Trump’s slew of executive actions involve the WHO, birthright citizenship and drug prices: Live updates | CNN Politics – CNN

• Trump interview: In President Donald Trump’s first television interview in the Oval Office since returning to the White House, he told Fox News he “might have to” cut funding for sanctuary cities, rebuffed concerns over TikTok and criticized Biden’s pardons.

Immigration agenda: Trump’s crackdown on immigration is in full force. The acting secretary of defense directed 1,500 ground personnel to the southern border. A new Justice Department memo outlines plans to challenge sanctuary city laws by threatening to prosecute officials who resist.

• Laken Riley Act: The House voted Wednesday to pass the act, a GOP-led bill to require detention of undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes, handing an early legislative win to Trump and congressional Republicans.

• Sharp words for Putin: In the latest in a string of critical comments about President Vladimir Putin, Trump warned he would inflict heavy economic pain on Russia if the country’s president doesn’t quickly end the war in Ukraine, saying: “We can do it the easy way, or the hard way.”

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

President Donald Trump littered a Wednesday interview on Fox News with many of the same false claims he made earlier in his first three days back in the White House.

Speaking with Fox News host and ardent supporter Sean Hannity in the Oval Office, Trump delivered familiar inaccurate assertions related to the 2020 and 2024 elections, immigration and the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 — plus a highly dubious new declaration that the assaults of police officers that day, some of them vicious, were “very minor incidents.”

We fact checked 11 of his remarks. Read the full list here.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke Wednesday with Venezuelan opposition leaders Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado, during which he reiterated the US’ recognition of González Urrutia as the “rightful president” of Venezuela, the State Department said in a readout.

Rubio praised the Venezuelan people for their “courage in the face of repression perpetrated” under Nicolás Maduro, who was sworn into his third term in power on January 10, despite many countries around the world disputing his claims to have won the presidential election in July.

During the call, Rubio also reaffirmed the US’ support for “the restoration of democracy in Venezuela as well as the unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners in line with the peaceful democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people.”

Both González Urrutia and Corina Machado posted messages on X thanking Rubio for the conversation.

“This gesture demonstrates the priority that Venezuela has on its agenda and its commitment to our struggle for freedom (…) Thank you, Secretary! Their support is a key impetus to continue advancing towards a free Venezuela,” said González Urrutia.

On Monday, hours after President Donald Trump took office, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said that his government hopes for a “respectful” and “transparent” relationship with the United States.

More context: Maduro and González both claimed victory in the presidential election on July 28. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, a body stacked with Maduro allies, formally declared Maduro the winner without providing voting tallies. However, the opposition disputed the claim and released tens of thousands of tallies saying they proved González won by a landslide.

Independent observers and CNN’s own analysis concluded that the tallies published by the opposition are likely to be valid, and several countries — including the United States — recognized Gonzalez as president-elect.

The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention implemented under the Biden administration has apparently ceased operations and its website is no longer working.

The office, first unveiled by former President Joe Biden’s administration in September 2023, created the first-ever federal Gun Violence Emergency Response Team, which included the FBI, FEMA and other federal agencies, and coordinated the federal response to mass shootings and community violence.

The group developed and implemented over 40 executive actions on gun violence, which included the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was the first significant gun safety legislation in a quarter-century when it was passed, according to the Biden administration.

The office also partnered with state and local governments to distribute nearly $200 million in funding for community violence intervention programs and implemented enhanced background check systems that stopped over 500 illegal gun purchases, the Biden administration said last year, according to Brady, an organization that advocates for more gun control in the US.

Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded in the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, released a statement on Instagram along with a photo of the error message displayed on what was previously the office’s website page.

“We’re only two days into the Trump-Vance Administration, and they have seemingly disbanded the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention already — making it clear this Administration works for the gun lobby, not the American people,” said Everytown for Gun Safety.

The president of Brady, an organization that advocates for more gun control in the US, said in a statement that the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, “wasn’t about politics.”

“It was about strengthening the government’s ability to protect Americans (more than 300 of whom are shot every single day) from guns,” said Brady President Kris Brown. “By shuttering it, Trump is putting the interests of the gun lobby above our kids, our communities, and our country.”

In November, the National Shooting Sports Foundation urged Trump “to take decisive action to disband” the office and “put an end to government-funded efforts to infringe upon the Constitutionally-guaranteed Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

CNN has obtained audio of one of the voicemails left by the Justice Department notifying police officers who testified at the trials of some of the January 6 rioters that the defendants they helped convict are being released from prison.

These notifications came in the form of emails and automated phone calls, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision Monday to grant mass clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 January 6 defendants.

The voicemail obtained by CNN was left for former US Capitol Police Staff Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. He was repeatedly assaulted during the Capitol siege and is now a staunch Trump critic.

This voicemail was about the release of convicted January 6 rioter Federico Klein, who was a political appointee at the State Department during Trump’s first administration. Klein spent nearly 90 minutes on the frontlines of the mob, clashing with Gonell and other police officers, including during the pitched battle at the Lower West Terrace tunnel.

A judge found Klein guilty at a bench trial of eight felonies, including six counts of assaulting or resisting police. He was sentenced in 2023 to nearly six years in prison, but he was released this week after receiving a pardon from Trump.

It is routine for prosecutors to notify trial witnesses, or victims who speak at a defendant’s sentencing hearing, when the defendants are released from prison.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on the phone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday and “discussed the strength of the U.S.-Saudi partnership,” according to a State Department readout of the call.

Rubio “conveyed that he looked forward to advancing shared interests in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and beyond,” State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

“The Secretary also stressed the threats posed by Iran and its proxies. They also discussed the benefits of the U.S.-Saudi economic partnership and the opportunities to grow their economies in a variety of fields including AI. The Secretary expressed his appreciation for Saudi Arabia’s partnership and efforts to promote regional peace and stability,” the statement continued.

Earlier Wednesday, CNN reported President Donald Trump also spoke with MBS, according to people familiar with the call, making it Trump’s first known conversation with a foreign leader since taking office.

Rubio also spoke with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, according to State Department readouts.

CNN reported earlier that Rubio also held calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.

In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, President Donald Trump questioned why Joe Biden didn’t pardon himself and accused the former president of benefitting personally from certain pardons.

“And, you know the funny thing — maybe the sad thing — is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And, if you look at it, it all had to do with him,” Trump said, adding: “The money went to him.”

Trump again took an aim at Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. “And I heard Schiff went to him and just begged him for a pardon, because Schiff is a crook,” he said and questioned why Schiff did not receive a pardon from Biden.

Trump also commented on investigating Biden and 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

He noted that while he was often urged to pursue investigations during his first presidency —particularly against Clinton — he chose not to.

“You know, I was always against that with presidents and Hillary Clinton. I could have had Hillary Clinton — a big number done on her. I didn’t want to,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

“Well, I went through four years of hell by this scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees, and I won, but I did it the hard way. It’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through it also, it is very hard to say that,” Trump said.

In 2020, a Justice Department review of business dealings tied to Clinton — championed by Trump and his allies — wound down with officials not finding enough evidence to recommend the formal opening of a criminal investigation.

The probe, which was launched in November 2017 under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was given momentum by Trump and conservatives on Capitol Hill who pushed for greater scrutiny of the former Democratic presidential nominee.

On his second day on the job, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with his Canadian counterpart about “the Trump Administration’s new approaches to key issues around the globe,” according to a State Department readout of the call.

Rubio’s call with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly comes as President Donald Trump threatens to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on February 1.

Rubio and Joly “also discussed shared priorities in the Western Hemisphere and opportunities in the U.S.-Canada relationship,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

CNN reported earlier that Rubio also spoke over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Researchers preparing to meet and review grant proposals from academic scientists across the US got an email Wednesday telling them their meetings had been canceled.

The email, which was obtained by CNN, said “at the present time, all Federal advisory committee meetings are canceled.”

Federal advisory committees are panels of experts that meet to advise the government on its regulatory decisions. There are at least 1,000 federal advisory committees, according to the General Services Administration, which oversees them.

The full impacts of the decision are not yet known.

Scientists quickly sounded the alarm about the cancellations of meetings called “study sections” which are a key part of the government’s scientific funding mechanism.

In some cases, meetings were cancelled abruptly mid-presentation.

Study sections are meetings where grant proposals are read and rated by independent peer reviewers. Highly rated proposals are then referred to institute councils at the National Institutes of Health. These councils then decide which projects will be funded.

CNN reached out to the US Department of Health and Human services for more information on the cancellation of study section meetings. In a written statement, an HHS spokesperson characterized the move as “a short pause.”

“HHS has issued a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health. This is a short pause to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization. There are exceptions for announcements that HHS divisions believe are mission critical, but they will be made on a case by case basis,” the statement said.

Another communication, also obtained by CNN, noted federal advisory meetings were canceled through February 1 and NIH sponsored meetings were canceled until further notice.

The National Institutes of Health is the single largest funder of biomedical research in the world. It is the lifeblood of academic research in the US.

The Senate has scheduled a key procedural vote to advance the nomination of Pete Hegseth as defense secretary for Thursday afternoon.

A simple majority of senators is needed to break a Democratic-led filibuster. While several Republican senators — such as Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — have been non-committal, no Republicans have voiced their opposition. GOP leaders are confident he will win confirmation.

The procedural vote is scheduled as the second vote in the Thursday 1:30 p.m. vote series. If the Senate advances the nomination, there would be 30 hours of debate until the final confirmation vote, pushing it to as late as Friday night if an agreement isn’t reached for a quicker vote.

The Senate, tomorrow, will also cast both a procedural vote and confirmation vote on John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA before taking up the Hegseth nomination.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has teed up Kristi Noem’s nomination for Homeland Security and Scott Bessent for Treasury following the Hegseth debate. A partisan dispute over the nominations could keep the Senate in session over the weekend to process the picks.

The Office of Personnel Management has released guidance related to President Donald Trump’s previously issued personnel memorandum ordering government employees to return to work in person.

The guidance states that by 5 p.m. on Friday, agencies should revise their telework policy “to state that eligible employees must work fulltime at their respective duty stations unless excused due to a disability, qualifying medical condition, or other compelling reason certified by the agency head and the employee’s supervisor.”

It also recommends agencies set a target date of approximately 30 days for full compliance, subject to exclusions granted by an agency or collective bargaining agreements.

“President Trump was elected with the mandate to increase the efficiency and accountability of the federal workforce. A glaring roadblock is that most federal offices presently are virtually abandoned,” the guidance memo says. “Virtually unrestricted telework has led to poorer government services and made it more difficult to supervise and train government workers.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would seek to “immediately” release the FBI files on John F. Kennedy, once the files are reviewed.

Asked by Fox’s Sean Hannity whether he would release the files on the assassination of Kennedy, Trump mentioned that he already released some of those files as president, but was discouraged by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from releasing further information.

“I did it with Kennedy, to an extent,” Trump said. “But I was asked by some of our government officials not to, and, you know, you have to respect them.”

Trump promised early in his first term to release files on the Kennedy assassination. In October 2017, the US government released over 2,800 records pertaining to the assassination, but avoided releasing more after last-minute requests from national security agencies.

Trump said Pompeo felt “it was just not a good time to release them.” He added he was going to release the files “immediately” upon getting the information.

President Donald Trump brushed aside concerns that TikTok’s data collection could leave American’s personal information vulnerable to China, telling Fox News in an interview: “Is it that important for China to be spying on young people? On young kids watching crazy videos?”

Trump was pressed on concerns that some have said TikTok — which is owned by Chinese-based parent company ByteDance and is thus subject to China’s data collection requirements — is a “spying app for the Communist Chinese,” by Fox’s Sean Hannity during an Oval Office interview.

“But you can say that about everything made in China. Look, we have our telephones made in China, for the most part, we have so many things made in China, so why don’t they mention that?” Trump said. “You know, the interesting thing with TikTok is you’re dealing with a lot of young people. So, is it that important for China to be spying on young people, on young kids, watching crazy videos?”

One of Trump’s first actions after taking office Monday was to sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the TikTok’s federal ban, which was set to take effect Sunday. During Wednesday’s interview, he told Hannity “a lot of people want to buy” the app in the US, which would allow it to continue to operate domestically without running afoul of the law.

Trump’s embrace of the platform is a reversal from his first term in office, when he issued an executive order effectively banning TikTok, saying the app’s data collection “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information” and could enable Beijing to “build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

But he’s since changed his tune on the popular social media app, pointing to his campaign’s use of the platform as instrumental in his victory in November’s election.

“How about with youth? I won youth by 36 points — now maybe that’s because I went on TikTok, I don’t know,” he said.

CNN has reported previously that while young voters, particularly young men, did shift toward Trump compared with the 2020 election, exit poll data published by CNN found that Harris beat Trump 54% to 43% among voters ages 18-24, 53% to 45% among voters ages 25-29, and 51% to 45% among voters ages 30-39.

Even if Harris’ actual margins were smaller — exit poll data is often flawed — there is no sign that Trump dominated Harris with young voters.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would consider cutting federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities if they did not comply with his immigration orders.

Asked by Fox’s Sean Hannity whether Trump would consider cutting funding, Trump replied: “I might have to do that.”

Trump said California was a “great example,” slamming Gov. Gavin Newsom’s immigration policy.

Trump during the interview has been repeatedly critical of Newsom, including his handling of the wildfires burning around Los Angeles.

Asked whether he would meet with Newsom during his trip to Los Angeles scheduled for later this week, Trump responded: “I haven’t even thought about it.”

The Justice Department has told legal service providers to stop work intended to help support immigrants, according to a memo obtained by CNN, stripping away critical access for people in detention trying to navigate the tangled US immigration system.

On Wednesday, legal service providers who receive federal funding and work in immigration detention were told by the Justice Department to cease work as it relates to legal orientation, help at immigration courts, and counsel for children, citing one of President Donald Trump’s immigration executive orders.

The move had immediate repercussions.

Staff manning help desks at certain immigration courts had to be pulled off to avoid falling out of compliance, according to a source familiar with the decision. The help desk, available at some immigration courts, assists people navigate some of the most basic details about their cases.

Lawyers who had scheduled to participate in legal orientation programs for immigrants were told those couldn’t proceed, the source said.

Losing access to legal service providers could be the difference between being able to defend against deportation, according to immigration attorneys, amid heightening fears about Trump’s immigration crackdown. Without these programs, many immigrants will be forced to navigate their deportation cases with little to no legal support.

“When they show up to these programs, sometimes they’re learning about where in the United States they are. They often start with this in an orientation,” the source said. The providers share information about the US system and can also point immigrants in the direction of pro brono attorneys.

Immigration advocates and attorneys have repeatedly argued that access to counsel and legal orientation is critical for immigrants who are getting acquainted with the complicated and cumbersome immigration system.

“It’s always been particularly difficult for noncitizens in detention to win cases if they’re detained. If they’re in detention and unrepresented, their options really plummet,” said Andrew Nietor, immigration attorney and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Legal service providers who are subcontracted may be able to continue their work with immigrants if it’s not done through the federal funds, though many are limited in what they can do without that money.

Pete Hegseth’s ex-wife recently gave a new statement to the FBI about the defense nominee’s alcohol use, according to two sources familiar with the matter, an issue that has become a source of controversy during his confirmation process.

Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker and Ranking Member Jack Reed were briefed on Samantha Hegseth’s statement, which has not been previously reported, last week, two days after the committee held Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, the sources said.

Wicker and Reed were initially briefed about the FBI’s background check before the confirmation hearing, according to another source familiar with the matter. Since then, the FBI has interviewed Samantha Hegseth and has included her statement in its supplemental review.

Wicker said in a statement late Wednesday night that reports “regarding a confidential briefing on the FBI background investigation of Pete Hegseth that I received last week are starkly and factually inaccurate” and that he stands by Hegseth’s nomination.

“It is disturbing that a sensitive, longstanding process used by committee leadership to vet presidential personnel is being litigated in the press by anonymous sources with ulterior motives,” Wicker said, noting that he has been briefed three times by the FBI about their background check into Hegseth.

Democrats pressed Hegseth during his confirmation hearing about allegations of both sexual misconduct and excessive drinking. Hegseth has repeatedly denied all allegations of misconduct, including having a drinking problem, but has said he would not drink while serving as secretary of defense if he’s confirmed.

The FBI connected with Samantha Hegseth and she gave a statement in which she discussed concerns about Pete Hegseth’s drinking, the two sources said. One source familiar with the statement said Samantha Hegseth told the FBI “he drinks more often than he doesn’t.”

The source familiar noted that Samantha and Pete Hegseth have been divorced since 2017.

“There’s nothing new here and we look forward to the confirmation vote,” Tim Parlatore, Pete Hegseth’s lawyer, told CNN.

Samantha Hegseth has not responded to CNN’s request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

Reed and Wicker received the briefing days before the vote in committee to advance Hegseth’s nomination to the floor of the Senate. The vote was along party lines, with Reed voting against Hegseth’s nomination and Wicker voting to advance him to the floor.

This post has been updated with a statement from Sen. Wicker.

President Donald Trump announced a few new appointments on Wednesday. Here’s a quick look at them

Ambassador to European Union: Trump has selected Andrew F. Puzder for the post, he announced in Truth Social post Wednesday. In a congratulatory post, Trump emphasized Puzder’s skills as an attorney, businessman and author, which Trump claimed would make him an excellent representative for US interests in the European Union — an important region for global diplomacy. CNN previously reported in 2017 that Puzder withdrew his name from contention to be Trump’s pick to lead the Labor Department.

CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM): Trump, in another Truth Social post, named L. Brent Bozell III to lead the agency and praised him for his extensive experience in the media landscape, particularly his role as the Founder and President of the MediaResearch Center, a conservative media watchdog organization. USAGM oversees US government-funded international media outlets, including the Voice of America.

Director of the United States Secret Service: Trump picked his current Secret Service detail leader, Sean Curran, for the job. For the past four years, Curran has led Trump’s detail and is known to have a close, personal relationship with the president, sources said. Several sources, however, also raised significant concerns that Curran lacks the managerial experience to run an agency as large and complex as the Secret Service. On Trump’s detail, Curran supervised about 85 people. He has never managed the kind of budget or operations of the Secret Service. Further, multiple sources point out that Curran has never held a position at the agency’s headquarters and is not a member of the Senior Executive Service, which comprises the highest ranks in the service.

CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo and Whitney Wild contributed to this report.

Federal workers at multiple agencies received department-wide memos Wednesday urging them to report any efforts to conceal work on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The warning was embedded in the Trump administration’s orders to begin the process of shutting down all DEI initiatives across federal agencies.

“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” the emails, reviewed by CNN, said. The memos advised staffers to report others who were involved in changing any “contract description or personnel position description” since November 4, 2025.

“Failure to report this information within 10 days will result in adverse consequences,” the email warns.

The notice sharply criticized diversity efforts as having “divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.”

Some background: CNN first reported last week that some federal employees were quietly editing job descriptions to protect roles over fears of scrutiny and potential cuts by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser on Wednesday sidelined about 160 National Security Council aides, sending them home while the administration reviews staffing and tries to align it with Trump’s agenda.

The career government employees, commonly referred to as detailees, were summoned Wednesday for an all-staff call and told they will be expected to be available to the council’s senior directors but would not need to report to the White House. The council provides national security and foreign policy advice to the president.

Brian McCormack, chief of staff to national security adviser Mike Waltz, delivered the news in a two-minute phone call, telling the detailees they “are directed to be on call and report to the office only if contacted by the NSC leadership.”

“As anyone who has had the privilege of working here in the White House knows, it’s a tremendous honor to support the executive office of the president and the presidency itself,” said McCormack, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Associated Press. “We also know that every president is entitled to have a staff and the advisers that they need to implement the goals that the American people elected him to pursue.”

Trump, a Republican, is sidelining these nonpolitical experts on topics that range from counterterrorism to global climate policy at a time when the United States is dealing with a disparate set of complicated foreign policy matters, including conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Such structuring could make new policy experts brought in to the NSC less likely to speak up about policy differences and concerns.

The Trump administration is putting a halt to agreements that require reforms of police departments where the Justice Department found a pattern of misconduct, according to a memo issued Wednesday.

“The new administration may wish to reconsider settlements and consent decrees negotiated and approved by the prior administration,” says a memo issued by the acting Associate Attorney General Chad Mizelle.

Mizelle ordered the Justice Department’s civil rights division to “not execute or finalize any settlements or consent decrees approved prior to January 20, 2025, 12:00pm.” The memo also orders civil rights lawyers to notify Mizelle of any settlements or consent decrees finalized in the past 90 days.

Mizelle issued a separate memo Wednesday ordering attorneys in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to pause their cases.

The memo directed the attorneys to not “file any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest” until further notice.

It’s common for new administrations to seek to review pending litigation to try to determine whether it aligns with their policy positions. But current and former Justice officials say new administrations usually seek to conduct reviews on a case-by-case basis.

Some context: The move was widely anticipated with the change of administrations and has the potential to upend police reform efforts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Louisville, Kentucky, which were announced by the Justice Department in the closing weeks of the Biden administration.

The consent decree agreements with both cities are awaiting final approval by judges in those states — meaning that the Trump Justice Department could seek to scuttle the deals.

President Donald Trump and Republican allies have long criticized the use of court-ordered consent decrees to enforce police reform efforts.

During his campaign, Trump vowed to “back the blue,” a slogan meant to show support for police even when officers are accused of misconduct or civil rights violations. In Trump’s first administration, the Justice Department similarly sought to scuttle police consent decrees.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for leading a far-reaching plot to keep then-President Donald Trump in power in 2020, said he met a small group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday after being released from prison as the result of Trump’s commutations.

He gave a long interview after the meeting. Here’s highlights of what he said:

What the discussion was about: Rhodes said he was specifically advocating for the release of Jeremy Brown, a retired Army Special Forces sergeant who was a member of the Oath Keepers, and was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 for both possession of unregistered grenades and guns and for violating the willful retention of national defense information provision.

Visiting Trump: Rhodes said he has “no current plans,” but said he would go if invited. While he said he has to return to California tomorrow because of his probation, he is hoping to return to Capitol Hill in the coming weeks to advocate for the rioters still in prison and broader reform of prison conditions.

On Nancy Pelosi: On January 10, 2021, Rhodes had said, “I’d hang f**king Pelosi from the lamppost.” Today, he said he regretted that. “I was drunk and pissed off. That’s still protected speech though. It’s after the fact. I’m not proposing anything. I’m just being pissed off.”

Defending his actions: Rhodes was sentenced for seditious conspiracy and was also found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and tampering with documents. But he maintained that he had done nothing wrong. “What did I do on January 6 that caused them harm? Did I touch any officer? Show me the video of me punching anybody. I didn’t touch anybody. I sat outside and exercised my right to free speech. I talked about what I was seeing, I talked about what I felt about the election that it was unconstitutional and illegal” Rhodes said. On being charged with seditious conspiracy, Rhodes said “it was used for political purposes, to make it look as salacious as possible.”

Violence against police: Rhodes accused police officers of using “excessive force.” He said that everyone should be pardoned because he claimed “we did not have a fair trial.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday once again designated the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen a “foreign terrorist organization” following attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea.

Biden had removed that label when he assumed the White House from Trump in 2021, before later moving to designate the Houthis a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” group, a less severe ranking.

There are three differences in the labels:

“Under President Trump, it is now the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations, deprive them of resources, and thereby end their attacks on U.S. personnel and civilians, U.S. partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” the White House said in announcing the new designation.

The White House said Trump was directing the US Agency for International Development to “end its relationship with entities that have made payments to the Houthis, or which have opposed international efforts to counter the Houthis while turning a blind eye towards the Houthis’ terrorism and abuses.”

Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

President Donald Trump spoke Wednesday with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, people familiar with the call said.

This is his first known conversation with a foreign leader since assuming office, and it comes amid a complex situation in the Middle East. A freshly struck hostage-and-ceasefire deal is leading to hopes for greater normalization between Israel and its neighbors.

In the call, Prince Mohammed and Trump “discussed ways of cooperation between the Kingdom and the United States of America to establish peace, security and stability in the Middle East region, in addition to enhancing bilateral cooperation to combat terrorism,” according to a readout from the Saudi official news agency.

Saudi Arabia was Trump’s first stop abroad during his first presidency. He said in the Oval Office this week he chose the kingdom because officials there vowed to make significant investments in the United States. He said he would consider returning to Saudi Arabia if similar investments were made.

Prince Mohammed appears to have received the message. In Wednesday’s call, Prince Mohammed stressed “the Kingdom’s desire to expand its investments and trade relations with the United States in the next four years by an amount of $600 billion, expected to increase if additional opportunities become available.”

Trump and the Saudi crown prince cultivated close relations during his first term, helped along in part by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The warm ties came despite a US intelligence report finding Prince Mohammed played a significant role in the murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse said President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon January 6 defendants accused of violence sends the “wrong message” to the country, including to law enforcement.

Pardoning rioters who attacked police is a “middle finger to law enforcement and to our judicial system,” said Newhouse, one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6, 2021.

“I just think it demeans and disrespects the work that people do around here to protect public safety, protect us and also people around the country,” he told CNN.

He said he was “surprised” by the pardons, noting that he agrees with Trump on the “majority of things” that the president wants to do.

“We have obvious people that have broken the laws that courts have found that to be the case,” he said, adding that the pardoning “just sends the wrong message to law enforcement agencies, to the public, to our judicial system and to citizens.”

While GOP senators are working to get Trump’s Cabinet nominees through the confirmation process, Democrats on Capitol Hill are thinking about their messaging more broadly. They are trying to work out where to draw the line on Trump in his second term.

Meantime, the House delivered an early legislative win to Trump on Wednesday, voting to pass the Laken Riley Act.

Here’s some key headlines to get caught up on:

Europe needs to “have a backbone” while working with US President Donald Trump, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on Wednesday.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Schoof was asked by CNN’s Richard Quest about whether Europe should stand up to Trump.

“I think it’s necessary to have a backbone,” Schoof answered. “I mean, we’re not going to behave as a victim.”

Schoof added that Europe should “act from strength” and that a tit-for-tat strategy would lead “down the drain.” He also suggested the continent leverage its large consumer market and technology industry — rather than import tariffs — to make Europe a “strong partner for the United States.”

At the same time, Schoof acknowledged Trump’s support with Americans.

“Trump wants to do something for the people in the United States — that’s why they voted for Trump,” Schoof said.

President Donald Trump has issued a “full and unconditional pardon” to DC police Lt. Andrew Zabavsky and Officer Terence Sutton for their role in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, a case that drew protests on the heels of the murder of George Floyd.

In October 2020, Sutton and Zabavsky of the Metropolitan Police Department spotted Hylton-Brown driving a moped helmetless and pursued him at high speeds until he was eventually struck and killed by an uninvolved motorist.

Zabavsky was found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice and was facing 48 months behind bars. Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice

Christopher Zampogna, Zabavsky’s attorney, thanked the president after the full pardon announcement Wednesday evening.

“We’re very grateful to [President Trump] for doing it,” Zampogna told CNN. “And we want to thank him.”

Zampogna says he and his client had no idea the pardon would come Wednesday. He says they’re now working out the final details with the Department of Justice.

Sutton told CNN by phone Wednesday night that he was “just overwhelmed” when he found out about the pardon. “I want to go back to the police department and finish my career,” he added, admitting that he “has no clue” if it will be possible.

The DC Police Department issued a statement Wednesday thanking the president for granting the pardons and called the prosecutions of the two men “literally unprecedented.”

“Never before, in any other jurisdiction in the country, has a police officer been charged with second-degree murder for pursuing a suspect,” the statement read. “These members could never have imagined that engaging in a core function of their job would be prosecuted as a crime. The Department recognizes the risks involved in vehicle pursuits, which are reflected in our pursuit policy. But violations of that policy should be addressed through training and discipline — not through criminal prosecution.”

Prosecutors have said the case eroded public trust. Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, told CNN she was shocked and started crying when she learned of the potential pardons.

This post has been updated with comments from Zampogna and Sutton.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed the United States’ support for Israel in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday.

Rubio told Netanyahu that maintaining the relationship between the two countries is a “top priority” for President Donald Trump, according to State Department spokesperson. This is Rubio’s second day on the job, after being sworn in on Tuesday.

“The Secretary congratulated the Prime Minister on Israel’s successes against Hamas and Hezbollah and pledged to work tirelessly to help free all remaining hostages held in Gaza,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

The call comes as US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff announced plans to travel to Gaza during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Netanyahu has also asked the Trump administration to approve a plan to allow five Israeli military outposts to remain in southern Lebanon, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.

Rubio and Netanyahu spoke about “addressing the threats posed by Iran and pursuing opportunities for peace.”

President Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportations of undocumented migrants would deeply impact the public image of the United States and as well as its diplomatic relationships in Latin America, the director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program warned.

Benjamin Gedan told CNN that if the deportations are carried out, remittances to many countries in the Americas would be reduced, severely affecting their labor markets.

“And these are economies like in Guatemala and Honduras that are quite vulnerable. You have probably four or five countries in Latin America where remittances from the United States largely represent over 20% of GDP,” he said.

Gedan, who served as the South American director at the National Security Council in 2016 and 2017, also warned that unemployment in the US would spike if millions of people are deported.

“This will create disastrous economic and social impacts at home, which will inevitably have disastrous consequences for the US relationships,” he said. “I’m not convinced that that will bother the US government. I think it seems clear that the current US government doesn’t value close relationships in the region.”

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee intends to schedule Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing for Thursday, January 30, according to a committee spokesman, a day after the Senate Finance Committee’s hearing.

Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said he directed the Defense Department to “begin augmenting its forces at the southwest border” with 1,500 ground personnel “as well as helicopters with associated crews, and intelligence analysts in support increased detection and monitoring efforts.”

“[T]he Department will provide military airlift to support DHS deportation flights of more than five thousand illegal aliens from the San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas, sectors detained by Customs and Border Protection,” Salesses said in a statement. “DHS will provide inflight law enforcement, and the State Department will obtain the requisite diplomatic clearances and provide host-nation notification.”

“This is just the beginning,” Salesses added.

Two sources previously told CNN that US Transportation Command had been instructed to prepare to use US military assets, including military aircraft, for migrant repatriation flights.

On the face of it, US President Donald Trump’s latest message to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin appears to be a threat.

“We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” Trump thundered in a social media post Wednesday, in which he demanded Putin do a “deal” on Ukraine.

If the “ridiculous war” did not end soon, Trump warned, he would “have no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs, and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States.”

But after years of international financial pressure, designed to punish Moscow for its various malign activities, it is unclear what further measures being considered by Trump could make a difference.

Remember: Russia is already one of the world’s most sanctioned countries, with minimal trade with the United States, and has hitherto refused to change its course.

After years of failed American efforts to curb Moscow’s destructive actions overseas – from wars to poisonings, to election interference – the latest Trump ultimatum seems more like a sop to Russia hawks in his new administration than a genuine threat of decisive action.

Much more significant is Trump’s very public offer to broker a peace deal – albeit an offer wrapped inside a back-handed insult.

“I’m going to do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR,” Trump wrote.

On a war footing, Russia’s economy is indeed under enormous strain and Russian opinion polls consistently suggest there is little real public enthusiasm for Putin’s relentless fight to entirely dominate their Ukrainian neighbors.

True, Putin is increasingly autocratic and barely accountable to his electorate, but the Kremlin still keeps a close eye on public opinion, and Trump’s off-ramp may well be something Putin privately welcomes.

More likely, though, the Kremlin will see any ceasefire as a valuable opportunity to lock in territorial gains and rebuild its battered military. For Putin that would be a “very big FAVOR” indeed.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Finance Committee is set for Wednesday, January 29, at 10 a.m., according to a news release from the committee.

The House voted on Wednesday to pass a GOP-led bill to require detention of undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes, handing an early legislative win to President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who chose to bring up the measure as their first bill of the new Congress.

The bill — called the Laken Riley Act — will next go to the White House to be signed into law after the Senate approved the measure earlier in the week.

The vote was 263 to 156, with 46 Democrats voting in favor.

The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to detain undocumented migrants who are in the US unlawfully or without legal status if they have been charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or have admitted to certain criminal offenses, including theft and burglary. The Senate adopted amendments to expand the list of criminal offenses covered under the bill to include assault on law enforcement officers and crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury.

President Donald Trump will have a loyalist attorney defending his executive action seeking to end birthright citizenship when it goes to court in Seattle Thursday.

Brett Shumate, who served in the Justice Department in Trump’s first term and is expected to be Trump’s pick to oversee the Justice Department’s sprawling civil division, will argue on behalf of the Trump Administration in the high-stakes case for the Trump administration, according to an official familiar with the matter.

The Trump Justice Department is prioritizing staffing up the civil division because it is responsible for defending the president’s policies and numerous executive orders in court, and the new administration would prefer to have political appointees defending its policies than line prosecutors.

Shumate worked in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term as deputy assistant attorney general of the Federal Programs Branch in the Civil Division where he was involved in some of the biggest cases, including defending Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census and abandoning the defense of the Affordable Care Act, which was before the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals.

About the hearing: Thursday’s hearing is the first time the Justice Department will face a hearing challenging Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship. At least five cases have already been filed across the country challenging the executive order but this is the first hearing that could lead to it being blocked.

The hearing is on a case filed behalf of four states, led by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, and will be heard before US District Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee.

Shumate will be working on the high-stakes case with the support of career officials at the Justice Department as well as lawyers from the appellate division and the Solicitor General’s office, which would be responsible for defending the policy if it reaches the Supreme Court.

Shumate, a veteran litigator, most recently worked as a partner at Jones Day.

Federal Judge Beryl Howell called January 6, 2021, rioters “poor losers” on Wednesday and warned that glorifying them could lead to future lawlessness, even as she dismissed charges against two defendants in one of dozens of Capitol riot cases she’s handled.

The judge disputed President Donald Trump’s rationale for granting sweeping clemency to people charged in connection with the US Capitol siege, quoting his executive action that said he was ending “a grave national injustice” to begin a “process of national reconciliation.”

“No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election,” Howell wrote. “No ‘process of national reconciliation’ can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity.”

“That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law,” Howell added.

Howell, like at least one other judge in Washington, DC’s federal court on Wednesday, agreed that she would dismiss a pending Capitol riot case because Trump’s Justice Department no longer wants to prosecute it.

But she refused to dismiss the case against Proud Boys affiliates Nicholas DeCarlo and Nicholas Ochs “with prejudice,” as prosecutors had asked, meaning it could not be brought again.

Howell simply dismissed the case, as she criticized Trump’s decision to end about 300 pending cases against January 6 rioters.

Another judge pushes back: Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge who oversaw Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case, became the latest judge to push back against the president’s clemency for January 6 rioters and seeking the permanent dismissal of pending cases, memorializing the violence of the Capitol riot in graphic terms.

Dismissing a case against Capitol riot defendant John Banuelos, Chutkan wrote on Wednesday, “cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

She also refused to dismiss the case “with prejudice.”

Social media users, including celebrities like Demi Lovato and Gracie Abrams, are posting complaints that Meta won’t let them unfollow President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and first lady Melania Trump on Instagram.

On her Instagram story, Abrams said she had to unfollow the @vp and @potus accounts three separate times because Meta kept automatically refollowing the accounts.

Lovato on her Instagram story said, “I have unfollowed this guy twice today.”

Other social media users are posting heads ups to unfollow the accounts if they don’t support the Trump administration. And some users raised concerns that the hashtag #Democrat was blocked on Instagram this week.

On Tuesday, Andy Stone, who does communications for Meta, said that the company was working to resolve an issue that affected the search function for different hashtags and that it didn’t just affect hashtags “on the left.”

Meta also denied that it forced users to follow Trump and Vance’s accounts. The accounts for the president, vice president and first lady change with every administration, the company said.

“People were not made to automatically follow any of the official Facebook or Instagram accounts for the President, Vice President or First Lady,” Stone said in a post on X on Wednesday. “This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition.”

President Donald Trump is already testing the limits of Hill Democrats who have vowed to be less antagonistic the second time around.

Privately, Democrats have largely agreed it’s time to end the capital-R resistance to the newly sworn in president. Then on Trump’s first 24 hours in office, he freed those who violently attacked police officers protecting the Capitol four years ago.

Suddenly, the party’s attempt to usher in a new era of receptiveness with the White House is turning out to be more complicated in practice. Just days into his second term, Trump is once again baiting his political opponents and scrambling their playbook in real time.

“The natural inclination is to fight, fight, fight, fight,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, a centrist Democrat who represents a Trump-won district on Long Island. Suozzi stressed that Democrats need to be more disciplined in their politics to avoid their more reactionary tactics: “That’s what’s got us to this point.”

Even so, he and others acknowledge they can’t ignore when Trump allows January 6 rioters to go free at the same time he is pushing to deport other violent criminals. “I mean, come on,” an exasperated Suozzi said.

“It makes it pretty hard to want to work with him,” said Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, who released a scathing statement on the pardoned January 6 rioters, some of whom used tasers, bear spray and other weapons to physically assault multiple police officers who live in his district.

Top Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have been urging members to stick to substantive policy differences, rather than personality clashes and social media clapbacks with a man who won the popular vote. But there remains internal tension in the party about where to draw the line on Trump.

The Republican-controlled Senate is trying to confirm President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, and while some seem poised to be voted through, other nominees are facing uncertainty.

Some senators are still deciding on where they stand on Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Wednesday she is still weighing the impact that an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law may have on her vote for him to become the next defense secretary. GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also has not committed to backing Hegseth and said she is “factoring” the new affidavit into her consideration of his nomination.

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee unanimously approved Sean Duffy’s nomination to be secretary of transportation on Wednesday. The vote was 28-0, with all Democrats joining Republicans in support of advancing Duffy’s nomination to the Senate floor.

Here’s what else you should know:

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s new sweeping immigration and deportation orders after he was sworn in on Monday, officials in some states are trying to reassure residents.

The mayor of El Paso, Texas, said “it has been business as usual” for the last few days. On Wednesday, he told people they can safely go to school and church in peace.

“You’re going to be okay,” Renard Johnson said during a news conference. “We can take a deep breath because we’re stronger as a community if we unite.”

While the mayor said they “will follow all laws, especially federal law,” he also said “I don’t believe the (police) chief’s going to have the resources to go out and enforce immigration in our community.”

The El Paso Police Department does not enforce immigration laws, the Chief of El Paso Police Department, Peter Pacillas, said at the news conference. There are six border crossings throughout El Paso and neighboring areas that connect to Mexico.

In a state further north, dozens of Colorado leaders, elected officials, and immigration rights advocates denounced Trump’s immigration policies.

Michael Dougherty, the district attorney of Boulder County, tried to temper worries that have been spreading in the immigrant community by reassuring the public that people’s rights will be protected, in the name of public safety and human rights.

Colorado State Sen. Julie Gonzales said that the fear running through Colorado’s immigrant community right now runs deep to the bone. She pointed out that immigrants are more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators of crime, yet, right now, many are in fear of calling 911 — which makes everyone unsafe.

Junie Joseph, a Colorado state representative, called on Trump to show compassion for immigrants and especially children who he says have the right to family integrity and should not have to endure the trauma of family separation if their parents are caught in the web of immigration policies.

President Donald Trump’s threat to slap new “taxes, tariffs and sanctions” on Moscow until it ends its war in Ukraine came without specifics on what precisely he would target in an already heavily sanctioned Russian economy.

But speaking after the president’s message, a Trump administration official said there could be additional ways to apply pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine, despite the massive sanctions already in place applied by Trump’s predecessor.

In particular, current US officials believe more pressure could be applied to Russia’s energy sector, which the former Biden administration had long been wary of targeting, concerned about its effect on global markets.

As he was departing office, Biden imposed new restrictions on Russia’s oil and liquified natural gas sectors, a driver of the Russian economy. Officials said it had the potential to cost Moscow billions of dollars. The sanctions punished entities doing business with the Russians.

But some Trump officials believe the US could still go further cutting off Russia’s main source of income as Trump works to bring Putin to the negotiating table. They said the Biden administration’s focus on domestic gas prices had led to a cautious approach over the last year.

“I will be 100% on board with taking sanctions up — especially on the Russian oil majors — to levels that would bring the Russian Federation to the table,” Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee last week.

One option on the table, according to officials, is greater enforcement on existing sanctions, including penalizing European shippers of Russian oil, along with its buyers in Asia. Trump officials have been weighing options since before this week’s inauguration, consulting with some Cabinet appointees along with conservative think tanks.

On tariffs, Trump may have less room to maneuver. Trade between the US and Russia was relatively small even before the Ukraine war began — and dipped drastically afterward, a result of the heavy sanctions applied by the Biden administration.

Whatever route Trump chooses, he is unlikely to execute it before speaking with Putin, firm in his belief that direct communication could lead to positive results.

A call between the men will happen “very soon,” Trump said this week.

President Donald Trump responded to former President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon members of his family during an Oval Office interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity taped Wednesday.

“I was given the option. They said, ‘Sir, would you like to pardon everybody, including yourself?’ I said, I’m not going to pardon anybody. We didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said in the short clip. “We had people that suffered, they’re incredible patriots.”

In another clip aired by Fox News, Trump reflected on his return to the White House. Trump says his comeback is “historically bigger” than if he had returned for consecutive terms.

“Well, it was a lot of work, and as you know, I felt that we shouldn’t have had to necessarily be here. Could have been done, lot of work could have been, it would have been over,” he said.

He claimed there would have been no October 7 attack or Ukraine war had he been president the previous four years, but said his victory “showed us that the radical left, their philosophies and policies are horrible.”

The interview airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Wednesday she is still weighing the impact that an affidavit from Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law may have on her vote for him to become the next defense secretary.

Collins told reporters that she is still trying to get information to make her decision.

She also added she wants to understand what was and was not in the FBI background check briefing that the chairman and ranking member of Senate Armed Services received.

Asked what troubled her, she said “the fact that allegedly some of the information that the FBI had did not make it into the background check, but I don’t know that personally because I am not a member of the committee, so I don’t have access to the FBI report.”

Meanwhile, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has not committed to backing Hegseth, said that she is “factoring” the new affidavit into her consideration of his nomination.

Some context: Danielle Hegseth, who was married to Hegseth’s brother from 2011 to 2019, wrote in the affidavit that Hegseth was “abusive” toward his ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth. She did not specify the nature of the abuse and said she did “not personally witness physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth.”

Danielle Hegseth wrote that Samantha Hegseth at times feared for her safety and that she had a code word if she needed help to get away from her husband.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee unanimously approved Sean Duffy’s nomination to be secretary of transportation on Wednesday.

The vote was 28-0, with all Democrats joining Republicans in support of advancing Duffy’s nomination to the Senate floor.

What to know about the nominee: Duffy served in the US House of Representatives from 2011 to 2019, representing Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District. He most recently was co-host of Fox Business’ “The Bottom Line,” after first joining Fox News as a contributor in 2020. Duffy initially found fame appearing on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997.

Duffy, who served as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and on the House Committee on Financial Services during his time in Congress, has little to no experience in the transportation field.

If confirmed by the Senate, he would oversee projects that involve companies run by Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who has been tapped by the president-elect to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency. Musk’s companies have billions of dollars in contracts with the federal government across a number of agencies, including the Department of Transportation.

The new leader of the department will face a number of safety-related issues regarding aviation, including plane manufacturer Boeing’s string of quality control and manufacturing issues. There are also airline labor union strike threats and climate-focused initiatives like electric vehicles and charging stations that are likely to be on his desk in the coming years.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan and Alexandra Skores contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump is pushing the limits of the executive branch powers to uphold his campaign promises to supporters.

Immigration enforcement has been a top focus for his administration. Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, called migrant arrests over the last two days at the US southern border “a game changer” in an interview with Fox News.

Homan said that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement was “concentrating on the worst first,” elaborating that “the worst” meant public safety and national security threats.

In other changes, the administration has directed federal health agencies to pause external communications, such as regular scientific reports, updates to websites and health advisories, according to sources within the agencies.

The initial orders were delivered Tuesday to staff at agencies inside the US Department of Health and Human Services, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story. This included officials at the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health, the Post reported. The direction came without warning and with little guidance as to what exactly it covered, according to sources inside the affected agencies who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to share the information.

Here’s the latest on what else is happening:

President Donald Trump is expected attend the House Republican retreat at his resort in Doral in the Miami area on Monday, a White House official told CNN.

It will come at the end of a busy first week in office for the president and after planned stops in North Carolina and California.

More context: During his first term in office, Trump often held events and visits with world leaders at his own properties. In 2019, he announced he would hold the 2020 Group of Seven summit at Doral, but abruptly reversed course after bipartisan backlash.

Trump properties, such as Mar-a-Lago, have also been popular spots for Republican events, including during the four years between Trump’s presidential terms.

One woman who took part in the January 6 riot refused to accept President Donald Trump’s pardon on Monday because “it would be a slap in the face to the Capitol Police and to the rule of law.”

Pam Hemphill served two months in federal prison after pleading guilty to several charges related to the riot in 2021.

“This has to do with part of my amends. Otherwise you’re going along with the — they’re trying to rewrite history that January 6th was not an insurrection and I don’t want to be a part of that,” she told CNN on Wednesday. “It was an insurrection. It was a riot.”

Hemphill said she has talked to her attorney and her probation officer to tell them that she would be rejecting Trump’s clemency.

She said the “far-right” narrative has been “gaslighting” Americans to believe certain things, like the Department of Justice “was weaponized,” the election was stolen and that the insurrection was a peaceful protest.

“They had a choice, period. It’s that simple. They are not victims, they are volunteers. Some of them planned it like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers,” Hemphill said.

“This is a nightmare and a slap in the face to the nation,” she said, referring to the misinformation.

Former police officer Michael Fanone, who testified in front of the US House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in July 2021, said Wednesday that he and his family have continued to receive threats — and that his 76-year-old mother “has had bricks thrown at her house in the middle of the night.”

“I never stopped getting threats. I mean, my family, the threats have never stopped. I didn’t even make it through my congressional testimony during the Select Committee hearing before I received my first threat,” Fanone said.

Fanone also detailed how his mother was attacked outside her own home, “all because her son had the courage to testify about his experiences on January 6th as a police officer in this country.”

“She’s a 76-year-old woman who lives alone. She has had bricks thrown at her house in the middle of the night. And just a few months ago, she was out raking the leaves in her front yard when an individual pulled up in a truck and threw a bag of s*** on her,” he said.

Some context: Fanone’s comments come after President Donald Trump issued mass pardons and commutations for January 6, 2021, Capitol rioters — including those of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who were both convicted of seditious conspiracy and serving long sentences. Rhodes has said he has no regrets about his actions in the insurrection.

A senior judge on the federal court in DC dismissed one of several US Capitol riot cases Wednesday — but not before insisting President Donald Trump’s clemency for January 6 defendants “will not change the truth of what happened.”

She emphasized the importance of documenting the violence “for posterity.”

The order from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is the first statement from the DC District Court to push back in some way since the pardons, against both the sweeping requests from prosecutors to dismiss Capitol riot cases and Trump’s political narrative that undermines the rioter prosecutions.

“Dismissal of charges, pardons after convictions, and commutations of sentences will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote, noting the events have been preserved through “thousands of contemporaneous videos, transcripts of trials, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions analyzing and recounting the evidence through a neutral lens.“Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” the judge wrote before adding: “What role law enforcement played that day and the heroism of each officer who responded also cannot be altered or ignored.“Standing with bear spray streaming down their faces, those officers carried out their duty to protect,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote, noting five different police forces who tried to protect the Capitol and congressional members and were injured by the violent mob.

It is possible other judges on the federal bench in DC that oversaw proceedings for about 1,500 criminally charged rioters effectively hold up the ending of rioters’ cases before they have a final say to remark upon Trump condoning the violence.

While she didn’t take such a step herself, Kollar-Kotelly noted that a federal court has the authority to tell the DOJ prosecutors to provide a statement of reasons and facts before a judge dismisses a case.

While the presidential clemency is powerful and led to convicted January 6 rioters’ release from federal prisons quickly this week, the president doesn’t have the sole authority to wipe away cases where alleged rioters still await trial or sentencing.

Some of the DC federal judges, sitting in a different branch of government, have not yet signed off on dismissing the pending cases after Trump’s Justice Department asked for dozens of cases to be dismissed beginning yesterday morning.

A board member at TikTok’s parent company said that a deal to save the app from disappearing in the United States will be done soon.

General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford, a ByteDance board member, said Wednesday that it’s in “everyone’s interest” to keep the app active. Ford made the remarks at an Axios-sponsored event in Davos, Switzerland.

“We’ll get on with it, as soon as maybe the end of the week in terms of negotiating what might work. … The Chinese government, the US government and the company and the board all have to be involved in this conversation,” Ford said, adding that there could be solutions “short of divestiture.” General Atlantic is a major investor in TikTok owner ByteDance.

One of President Donald Trump’s first acts after taking office Monday was signing an executive action that delays enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days. The action directs the US Justice Department not to enforce the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and was signed in April by former President Joe Biden.

The law required that starting January 19, TikTok be banned in the US unless it sells to a buyer from America or one of its allies. Trump told reporters that he would be open to the sale of only a 50% stake, and that he changed his mind on TikTok because he “got to use it.”

Trump is also talking about TikTok as a deal-making exercise, saying Tuesday that “I have the right to make a deal” and rhetorically repositioning the US law banning TikTok as a big business opportunity for the US and his tech mogul allies.

CNN’s Brian Stelter contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump seems poised to pardon two Washington, DC, police officers convicted for their role in an unauthorized police chase and alleged cover up in 2020 where 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown was killed.

Trump has referenced the potential pardons several times, most recently at a press event at the White House on Tuesday. An attorney for one of the officers tells CNN they are hopeful a pardon is coming soon, though they have received no official word on timing.

Remember: In October 2020, Officer Terence Sutton and Lt. Andrew Zabavsky of the Metropolitan Police Department spotted Hylton-Brown driving a moped helmetless and pursued him at high speeds until he was eventually struck and killed by an uninvolved motorist.

As Hylton-Brown lay dying in the street, the officers began covering up the incident, according to investigators, turning off their body cameras, tampering with the scene and misleading their commanding officers about the nature of the incident.

Sutton was found guilty of second-degree murder, conspiracy to obstruct, and obstruction of justice and sentenced to 66 months in prison. The same jury found Zabavsky guilty of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of justice. He faces 48 months behind bars.

Trump has referenced the potential pardons several times in recent days, including at an unrelated press event at the White House Tuesday when he was asked in his decision to pardon the January 6 rioters sent the message that it’s OK to assault police. “No, the opposite. In fact, I’m going to be letting two officers from Washington police D.C., I believe they’re from D.C., but I just approved it,” Trump said.

While he didn’t specifically reference Sutton or Zabavsky – and Hylton-Brown is a US citizen, police say, not in the country illegally as the president claimed during the remarks – the comments mirror prior remarks from Trump about the case. Trump also posted a link on Truth Social to an op-ed calling for the officers to be pardoned.

The DC Police Union confirmed they are seeking a pardon from the Trump White House for the two officers, who are currently out on bail pending appeal of their case in the coming months. Reached by CNN, Sutton said he declined to comment “other than that I’m just praying and hoping he does the right thing and pardons me.”

The Trump administration sent a memorandum late Tuesday to “attempt to correct” what some lawmakers are calling an “error” with a previously issued executive order that could have paused some infrastructure, energy and transportation projects, according to a lawmaker on a key transportation committee and an industry official.

Here’s what the executive order said:

Federal agencies “shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program.”

Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said there was “a lot of concern within the state DOT community” about the order. He said there was a short period of time where federal funding reimbursements for formula programs were halted.

Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, a member of the House subcommittee on Highways and Transit, said the order “at least temporarily, triggered an entirely avoidable crisis.” While he acknowledged the memorandum that was sent, Nadler called for the committee to take further action to “ensure that the flow of essential infrastructure funding to the states continues without further delay.”

Remember: Nearly 78% of the $346 billion worth of announced investments in the Inflation Reduction Act is for Republican congressional districts, according to a CNN analysis of data from the nonpartisan Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Additionally, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, was signed into law under the Biden administration in 2021, authorizing $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending.

Stellantis, one of America’s largest automakers, said it plans to build more vehicles in the US after the company’s chairman John Elkann met with President Donald Trump last week, an email to employees revealed Wednesday.

Elkann “told the President that building on our proud, more than 100-year history in the U.S., we plan to continue that legacy by further strengthening our U.S. manufacturing footprint and providing stability for our great American workforce,” the email obtained by CNN said. Stellantis is the maker of Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler brands.

As a result, the company said it is committed to building a mid-size pickup truck in Belvidere, Illinois. The plant was closed, but through the company’s new deal with the United Auto Workers union it was set to re-open. 1,500 UAW workers will return to the plant under this new commitment, the email said.

Stellantis also said it will build the next generation Dodge Durango at their Detroit Assembly Complex, invest in production of their Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator at the Toledo Assembly Complex, and invest in their Kokomo, Indiana plant.

Some context: The moves comes after Trump announced he plans to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada which is set to take effect as soon as February 1. Tariffs often encourage US companies to manufacture more products in the United States to avoid higher costs.

However, the UAW had threatened a new strike because it wasn’t moving quickly enough on the Belvidere investment. So the move may have been pre-planned to appease the union.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana defended President Donald Trump’s executive order placing federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees on leave, arguing that voters “don’t think about race or gender nearly as much as some folks in Washington want to pretend.”

“They think more about merit, they think about character. They understand that souls have no color, and most Americans approach race and gender in a common sensical way; they think, to a bear, we all taste like chicken,” he continued.

“I personally don’t believe that race or gender should be used to either help a person or to harm a person,” added Kennedy.

However, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia warned that “this DEI leave is just another example of, kind of, cruelty.”

“I just was with somebody who has said that he wants to traumatize the federal workforce,” said Kaine, referring to Trump’s nominee to lead the US Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought.

“And, you know, you can talk about saving money, efficiencies, we need to reduce government spending, got to deal with the debt and the deficit — there seems to be an element of glee in sort of traumatizing people,” he noted.

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, said he wouldn’t politicize the dispersing of federal funds when asked during his Senate confirmation hearing if he would deny funds to those devastated by natural disasters.

“I would not politicize the dispersing of federal funds in any capacity,” Vought said.

Asked if he would commit to getting congressionally appropriated funding to Californians devastated by wildfires as quickly as possible, Vought told Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California, “This president has always been a firm distributor of federal resources to areas that need disaster money, and I don’t expect that to change.”

Several Senate Republicans dismissed the affidavit from the former sister-in-law of Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, alleging abuse during his second marriage.

“His wife said it was not true. This is just the Democrats doing what they’re doing. They’re obstructing Trump putting together a team,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said.

“Trump won the election, he won the electoral vote, he won the popular vote. He needs to be able to put his team together, and the Democrats are being obstructionist,” he continued.

GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana agreed: “I’ve seen this movie before. I saw it in the Kavanaugh hearings. The author of the affidavit submitted the affidavit and said she wouldn’t take questions. I noticed that she didn’t present herself at the hearing to be examined, and Mr. Hegseth has denied it all.”

However, Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the affidavit “very troubling” and said that the contents align with stories he has heard from others.

Kaine went on to warn that the “serial allegations of misbehavior” by Hegseth should be disqualifying, focusing on the nominee’s “refusal to even reveal to the Trump administration a sexual assault criminal complaint that had been filed against him in 2017.”

President Donald Trump’s new administration has directed federal health agencies to pause external communications, such as regular scientific reports, updates to websites and health advisories, according to sources within the agencies.

The initial orders were delivered Tuesday to staff at agencies inside the US Department of Health and Human Services, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story. This included officials at the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health, the Post reported.

The direction came without warning and with little guidance as to what exactly it covered, according to sources inside the affected agencies who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to share the information.

In a follow-up memo obtained by CNN on Wednesday, acting health secretary Dr. Dorothy Fink provided additional details, including that the directive would be in effect through February 1.

The memo said:

Some context: A source familiar with the directive said that while it wasn’t entirely unheard of for an incoming administration to ask for a pause to review information before it’s publicly released, the scope of the order appeared to be unusual.

America’s health agencies, including the CDC, FDA and the NIH, routinely release information on food recalls, drug and medical device approvals, as well as updates on evolving public health threats including natural disasters and infectious diseases. Many of the agencies have been closely tracking and reporting new information on the H5N1 bird flu outbreak, which is spreading in the nation’s poultry flocks and dairy cattle and among people who work with those animals.

Tom Homan, President Donald Trump’s border czar, called migrant arrests over the last two days at the US southern border “a game changer” in an interview with Fox News.

Referring to any resistance to detentions and deportations, Homan said: “Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want. More agents in the communities, more people arrested, collateral arrests. … Game on.”

Homan stated that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement was “concentrating on the worst first,” elaborating that “the worst” meant public safety and national security threats.

He said that total arrests along the US-Mexico border were around 766 over the past two days, with ICE arresting about “308 serious criminals” in the past 24 hours. He claimed some of those arrested “were murderers, some of them were rapists,” without citing specific cases.

Trump’s campaign pledge to engage in mass deportation would require a robust mobilization of resources. Thousands of additional active duty US troops are being ordered to the southern US border, just two days after he mandated that the US military step up its presence there, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Homan has previously said in interviews that anyone in the country illegally could be arrested in sanctuary city sweeps.

The Trump administration’s actions also set up a conflict between local and federal officials, as a number of Democratic-led cities in Colorado, Illinois and California have instituted sanctuary city policies restricting cooperation with federal immigration officials’ efforts to arrest, detain or gather information on migrants.

Former President Joe Biden, in handwritten cursive on personal stationary, wished Donald Trump “all the best” in his letter to the president on Inauguration Day.

This is what the letter said:

“Dear President Trump, As I take leave of this sacred office, I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years. The American people and people around the world look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that in the coming years will be a time of prosperity, peace and grace for our nation. May God bless you and guide you as he has blessed and guided our beloved country since our founding. Joe Biden 1/20/25.”

Trump described it Tuesday evening as an “inspirational-type letter” and a “nice letter,” and said he “appreciated” the gesture.

Biden declined to tell reporters what he wrote on Monday, saying, “That’s between Trump and me.” Trump left a letter upon leaving office in 2021 that Biden later described as “very generous.”

Biden’s office has declined to comment.

This post has been updated with new reporting.

Hardline conservative Republican lawmakers on Wednesday defended President Donald Trump’s pardons for January 6 defendants and said they plan to meet with the rioters.

Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told CNN’s Manu Raju that a lot of the rioters “have already served time” and that “President Trump did he thought was right, and that’s his decision.” He said he was “more concerned” with the preemptive pardons given by President Joe Biden during his final hours in office “than I am about January 6.”

Pressed on the people who attacked police, Norman said that “they served time,” dismissing the fact that many had not served out close to their full sentences.

“You’ve got a lot of them have served a longer time in jail than those that have done more serious crimes that have been sent to jail,” Norman said. He said he would like to meet with rioters to “hear their side of the story.”

GOP Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said the pardons are a show of “promises made, promises kept” by Trump.

“I think people get the sense that these were effectively political prisoners. Some of these people weren’t even in Washington, DC, and they were charged with insane things and sentenced with insane sentences,” he said.

Davidson while 3-4 years would “probably” be a reasonable sentence for rioters who assaulted officers, he reiterated “the judges sentences people to insane and unjust sentences.”

The Justice Department is notifying US Capitol Police officers who testified in court at the trials of some of the January 6 attackers that the defendants they helped convict are being released from prison.

Former US Capitol Police Staff Sgt. Aquilino Gonell posted screenshots to social media of phone calls and emails he said he received from the Justice Department since President Donald Trump granted mass clemency to January 6 defendants.

During the January 6 insurrection, Gonell suffered repeated assaults at the hands of the rioters, including in one of the most violent hours-long battles in a tunnel leading into the Capitol. It’s routine for the Justice Department to notify trial witnesses, or victims who spoke at sentencing, when the people they helped lock up are freed from prison.

“Each email and call log is a different violent rioter who assaulted me in the tunnel,” Gonell wrote on X on Wednesday. “If you are defending these people who brutally assaulted the police, maybe you ARE NOT a supporter of the police and the rule of law to begin with. If you did you would want accountability.”

Another former US Capitol Police officer, Harry Dunn, said in a social media post that Gonell told him the automated phone calls said: “The defendant you testified against is being released.”

President Donald Trump is moving full steam ahead with his administration’s agenda, on everything from foreign policy to TikTok.

The president is attempting to curtail federal laws to delay the TikTok ban, he’s sending his Middle East envoy to Gaza to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire deal, and he is threatening to slap Russia with new sanctions if the war in Ukraine does not end.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget and one of the key authors of Project 2025, didn’t provide an answer when asked multiple times during his Senate confirmation hearing if he would comply with the Impoundment Control Act.

“I listened very carefully to the exchange you had with (Democratic Sen. Patty) Murray, and you had a very clear opportunity to say yes, you will comply with the Impoundment Control Act,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said to Vought. “I didn’t hear you say that. So just to give you another chance, will you comply with the Impoundment Control Act?”

Vought dodged the question by reiterating, “Senator, the president ran against the Impoundment Control Act.”

When pressed on if he’s refusing to commit to comply with the act, Vought said, “the administration has to go through a policy process to understand the legal parameters for operating in the ICA.”

“It seems that complying with the current law, even if you disagree with it would result in a clear answer, ‘yes, I will comply with the current law, including the Impoundment Control Act,’” Van Hollen said before moving on.

What is the ICA? Impoundment occurs when Congress appropriates money that the president then declines to spend. Congress passed a law in 1974 to curtail a president’s use of impoundment, particularly for policy reasons.

Remember: Trump tried to defy the impoundment law during his first term as president by withholding funds to Ukraine as he pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky to help engineer an investigation related to Joe Biden.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team sat down with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to plot a path forward on immigration messaging as President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration swings into action.

The meeting focused on Trump’s looming immigration policy and “to make sure we fight back,” according to one Democratic member who attended.

“We had a great discussion about priorities for the American people, including making sure we secure the border, fix our broken immigration system, stand up for the Dreamers and farm workers and drive down the high cost of living for everyday Americans,” Jeffries told CNN.

Some context: Trump began his term this week by taking a series of sweeping immigration executive actions Monday that included declaring a national emergency at the US southern border, immediately ending use of a border app called CBP One that had allowed migrants to legally enter the United States, and kicking off the process to end birthright citizenship, which is expected to tee up a legal fight.

Additionally, federal immigration authorities will be permitted to arrest people and carry out enforcement actions in and near places such as churches and schools, marking a departure from longstanding policy to avoid so-called sensitive areas.

Thousands of additional active duty US troops are being ordered to the southern US border with Mexico, just two days after President Donald Trump mandated that the US military step up its presence there, according to officials familiar with the matter.

There are already roughly 2,200 active duty forces at the border as part of Joint Task Force-North, US Northern Command’s border mission based out of El Paso, Texas. They help support US Customs and Border Protection’s work there, performing mostly logistical and bureaucratic tasks like data entry, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.

It is not yet clear which specific units are being ordered to the border.

There is also a National Guard contingent at the border called Operation Lonestar, headed by the Texas National Guard. It’s unclear how many troops are there with the mission currently; the Texas Military Department has not responded to questions from CNN regarding the current number of troops assigned to the mission.

The additional active duty troops being sent to the border this week will be doing much of the same, the officials said, and are expected to feed into and augment Joint Task Force-North.

They will be helping to maintain operational readiness for Border Patrol, assisting in command-and-control centers, and providing more intelligence specialists to assess threats and migrant flows, according to sources familiar with the planning.

The troops are also expected to augment air assets and help with air operations.

Even more active duty troops are expected to be deployed to the border in the coming weeks and months, one of the officials said, with this first wave laying the groundwork for a larger military footprint.

It is not clear whether the troops will be armed. But none of the active duty troops are authorized to perform any kind of law enforcement role, like perform arrests or seize drugs, or engage with migrants other than to help transport them to and around different migrant facilities.

Keep reading.

A senior Iranian official has said he hopes that President Donald Trump realizes that his withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement was “imposed” on him, and that the president will be more “focused” in his second term.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Iran’s Vice-President for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif alleged that Trump’s advisers misled him into reneging on the deal, showing him forged documents provided by Israel as support for this.

“He has said that he did it for Israel, and he has said now that he won’t do anything for any other country,” Zarif said, noting that Trump imposed “heavy economic costs on the Iranian people,” causing “the most vulnerable groups in Iran” to suffer.

Zarif said he hoped that in Trump’s second term in the White House, he would be “more serious, more focused, more realistic.”

More context: While Trump didn’t explicitly say he withdrew from the deal because of Israel at the time, he did cite Israeli intelligence in his address announcing the US’ withdrawal from the deal in 2018, saying “Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.”

Zarif added that if Iran had “wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we could have done it (a) long time ago.”

Everything that US President Donald Trump has said about the Panama Canal is “false,” José Raúl Mulino, the president of Panama, said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mulino said he “refused everything that was said by Mr. Trump” about the canal “because it’s false. It’s not true.”

In his inaugural address on Monday, Trump vowed to reclaim the Panama Canal, which was built by US-imported workers after it supported Panama in gaining independence from Colombia in 1903.

Some background on the canal: The US controlled the canal for decades after its completion in 1914, paying Panama a $10 million initial payment and then $250,000 each year to use the canal. After years of resistance from Panamanians, the canal was returned to Panama after former President Jimmy Carter reached an agreement with the country’s leader Omar Torrijos in 1977. It was fully turned over to Panama in 1999.

Mulino said Wednesday the canal “is not a gift.”

“Panama keeps going. We are not being distracted by these types of statements,” Mulino said.

Trump administration officials have had discussions about inviting some January 6 convicts that President Donald Trump pardoned on Monday to the White House for a potential visit and meeting with Trump, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.

No such visit has been scheduled, the sources cautioned, adding that it’s still under consideration and it is unclear who would be invited.

Trump on Monday pardoned more than 1,000 people charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, and commuted the sentences of leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

“These are the hostages,” Trump said from the Oval Office, referring to the convicted and charged defendants. “Approximately 1,500 for a pardon – full pardon.”

The commutations cover the sentences for 14 far-right extremists from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who were convicted or charged with seditious conspiracy.

Over the last few years Trump has engaged with activists campaigning for the release of January 6 rioters while promising to pardon them on day one of his new administration.

Earlier this month, Trump spoke directly to the mother of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Micki Witthoeft has become a pivotal figure in the January 6 movement. During the phone call, Trump organized for Witthoeft and another activist to receive tickets to the inauguration ceremony.

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump warned he would inflict heavy economic pain on Russia if the country’s president doesn’t quickly end the war in Ukraine, saying on social media “we can do it the easy way, or the hard way.”

The message was the latest in a string of critical comments from Trump about President Vladimir Putin, who he accused this week of “destroying Russia” following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Trump left open the prospect of new sanctions on Russia for its invasion.

But he missed his own declared deadline of ending the conflict within 24 hours of taking office.

“I’m not looking to hurt Russia. I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy says he plans to visit Gaza to ensure the conditions of the recently struck ceasefire-for-hostages deal are being upheld, becoming the first high-ranking US official known to visit the Strip in years.

Steve Witkoff, who joined members of the outgoing Biden administration to negotiate the plan, said in an interview on Fox News that he would join an “inspection team” at the Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors ”where you have outside overseers sort of making sure that people are safe and people who are entering are not armed and no one has bad motivations.”

Some background: The Philadelphi corridor is the thin strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border that had been a point of contention during the ceasefire talks. Netzarim is a key buffer zone established by the IDF that bisects the Gaza Strip.

In the interview, Witkoff said implementing the deal could prove harder than striking the agreement itself. Trump said earlier this week he was not confident the deal would hold.

“I think that the implementation of it is probably more difficult than the execution of the deal. The execution was a big step. That was the condition precedent. We had to get it done and we did, thank god. And now we’ve got to implement,” Witkoff said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon January 6 defendants, including those accused of committing acts of violence, and said he believes in “redemption” when asked whether he would welcome rioters back to the US Capitol.

“The president has the pardon and commutation authority. It’s his decision. And I think…what was made clear all along is that peaceful protests and people who engage in that should never be punished,” he told CNN when asked on Wednesday how Republicans can say they’re the party of law enforcement when Trump pardoned rioters accused of attacking police officers.

Johnson claimed there was “a weaponization of the Justice Department” and called the period following January 6, including prosecutions of rioters by the Justice Department, a “terrible chapter in America’s history.”

He said he doesn’t “second guess” Trump’s decision and told CNN, “we believe in redemption. We believe in second chances.”

After the January 6 attack, the Justice Department and FBI launched a nationwide manhunt to identify and arrest rioters, which turned into the biggest criminal probe in US history. Prosecutors charged more than 1,580 people and secured roughly 1,270 convictions.

On the other hand, Johnson called former President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardons for members of his family “shocking” and “breathtaking.”

“It was it was shocking what President Biden did on the way out, pardoning his family for more than a decade of whatever activity, any non violent offenses. It was breathtaking to us,” he said.

Johnson said Democrats, including Biden, now-Sen. Adam Schiff, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, were “apoplectic” over the implication that Trump might pardon his family as he left office four years ago.

President Donald Trump’s decision to issue an executive order Monday delaying enforcement of the federal ban on TikTok has deepened a murky legal landscape in the US for the popular social media app and its technology partners.

While the order from the president effectively allowed the app to remain available to its 170 million users in the country, it did nothing to change the law, which took effect on Sunday and still looms large over the platform and other tech companies it needs to operate in the States, legal experts tell CNN.

Instead, the order represented an early use of Trump’s power to choose not to enforce certain federal laws. That authority, legal experts said, is broad, practically immune from judicial review and, for the companies at the center of the TikTok drama, likely too little too late.

“The president does not have the power to suspend the law, that’s not a presidential power. And so to the extent that Trump is saying the law is not enforced, no one’s violating it — those are not legally meaningful statements,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who specializes in tech law.

“At the same time, companies that are violating the law are still violating the law. So they are still at risk of pretty substantial legal exposure,” Rozenshtein added. “Trump could turn around and change his mind.”

Keep reading for more on what experts are saying about Trump’s executive order on TikTok.

CNN’s Clare Duffy and David Goldman contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump is wasting no time to implement his immigration policies, already moving forward with aggressive actions.

This has included the shutdown of a critical asylum processing tool, the blocking of thousands of refugees who were given approval from entering the US and a threat to prosecute state and local officials who resist the crackdown.

Immigration raids are also expected although CNN teams in touch with local officials in several cities say they are not aware large-scale actions have taken place so far.

Here’s the latest:

Shortly after President Donald Trump announced a new massive AI infrastructure investment from the White House on Tuesday, Elon Musk tried to tear it down.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X in response to a post by OpenAI announcing the investment. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Trump said the investment will create a new company, called Stargate, to grow artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States. The leaders of SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle stood alongside Trump during the announcement. Their respective companies will invest $100 billion in total for the project to start, with plans to pour up to $500 billion into Stargate in the coming years.

The comments are a notable takedown of a major White House project from someone that is in Trump’s innermost circle.

But perhaps it should not be a surprise that Musk is going after an OpenAI initiative. Musk is in an ongoing lawsuit with OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who as at the White House for the announcement. Musk, who has said he “doesn’t trust” Altman, claims in the lawsuit the ChatGPT has abandoned its original nonprofit mission by reserving some of its most advanced AI technology for private customers.

The companies involved in Stargate have not publicly disclosed how they will contribute the funds, but they don’t necessarily need the money in the bank to support it — they could raise debt or sign on other equity investors. SoftBank and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A new Justice Department memo outlines the Trump administration’s plans to challenge sanctuary city laws by threatening to prosecute state and local officials who resist the federal immigration crackdown, according to a copy of the document obtained by CNN.

The memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove also says that federal prosecutors who decline to prosecute those immigration cases will be reported immediately the Justice Department for investigation and potential prosecution.

The three-page directive shows how the Trump team has spent weeks trying to craft memos that they hope have a better chance of withstanding legal challenges.

“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests,” the memo reads. “The U.S. Attorney’s Offices and litigating components of the Department of Justice shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution.”

The memo instructs the department’s civil division to help identify state and local laws and policies that “threaten to impede” Trump’s immigration initiatives and to challenge those laws in court.

Bove’s memo calls the changes interim policy guidance while the department awaits the confirmation of Pamela Bondi as attorney general.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente discussed security and migration with new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a phone call, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday.

According to Sheinbaum, the two had a “very cordial” phone call, which she said was Rubio’s first with a foreign minister following his confirmation to the senior role. Sheinbaum said the two spoke about “immigration and security issues,” without giving further details.

It comes as Rubio on Wednesday laid out his priorities for the State Department, including curbing mass migration and securing US borders.

“The State Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritize securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration, and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants,” Rubio said in a statement.

CNN’s Shania Shelton and Clare Foran contributed reporting.

GOP Reps. Don Bacon, Mike Lawler and Brian Fitzpatrick will meet with President Donald Trump this afternoon at the White House.

“We were the ones who provided the majority for the –. Without the three of us, we’d have a Democratic speaker,” Bacon told CNN.

Bacon said that the meeting was setup with Harris district Republicans who won their seats.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday laid out his priorities for the State Department, including curbing mass migration, eliminating “DEIA” requirements and stopping censorship and suppression of information.

“We must curb mass migration and secure our borders. The State Department will no longer undertake any activities that facilitate or encourage mass migration. Our diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, will prioritize securing America’s borders, stopping illegal and destabilizing migration, and negotiating the repatriation of illegal immigrants,” Rubio said in a statement.

He went on to highlight his plans to reward performance and merit, while executing Trump’s executive order to eliminate “DEIA” requirements, programs and offices throughout the government. (DEIA refers to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility.)

Rubio pledged to end censorship and suppression of information, saying in the statement, “The State Department I lead will support and defend Americans’ rights to free speech, terminating any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people. “

He also laid out his priority to eliminate “our focus on political and cultural causes that are divisive at home and deeply unpopular abroad” and “leverage our strengths and do away with climate policies that weaken America.”

Rubio, who has served as a US senator for more than a decade, said Trump gave him “a clear direction to place our core national interest as the guiding mission of American foreign policy.”

He was confirmed as secretary of state on Monday in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote – 99 to 0 with no senators voting against the nomination. The confirmation marked the first high-level Cabinet official for the new administration to be approved by the chamber.

It already feels like he’s been back for months.

Donald Trump is setting a frenetic pace in his second term, fulfilling campaign promises, imposing undiluted power and settling scores.

After the sedate Joe Biden years, the return of a presidency that is an incessant assault on the senses is a reminder of why so many millions of Americans see Trump as a compelling, historic figure – and why millions more deeply fear him.

Trump has cracked down hard on immigration, held a splashy $500 billion tech investment announcement, renamed the Gulf of Mexico, outlawed much of the diversity policy in the federal government, shopped around TikTok, fired people by social media post, mooted territorial expansion, threatened a trade war, talked to reporters more than Biden did in months and danced with a sword.

He’s also mocked the rule of law by freeing January 6, 2021, rioters; lied about the 2020 election; exacted revenge against critics, including by pulling security from an ex-aide threatened by Iran; criticized a bishop; threatened ethics in government; stigmatized trans Americans and cleared the way for ICE arrests in schools and churches.

And it’s only been two days.

Read the full analysis.

President Donald Trump criticized the tone of Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who called on the president to “have mercy on the people in the country who are scared” during a sermon, and called for an apology in an early morning Truth Social post.

“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people,” he posted.

Trump continued, “Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Budde used her sermon at the National Cathedral’s interfaith service earlier Tuesday to plead with the president to have mercy on immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community.

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President, millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God,” Budde said during her blessing, part of an interfaith National Prayer Service in honor of Trump’s inauguration. “In name of our lord, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared.”

Following the sermon, Trump criticized Budde’s remarks to reporters, saying he “didn’t think it was a good service.”

Watch Erin Burnett’s interview with Bishop Budde below

When Jose Guillermo Cabrera arrived last weekend in Ciudad Juarez, a city along the US-Mexico border, he was full of hope. “I felt like every migrant, excited, after so much time waiting,” Cabrera, 33, told CNN.

Ciudad Juarez was meant to be a city of passage for Cabrera and his family, a final stop before their long-awaited moment in front of US immigration authorities to request asylum.

For several months, Cabrera had been applying for a shot at having his asylum claim heard by US authorities, while navigating around southern Mexico. In early January, confirmation came that he had finally secured an appointment.

But a day before the appointment, a stroke of President Donald Trump’s pen shut down the US immigration processing app known as CBP One – and with it, Cabrera’s hopes.

“So much time waiting, and now this surprise,” Cabrera said with a voice of defeat. “They shut off our dreams.”

Until Trump’s inauguration on January 20, migrants seeking asylum from violence or persecution had the option to schedule an appointment at a legal US port of entry to make their case.

“We are left adrift, we have no resources left, we arrived in Juarez with money to pay for one night in a hotel,” the native Venezuelan said.

Cabrera is one of several migrants CNN spoke to who recently arrived in Ciudad Juarez after weeks of travel for their CBP One appointments, only to find the sessions they had been given were canceled. Now, many are stranded with no money or any sense of what to do next.

Watch CNN’s interviews with migrants at the border below and read more about the situation here.
The US-Mexico border is effectively closed off to migrants seeking asylum in the United States after President Donald Trump retook the Oval Office. CNN’s Valeria León spoke to multiple migrants along the border who fear their future is now in limbo.
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That’s because President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that a new 10% across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods could be enacted as soon as February 1.

Unlike Mexico and Canada, which largely avoid tariffs on exports to the United States because of the current USMCA trade agreement, which Trump signed in his first term, a wide array of Chinese goods currently face tariffs. (Trump also threatened 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods come February 1).

Chinese goods are currently subject to a 100% tariff on electric vehicles and 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products. But several items have been exempt from tariffs.

One of the biggest exemptions: consumer electronics. But if Trump proceeds with a 10% blanket tariff on Chinese goods, that would no longer be the case.

That matters because consumer electronics are among the top goods the US imported from China last year, according to federal trade data.

Communications equipment accounted for 12%, or $47 billion, of the $401 billion worth of goods the US imported from China last year, not accounting for December, making it the single top category of goods the US imported from there. (December trade data is not yet available.)

Communications equipment includes everything from cell phones to TVs to satellites, according to the classification system the US government uses.

Read more here on a 10% across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods.

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions as he returned to the Oval Office on Monday was signing an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship” of US citizens.

The order bans federal officials from any conduct that “would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen” and instructs the attorney general to investigate if the Biden administration engaged in efforts to censor Americans.

“Under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation,’ the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,” the order states.

Right-wing media figures and some Republicans in Congress have for years decried what they claim are efforts by Democrats and technology platforms to censor their speech online, especially around the Covid-19 pandemic and elections. The Supreme Court ruled last year the US government can contact social media companies about mis- and disinformation swirling on their platforms.

While conservatives viewed Trump’s order as the fulfillment of his promise to end government collusion with Big Tech platforms to censor their voices, some disinformation experts warned the move will only further the spread of false information on social media, which can become dangerous in times of crises.

Nina Jankowicz, who briefly led the Biden administration’s disinformation board and is now CEO of the American Sunlight Project, said Trump’s order “has canonized lies and conspiracy theories about those responding to disinformation,” calling it “a direct assault on reality” that “emboldens both foreign actors and disinformation profiteers.”

Other experts pointed out that the order could have a chilling effect on relations between government agencies and tech platforms, potentially harming national security.

Read more about what disinformation experts are saying

President Donald Trump will sit for his first Oval Office television interview since returning to the White House today, when he speaks to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, a White House official told CNN.

The interview will be pre-taped and will air on Hannity’s show that airs at 9 p.m. ET, the official said.

Axios first reported the details of the interview.

Businesses worldwide and mainstream economists are fretting about higher prices as President Donald Trump unveils his tariff-heavy economic strategy. But Jamie Dimon, CEO of the world’s largest bank, believes there’s perhaps too much worrying and not enough faith in Trump’s plan.

Tariffs are “an economic tool” or “an economic weapon,” depending on how they’re used, said Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase CEO, in an interview Wednesday with CNBC from Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum is taking place. “I would put in perspective: If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it.”

Currently, Trump is threatening a 10% across-the-board tariff on Chinese goods imported to the US and 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods, come February 1.

However, Dimon said these threats can be used effectively to “bring people to the table” to negotiate more favorable trade terms. He believes the Trump administration is attempting to use them that way.

That could mean the US imposes lower tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China compared to the rates Trump has floated — or perhaps no new tariffs at all. “We’re going to find out,” Dimon said.

What experts say: Many economists, including those from JPMorgan Chase, have predicted that tariffs, combined with the mass deportations Trump vowed to implement, have the power to spur higher inflation in the US. However, there is some debate among economists as to whether tariffs alone will cause a one-time increase in prices or if consumers will grow accustomed to expecting higher prices in the future as a result of tariffs, leading to potentially higher inflation.

Refugees who were slated to travel to the United States after a years-long and often cumbersome process have had their flights canceled, according to a State Department memo to resettlement partners obtained by CNN.

Approximately 10,000 refugees had travel booked that is now canceled, according to a source familiar with the data.

The memo comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s executive order suspending refugee admissions and marks another example of the swift impact his actions are already having.

“All previously scheduled travel of refugees to the United States is being cancelled, and no new travel bookings will be made. RSCs should not request travel for any additional refugee cases at this time,” the memo states, citing the president’s executive order.

The cancellations could be particularly troubling for refugees whose medical exams or security checks, for example, are on the cusp of expiring.

The memo also states that case processing is suspended, effectively shuttering the program.

Special Immigrant Visa holders, which includes those who worked for the US abroad, are exempt. They can travel to the United States, according to the memo. Those refugees who are already in the United States can also continue to receive services.

CNN reached out to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration for comment.

Trump’s executive order, signed Monday, stated that the United States was unable to absorb the influx of migrants over the recent years in addition to refugees, giving way to the administration suspending the US refugee admissions program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”

The suspension was to take effect on January 27, according to the order. The memo implies that it takes effect immediately.

The headline and post have been updated to reflect the number of refugees affected.

Just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn into the White House, his administration’s Office of Personnel Management began calling some of his acting Cabinet secretaries with guidance on how to shut down their diversity, equity and inclusion offices, two sources familiar with the communications told CNN.

The move underscores how high of a priority gutting DEI programs is for Trump’s new administration.

On Monday, moments after taking the oath of office, Trump signed an executive order banning DEI programs — one of the first of more than 200 actions he signed that day.

Then Tuesday, OPM issued a memo instructing federal agencies to notify DEI staffers “no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday” that they were being placed on administrative leave effective immediately as “the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia encouraged his colleagues not to rush on the confirmation of Pete Hegseth following allegations from the former sister-in-law of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon of him being “abusive.”

“Don’t rush on this one. We think this latest confirmation of erratic and irresponsible behavior by Pete Hegseth would make him very, very dangerous as a secretary of defense. And we need to get to the bottom of these allegations before we try to rush a confirmation vote,” Kaine said Wednesday on “CNN News Central.”

Kaine said Danielle Hegseth’s account is consistent with other accounts senators have heard. He said he can’t speak for his Republican colleagues on if this is swaying any of them to oppose Pete Hegseth in a full vote, but said “a number have said that they would support him unless other allegations come out.”

Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law gave an affidavit to the Senate Armed Services Committee that became public on Tuesday, accusing him of being “abusive” toward his second ex-wife.

Danielle Hegseth, who was married to Hegseth’s brother from 2011 to 2019, wrote in the affidavit that Hegseth was “abusive” toward his ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth. She did not specify the nature of the abuse and said she did “not personally witness physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth.”

Danielle Hegseth wrote that Samantha Hegseth at times feared for her safety and that she had a code word if she needed help to get away from her husband. She said she once received a text from Samantha Hegseth with the code word sometime in 2015 or 2016.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb, Lauren Fox and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

The United Nations chief praised President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his role in securing the hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres praised a “large contribution” of “robust diplomacy” from the then-president elect.

Israel was still “reluctant” to agree to the ceasefire two days before it was reached, Guterres said, “and then all of a sudden, there was an acceptance.”

“I think that we have witnessed an example of robust diplomacy. That is something that we must recognize,” he said.

More background: The deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed upon last week and came into effect on Sunday.

After the agreement was announced, both Trump and now-former President Joe Biden took full credit. Ultimately, the deal enables both Biden and Trump to claim victory.

The reality of who is responsible for the deal is complex. Biden administration officials say momentum toward a deal began before the election, after a separate ceasefire was struck between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The contours of the final agreement with Hamas map closely with a proposal Biden first unveiled in May, but was unable to complete.

After the deal was struck, even Biden officials acknowledged the deadline of Trump’s entry into office was a motivating factor in finally finding success after months of failure. And Trump was quick to declare the agreement was only made possible by his win.

Though the first phase of the agreement is expected to last 42 days, Trump said Monday he was “not confident” that the ceasefire would last.

Guterres said Wednesday that he hopes the temporary truce will turn into a permanent ceasefire, leading to the “reunification of the occupied Palestinian territories (Gaza and the West Bank) and allowing for a serious negotiation of a political solution based on the two states (Israel and Palestine).”

It’s been six months since Nedi, a 35-year-old Venezuelan mother of two, set off on a treacherous journey through the Darien Gap to get to the United States.

With the hope of eventually settling in Miami, Nedi and her family arrived in San Diego 11 days ago after successfully crossing into the US with the help of the CBPOne app –– a tool that allows migrants to share information and plan interviews with immigration authorities in advance of reaching the US border.

But on Monday, as President Donald Trump was sworn into office, US Customs and Border Protection announced CBPOne would lose its scheduling functionality and all future asylum appointments would be canceled.

This has left thousands of migrants –– some of whom helped Nedi get to where she is –– anxious and in limbo.

“I left behind friends and family who didn’t make it, and we don’t know what will happen,” she told CNN. “We’re worried about not being able to stay, about being sent back.”

Since running for re-election, Trump has vowed to clamp down on immigration and undo Biden-era policies that he said were too permissive and blamed for allowing a large influx of undocumented immigrants.

Here’s what we know about Trump’s plan

President Donald Trump was off and running on his first full day in office Tuesday.

He kicked off his term with a series of sweeping immigration executive actions, including language that leaves the door open for him to invoke the Insurrection Act at the southern border. State and city officials have been making preparations for the inevitable immigration crackdown.

In Congress — where Republicans control both chambers — leaders are working to figure out how to pass Trump’s full agenda and quickly confirm key Cabinet nominees.

Here are the latest developments:

Employees in any federal diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility offices will be placed on paid administrative leave “effective immediately,” according to the White House.

Slashing jobs in federal DEI positions is one move in a series of actions taken by the new administration, after Donald Trump promised to wage a war against such programs. Trump has already cut high-profile military personnel and ended the use of DEI in hiring and federal contracting. Some major companies have taken similar measures as they face pressure from conservative critics and customers.

A memo issued by the US Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday instructed agencies to notify DEI staffers “no later than 5:00pm EST on Wednesday” that they were being placed on administrative leave effective immediately as “the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.”

The memo also directs agencies to remove the offices’ websites and social media accounts and to cancel any DEI-related trainings.

The move comes just one day after Trump signed an executive order banning DEI programs. An official pledged the executive order would “dismantle the DEI bureaucracy, and this includes environmental justice programs, equity related grants, equity action plan, equity initiatives.”

The White House also released a fact sheet Tuesday for an order ending the use of DEI in federal contracting and “directing federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination.”

The order directs the Office of Management and Budget “to streamline the federal contracting process to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil rights laws” and “bars the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from pushing contractors to balance their workforce based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or religion,” according to the fact sheet.

Read more about the role of DEI in the federal government.

More than 100 years after the construction of the engineering marvel that linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans — and 25 years after the canal was returned to Panama by the US — the waterway faces renewed intimidation from an American president.

US President Donald Trump in his inaugural address on Monday vowed to wrest the canal back. “We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made and Panama’s promise to us been broken,” Trump said, claiming that Panama overcharges the US Navy to transit the canal.

“Above all China is operating the Panama Canal,” Trump also said, a frequent claim he has made without providing any evidence. “And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama and we are taking it back!”

Panamanian officials have scoffed at Trump’s latest claims that the country charges too much for ships to transit the canal or that China secretly has taken control of the waterway.

Still, his threats are not taken idly by Panamanians who consider the canal to be central to their national identity and depend on lucrative canal traffic. In 2024, the canal earned nearly $5 billion in total profits. According to a study released in December by IDB Invest, 23.6% of Panama’s annual income is generated from the canal and companies that provide services related to the canal’s operations.

Panama has also experienced several US military interventions over the years.

“All he [Trump] needs is to land ten thousand troops and that’s it,” said Ovidio Diaz-Espino, who was born in Panama and is the author of “How Wall Street Created a Nation: J.P. Morgan, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Panama Canal.” He added: “We don’t have an army.”

Read more about the crucial trade route canal.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he had granted a pardon to Ross William Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Ulbricht, who was accused of creating the shadowy e-commerce site the Justice Department had described as “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today,” had been serving a life sentence on charges related to the operation.

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump called Ulbricht’s sentence “ridiculous,” claiming it was disproportionate to the crime. He went on to express frustration with the legal figures involved in Ulbricht’s conviction, referring to them as “scum” and accusing them of being among the same individuals responsible for the “weaponization of government” against him during his time in office.

The background: The FBI shut down Silk Road in October 2013 and arrested Ulbricht after he allegedly posted his email address online. He was found guilty in February 2015 on a variety of charges including money laundering, drug trafficking and computer hacking.

Trump’s act of clemency makes good on a campaign promise. Last year, Trump pledged in remarks to the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington, DC, to commute Ulbricht’s sentence immediately upon taking office.
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