Republican National Committee official who had pleaded guilty three months earlier to trying to illegally lobby Trump and his administration.
Last month, a company headed by Broidy won a $106m contract from the Department of Justice, according to federal contracting records.
Under the contract, awarded by the Bureau of Prisons to LEO Technologies, the company will use artificial intelligence to translate, transcribe and monitor prison phone calls. Broidy lists himself as the founder and CEO of LEO.
In a letter to the Guardian, LEO’s attorneys said Broidy sets the strategy of the company but does not run the day-to-day operations.
The company has previously won awards in state and local prison systems, but the new contract with the Bureau of Prisons marks the first time it is doing business with the federal government. On its website, the Texas-based company says that prisoners’ phone calls “represent the world’s largest concentration of criminally-minded activity – all on recorded lines, all legally accessible”.
Analysis: Trump’s iron grip on the GOP has never been stronger. What about the US?
Ken Paxton’s clear victory in a Texas runoff – the widest primary defeat of an incumbent US senator in almost five decades – highlights the extraordinary loyalty Trump continues to command over his base. But Democrats are still optimistic that Paxton’s extremism and scandal-riddled past will bring disenchanted Cornyn voters to their camp.
Paxton’s confirmation has bolstered Democratic optimism that the party is in with a shot of winning statewide office in Texas for the first time in more than three decades, with the help of old guard Republicans and Latino voters switching back from the GOP.
Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that he plans to attend this year’s NBA finals after the New York Knicks clinched their place in the championship series earlier this week.
Trump, a New York native, has counted James Dolan, who owns the Knicks, the NHL’s Rangers and Madison Square Garden, as a friend and a campaign donor in recent years. The president said he had been invited to the finals by Dolan and “numerous” others.
“Jim Dolan’s great guy, [he], as you know owns … Madison Square Garden. He’s having a good year. Boy, what a team. They won all their games. They really have some great players,” the president told reporters during a cabinet meeting. “I think I’ll be going to one of the games, yeah. I was invited by numerous people and Jim – and I think I’ll be going. Great to see. The Knicks have really, they’ve really suffered for years. They’re doing right now very well.”
Republican leaders rushed to throw their weight behind Ken Paxton following his big primary victory in Texas over the four-term US senator, John Cornyn, amid anxiety within the party over his prospects in November’s general election.
Hours after the race was called, Donald Trump – who backed Paxton, despite intense concern among establishment Republicans – took to Truth Social to attack his Democratic rival in the midterm elections.
James Talarico “may be the worst Texas candidate I have ever seen”, said the US president, claiming the Austin state representative and Democratic nominee for Texas senator was weak on crime and an advocate for open borders.
Reaching for a favored Republican attack line against Talarico, Trump claimed he was a vegan who “dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas”.
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Three Democratic state attorneys general said their deputies were turned away from a roundtable hosted by JD Vance on Tuesday, sowing confusion about what the White House has billed as a bipartisan crackdown on fraud.
After attorneys general – including New York’s Letitia James, California’s Rob Bonta and New Jersey’s Jennifer Davenport – declined a last-minute invitation to participate in the event alongside their Republican counterparts, they said representatives from their offices travelled to Washington to attend, but were shut out.
“My deputy attorney general went to Washington DC today, and unfortunately was not allowed access to the meeting,” James told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, after Vance convened more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general as part of the White House’s campaign to root out fraud in government programs.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. In his remarks at the roundtable on Tuesday, Vance, chair of the White House taskforce to eliminate fraud, said representatives from the Democratic state attorneys general offices in Oregon and Connecticut were present.
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Former attorney general Pam Bondi diagnosed with cancer
Former attorney general Pam Bondi revealed that she was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
In an interview with CNN, Bondi, who was ousted by Trump in April over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, shared that she has already undergone surgery and is still recovering and “doing well, though.”
Although Bondi is no longer leading the justice department, Trump has tapped her for another influential role within his administration, Axios reports.
She will now serve on the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a group helping shape federal policy on artificial intelligence and technology.
“Pam has been an enormously valuable asset to the president’s team, and I’m thrilled for her and for all of us that she’s going to remain involved in confronting some of the most important issues the administration faces,” vice president JD Vance said, according to Axios.
Trump also said he wants to change the the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to NICE.
Since retaking office last January, ICE raids under the leadership of Trump have disrupted families across the country, led to widespread protests as well as multiple killings including to US citizens in Minnesota.
Yet during the cabinet meeting, Trump said: “I’d love to change the name called NICE,” before falsely claiming that protestors against the often violent violent immigration raids are paid actors.
In response to a question about whether his administration feels any urgency to strike a deal with Iran amid rising US gas prices linked to the US’s war on Iran, Trump dismissed the concern.
Instead, he said: “I’ll tell you, the primary urgency I have, I said this, it wasn’t covered properly, but the primary urgency is that we can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon, but at the same time we have a tremendous amount of oil, gas, coal. We have tremendous amounts of energy, we’re blessed with something very special.”
“Those prices are going to come down, they’re going to come down fast,” he added.
Hegseth on National Guard troops in DC: 'We're going to surge this summer'
Trump has called for the numbers of US National Guard troops deployed across Washington DC to not be lowered.
“Keep them, and don’t lower the number, either. Somebody said, ‘Oh, are there less?’ I said, ‘I hope not, but don’t lower the number, if you don’t mind,” Trump said.
In response, defense secretary Pete Hegseth said: “We’re going to surge this summer too.”
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is now speaking on Iran, saying that the US has imposed a “world-class blockade” on the country.
“They may have missiles, but they can’t build more right now, and they can’t build more drones right now, and they can’t build more ships, and so they came and cried uncle to talk,” Hegseth said.
“We know from intel that their economy is hurting big time, because that is their lifeblood again bringing them to the table, so whether it is through the efforts of your negotiators that ensure that they never have a new weapon, or we have to go back to the War Department to finish the job, we’re prepared to do that,” Hegseth added, addressing Trump.
On oil, interior secretary Doug Burgum said that the US has opened up lease sales on public land for further drilling.
“When we’re drilling on public land, those companies pay a royalty, and that money comes to all of our citizens, and it goes to local school districts, and it goes to states,” Burgum said.
“This is an opportunity for us to bring prosperity and affordability here at home, but also bring peace abroad,” he added.
Climate activists and Indigenous communities have warned that expanding oil drilling on public land could deepen the climate crisis and damage already fragile ecosystems across the US.
Trump: 'We don't need oil, we don't need the straits'
Trump briefly interjected Marco Rubio’s briefing, saying that the US is “producing right now more oil by double than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined.”
He then added: “We don’t need oil, we don’t need the straits, we don’t need anything but we have more oil now being produced by double, by two times than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined.”
Trump had previously threatened Iran, warning that “a whole civilization will die” if Tehran refused to comply with US demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz - a critical chokepoint for global oil shipments.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio just spoke on Iran, saying: “The bottom line is Iran’s never going to have a nuclear weapon.”
“If recent events have done anything, it’s just remind us once again that they are the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, and they can never have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said.
He nevertheless emphasized that “diplomacy is always the first option,” adding that “we’ll see over the next few hours and days whether progress could be made.”
“I just want to remind everybody, Mr. President, you know this well, you have other options available to you if that doesn’t work, but the bottom line is that we prefer the negotiated diplomatic route, and we’re going to give it every chance to succeed,” Rubio added.
Vice president JD Vance just elaborated more on the White House fraud task force’s latest efforts.
“I always try to remind the American people that fraud is fundamentally a crime with two victims, the most obvious victim are the American taxpayers. They pay their taxes, they expect the money to go where it should go, and that’s not happening because the fraudsters. But there are also victims, people who benefit from these programs that don’t exist if we’re not actually taking care of the fraud issue,” he said.
Vance said the task force is investigating various frauds, including scam operations across education systems, housing, as well as Medicaid.
Trump went on to talk about his administration’s fight against fraud in the US, saying: “The White House task force to eliminate fraud is waging war on waste, fraud, theft, and abuse like nobody’s ever seen before.”
“They’re finding billions and billions and billions of dollars,” he said, also pointing to authorities last week filing additional charges against others in a sprawling investigation into federal social service spending in Minnesota.
“Everybody was getting rich, and I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it, by just the numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security,” Trump continued.
He then went on to talk about Iran, saying: “They want very much to make a deal… Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, everything’s gone and they’re negotiating on fumes.”
“Maybe we have to go back and finish it. Maybe we don’t right now,” he added.
Trump then said: “Their whole economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to out-wait me. ‘You know, we’ll out-wait him. He’s got the midterms.’ I don’t care about the midterms. I don’t care about the midterms,” explaining that his actions on Iran is “for the world, I’m not just doing it for us.”
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Trump said he has made drugs cost a “fraction of the price” and that Republicans “should win the midterms on that alone.”
“Now we’re paying the lowest prices anywhere in the world, and the press reviews is to write about it. I think it’s the biggest thing for healthcare, you know,” said Trump. “So much of it is prescription drug prices, and drug prices, and with them coming down, the healthcare is going to come down very substantially.”
While listing his achievements, Trump mentioned tax refunds, success in the “conflict” with Iran (Trump said he would describe it as a “conflict” and not a “war”) and the reduction of drug prices.
Trump said that the amount of fentanyl coming into the US has dropped drastically – 61% drop by the border and 97% decrease by ocean.
Trump holds cabinet meeting at White House
Trump’s cabinet meeting at the White House has started.
He has begun by talking about his administration’s achievements, starting with “zero illegal aliens” entering the country in the last 12 months and a drop in murder rates across the country.
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Pool reporters have gathered at the briefing room doors to view the cabinet meeting that will also be live streamed.
We will be bringing you updates from the meeting that is expected to start shortly.
Republicans race to back Ken Paxton as runoff sets up high-stakes US Senate battle in Texas
Republican leaders rushed to throw their weight behind Ken Paxton following his big primary victory in Texas over the four-term US senator, John Cornyn, amid anxiety within the party over his prospects in November’s general election.
Hours after the race was called, Trump who backed Paxton, despite intense concern among establishment Republicans – took to Truth Social to attack his Democratic rival in the midterm elections.
James Talarico “may be the worst Texas candidate I have ever seen”, said the US president, claiming the Austin state representative and Democratic nominee for Texas senator was weak on crime and an advocate for open borders.
Reaching for a favored Republican attack line against Talarico, Trump claimed he was a vegan who “dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas”.
While Texas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, Republican operatives have privately worried that Paxton’s long trail of legal troubles would make him a riskier standard-bearer than the incumbent.
Of the outgoing Cornyn, a veteran US senator who enjoyed the support of many of his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill, Trump was more measured. “John will remain my friend for a long time to come,” he said.
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President Trump is set to hold the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term at 11am EST on Wednesday.
Three Democratic state attorneys general said their deputies were turned away from a roundtable hosted by JD Vance on Tuesday, sowing confusion about what the White House has billed as a bipartisan crackdown on fraud.
After attorneys general – including New York’s Letitia James, California’s Rob Bonta and New Jersey’s Jennifer Davenport – declined a last-minute invitation to participate in the event alongside their Republican counterparts, they said representatives from their offices travelled to Washington to attend, but were shut out.
“My deputy attorney general went to Washington DC today, and unfortunately was not allowed access to the meeting,” James told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, after Vance convened more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general as part of the White House’s campaign to root out fraud in government programs.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment. In his remarks at the roundtable on Tuesday, Vance, chair of the White House taskforce to eliminate fraud, said representatives from the Democratic state attorneys general offices in Oregon and Connecticut were present.
Biden sues justice department to block release of Hur interview audio
Joe Biden, the former president, has filed a lawsuit to try to prevent the justice department (DoJ) from releasing transcripts and audio of interviews that exposed his frequent memory lapses and helped derail his 2024 re-election campaign.
The decade-old conversations with the author of his biography ended up in the hands of Robert Hur, the special counsel who was appointed to look into allegations Biden improperly handled classified documents.
Hur evaluated the files, and also spent five hours interviewing Biden himself, concluding in a 2024 report to Congress that there was no criminal wrongdoing, but portraying the then 81-year-old president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.
Biden withdrew from the 2024 election following repeated questioning of his age and mental competence, and endorsed Kamala Harris as the ultimately unsuccessful Democratic nominee.
His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington DC, accuses the DoJ of an “unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy”.
It seeks to halt the department, which once fought to keep the transcripts and recordings secret, from handing them over to the Republican-controlled House judiciary committee and conservative Heritage Foundation.
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Today’s cabinet meeting will focus on “recent successes of the administration including economy and small business wins, Task Force to Eliminate Fraud highlights, and foreign policy updates”, a White House spokesperson told the New York Post.
The gathering comes as Trump’s approval ratings sink and economic pessimism rises amid the war with Iran.
Trump announced at the weekend that a deal to end hostilities was close at hand, although the US on Monday struck Iranian targets, reportedly killing four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Negotiations, nevertheless, were said to be continuing.
Participants in the meeting are expected to include Tulsi Gabbard, who announced her forthcoming resignation as director of national intelligence last week. Gabbard attracted Trump’s ire last year after testifying to Congress that she believed Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons, just months before US forces bombed the country’s uranium enrichment facilities.
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Protest outside ICE detention center in New Jersey over poor conditions
Lawmakers, families and advocates continued their days-long protest on Wednesday morning against poor conditions and the denial of medical care at New Jersey’s Delaney Hall detention center.
Inside the facility, a hunger strike is under way, the Guardian has reported.
Earlier, protestors alleged that US immigration agents deployed pepper spray and batons against them during a demonstration. US senator Andy Kim said he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents on Monday.
Video posted on social media showed Kim, a Democrat representing New Jersey, receiving help from a volunteer on Monday, who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark.
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Donald Trump congratulates Ken Paxton in social media post
Donald Trump has congratulated Ken Paxton in a social media post, while also praising his defeated runoff opponent John Cornyn.
Trump wrote on Truth Social:
Congratulations to Ken Paxton on such a tremendous win, and to John Cornyn for having run a strong and powerful race but, more importantly, having had a truly great career.
John will remain my friend for a long time to come, as we both watch Ken become a fantastic, common sense Senator, one who is respected by all.
Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention.
If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
But the president was not quite so complimentary of him, likening him to the cartoon character Alfred E Neuman. He added:
His opponent, Alfred E. Neuman, may be the worst TEXAS candidate I have ever seen. A strong Open Borders advocate, he is WEAK ON CRIME, believes there are 6 genders, is insulting to Jesus Christ, will never support the Military, was a big Mask Wearer until recently, and is a Vegan who dislikes meat, not exactly a good way to be if you’re wanting to win an Election in Texas.
Jasmine Crockett, a very low IQ individual, who is no relation to the legendary frontiersman, Davy Crockett, would have been a far better choice for the Dumocrats. I will do some nice, big, beautiful rallies for Ken. Texas, this will be FUN!
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The mayor of Minneapolis says the police chief hired to oversee reforms after George Floyd’s killing has chosen to resign rather than face discipline for interfering with an investigation into his conduct.
Mayor Jacob Frey announced Brian O’Hara’s resignation Tuesday. He says he had told O’Hara he might be fired.
O’Hara was under investigation on accusations that he’d had intimate relationships with city employees. Those allegations were never substantiated but investigators said they found that O’Hara had interfered with the investigation.
O’Hara became the chief in 2022 as the department was at the center of a nationwide reckoning over racism in policing after Floyd’s death.
Trump moves Camp David cabinet meeting to White House as Iran talks continue
Donald Trump will host the 12th cabinet meeting of his second term on Wednesday as talks on ending the nearly three-month war with Iran reach a crucial stage amid conflicting signals over whether an agreement is close.
The gathering had originally been scheduled to take place in the bucolic setting of Camp David, the presidential retreat that had previously been the site of sensitive Middle East negotiations, including the historic Israeli-Egyptian peace accords.
But Trump switched it back to its more accustomed White House setting, citing adverse weather forecasts.
“Based on the possible bad weather conditions tomorrow, we will be having our Cabinet Meeting in the White House, and will be postponing the Cabinet trip to Camp David,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Heavy rain is expected in the area on Wednesday.
The initial decision to stage it at Camp David had raised eyebrows, given that Trump had visited the presidential retreat deep in the Maryland countryside, 62 miles north-west of Washington, much less frequently than most of his predecessors.
Veteran Texas congressman Al Green beaten in Democratic primary runoff
Christian Menefee, a freshman Democratic US representative, beat veteran congressman Al Green on Tuesday in a fierce runoff that was the product of Republican gerrymandering.
Last year, the Republican-dominated Texas legislature unveiled a congressional map designed to flip seats in the GOP’s favor. Donald Trump had urged the state’s lawmakers to safeguard the party’s congressional majority.
Under the new map, Green, a congressional fixture for over two decades and a staunch Trump critic, saw his reliably Democratic ninth district effectively eliminated. He announced a bid for the 18th district in November.
Menefee was sworn into the seat in January, after winning a special election to replace the late US representative Sylvester Turner.
On the campaign trail, Green sought to link Menefee with big-money politics, accusing his challenger of being aligned with “Trump crypto cronies”, Houston Public Media reported.
Green’s protests of the Trump administration have garnered national attention in recent years.
In February, he was ejected from the president’s State of the Union address after holding a sign that read “Black people aren’t apes!” It was a counter to Trump sharing a racist AI-generated video where Barack and Michelle Obama were depicted as the simians.
Trump endorsement 'most powerful force in politics', says Paxton after runoff victory
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Texas attorney-general Ken Paxton said Donald Trump’s endorsement is “the most powerful force in politics” as he comfortably won the Republican nomination for the Senate last night.
Paxton defeated four-term senator John Cornyn in the latest contest where president Trump sought to oust an incumbent he saw as insufficiently loyal, AP reported.
Trump endorsed Paxton, calling him a “true MAGA warrior”, with Paxton’s victory in the runoff making Cornyn – who was first elected to the Senate in 2002 – the first Republican senator from Texas to lose the party’s nomination for reelection.
“When everyone in Washington told him to abandon me and abandon the people of Texas, he didn’t listen,” Paxton said. “President Trump is the leader of our party, and his endorsement is the most powerful force in politics.”
Cornyn’s loss followed primaries this month where Trump successfully backed challengers to Republican lawmakers who had displeased him in Louisiana, Kentucky and Indiana, a sign of his enduring influence among primary voters.
“After a public service career lasting more than four decades and 18 consecutive campaign wins, tonight we’ve come up short in this primary runoff,” Cornyn said shortly after the race was called. “I’ve always supported the GOP ticket. I intend to do so again this general election.”
The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxton will now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
In other developments:
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Christian Menefee defeated Al Green to represent Texas’s newly redrawn 18th congressional district. Green, 78, had served 11 terms as a Democrat, earning a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s top critics, when he became the first member of Congress to call for his impeachment, as early as 2017. Menefee, 38, began serving in Congress earlier this year after he won a special election. The two Democrats faced off against each other in this year’s election after Republican redistricting saw their home districts near Houston redrawn.
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Construction is under way on the White House lawn for a UFC arena that will host a cage-match next month to mark the United States’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 80th birthday. The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
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Trump completed his annual physical after year of public attention to health issues. Trump, the oldest inaugurated president in US history, completed a physical exam on Tuesday at Walter Reed national military medical center, amid questions around his health. “Everything checked out PERFECTLY,” the US president declared in a social media post.
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The Trump administration considered asking federal workers to sign NDAs. The goal of asking federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements is to prevent them from sharing confidential information with journalists.
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