Senate passes Trump-backed bill to fund the government – CNN
• Shutdown averted: The Senate passed a stopgap bill this evening to fund the government through September 30, hours before a midnight deadline. Earlier, nine Democrats and one independent who caucuses with Democrats helped advance the measure backed by President Donald Trump in a key procedural step.
• DOJ speech: The president excoriated the Justice Department prosecutors who investigated him and vowed to use it to target his own enemies in a campaign-style speech at the department’s historic Great Hall.
• Major win for Trump: A federal appeals court will allow the administration to implement directives from the president cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, as an appeal of a ruling pausing those orders plays out.
• Another law firm targeted: The president expanded his crackdown on Democratic-tied law firms, suspending security clearances held by individuals at Paul Weiss, a white shoe firm with deep links to the Democratic Party.
Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates here.
Vice President JD Vance said in an interview today that Elon Musk has made some mistakes while working on Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to slash the federal government.
“Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes,” Vance told NBC News in the interview conducted Friday.“I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes. But I’m also very aware of the fact that there are a lot of good people who work in the government — a lot of people who are doing a very good job. And we want to try to preserve as much of what works in government as possible, while eliminating what doesn’t work,” the vice president said.
It’s one of the first times a senior White House official has conceded that Musk’s DOGE team has made some missteps.
Musk, the world’s richest man, joined President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One tonight night on the way to Florida where the president will spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Twelve former employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Equity Assurance have filed a lawsuit against VA Secretary Doug Collins, alleging the agency did not extend them their rights to due process when the administration terminated the office.
The Office of Equity Assurance (OEA) was created under former President Joe Biden to help minority veterans deal with disparities in how the government provides benefits.
“The Plaintiffs did not receive due process,” according to the complaint filed in US District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit alleges that VA officials told the 27 employees of the office that efforts were being made to reassign them to other jobs, but the workers were ultimately terminated. It also states that top VA officials were incorrect in labeling the office a diversity, equity and inclusion entity.“The Plaintiffs are dedicated civil servants who have worked for the good of all Veterans, and have been selected for numerous awards based on their performance”, the complaint says. “Their careers have been destroyed by false accusations that their work was ‘wasteful’ and they engaged in discrimination and their work was ‘divisive’ and ‘shameful.’”
Asked about the lawsuit, a VA spokesperson said it “doesn’t typically respond to pending litigation.”
President Donald Trump expanded his crackdown on Democratic-tied law firms, suspending security clearances held by individuals at Paul Weiss, a white shoe firm with deep links to the Democratic Party.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to suspend security clearances held by individuals at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Paul Weiss) pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” a White House spokesperson, Harrison Fields, wrote on X.
Paul Weiss joins a string of firms to face action by Trump. So far, the president has targeted employees at Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling, both of which he accused of conspiring against him in elections.
The order stripping Paul Weiss employees of their security clearances wasn’t immediately available online. But one partner at the firm, Karen Dunn, was associated with Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and helped the Democratic nominee prepare for her debate with Trump.
Earlier this week, US District Judge Beryl Howell sided with Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton in 2016 and has been involved in election litigation that Trump opposed, in granting the firm’s request for a temporary restraining order for some sections of Trump’s earlier executive order.
Senate Democrats are grappling with how to move forward as a caucus after the government funding bill split their party, exposing deep divisions.
They came under intense pressure to oppose the Trump-backed bill, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others are now facing a backlash.
Some 90 minutes before Senate Republicans staved off a shutdown on a nearly party-line vote, Schumer and nine other caucus members crossed the aisle to advance it in a key procedural vote. The bill only required a simple majority in the chamber for final passage, and all but two in the group ultimately opposed it.
Here’s what some Democratic senators are saying:
After voting to pass the stopgap bill to avert a shutdown, the Senate voted to pass a separate bill to allow Washington, DC, to maintain control over its funds after Democrats warned the GOP government funding package would cut $1.1 billion of the city’s funding.
The measure would next need to be passed by the House, where its fate is unclear.
Mayor Muriel Bowser called the Senate’s passage of the bill “a major first step.” In a statement, she said the measure passing in the House would ensure city services like police and fire “aren’t haphazardly cut in the middle of the fiscal year.”
Ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X, “Today, the Senate will vote on legislation that will make an important DC funding fix. This legislation will make sure that we take care of the residents of the district — it will support law enforcement and firefighters and teachers and basic city services.”
He continued, “This legislation is very good news for the residents of the District of Columbia, and I am happy we are passing this bill today. Once the Senate acts, the House must act quickly.”
Where things stand in the House: Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team “will be reviewing” the Senate bill, according to a GOP leadership aide.
Johnson has not yet commented on it, but at least one Freedom Caucus member — Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina — told CNN today he is adamantly opposed.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said on the Senate floor that both President Donald Trump and the top House GOP appropriator Tom Cole support the measure. But Johnson would need to decide to bring it up on the floor.
This post has been updated with details on where things stand in the House.
President Donald Trump took to the podium at the Justice Department this afternoon and railed against Biden-era officials for acting, in his view, in a partisan and corrupt way.
The event was a marked departure from how former presidents treated the department, taking pains to stay away from it and its law enforcement components so that its work would not appear political.
Here are some key lines from the president’s speech:
Pledge to expel “rogue actors and corrupt forces”: “We will expose, and very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels you’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said, boasting about revoking the security clearances of some of the former officials who investigated him — and about pardoning the rioters who were convicted for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, calling them “political prisoners who had been grossly mistreated.”
Lashing out at political foes: Proclaiming himself as the “chief law enforcement officer in our country,” Trump focused on the failed investigations into him.
Here’s more of what the president said:
Some fact checks:
Most of the Senate Democrats who voted this afternoon to advance the stopgap bill to avert a shutdown ultimately voted against it on final passage.
Despite intensifying pressure from across the Democratic Party to block the Trump-backed funding measure, one Democrat and one independent who caucuses with Democrats joined Republicans to give final passage to the bill in the Senate.
GOP Senator Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote no.
These Democratic caucus members voted “yes” on the bill’s final passage:
These caucus members voted earlier in the day to advance the bill in a procedural vote:
The Senate has voted to pass the stopgap funding bill, averting a government shutdown hours ahead of the deadline. The final vote was 54 to 46.
The bill now heads to the desk of President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defended his decision to vote to advance the GOP’s funding measure and keep the government open, despite criticism from some Democrats who argued the party should push back against President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The New York lawmaker also defended his leadership position, saying, “My caucus and I are in sync.”
Eight other Democrats and one independent joined the minority leader in the vote to break the filibuster, setting up a vote on the bill’s passage this evening. But, Schumer’s announcement that he would vote for the bill on Thursday was met with sharp condemnation from some Democrats, including more than 60 in the House who wrote rging him to oppose the stopgap measure.
Schumer told CNN’s Jake Tapper today that he “always knew there would be disagreements,” but maintained that a “government shutdown would be far worse” than voting for the GOP-led measure.
“My job as leader is to lead the party and if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it, I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there would be some disagreements. That’s how it always is,” Schumer said.
He maintained that the stopgap measure “was a bad bill,” but “it would be far worse to give Donald Trump the keys to the city and the country.” He said a government shutdown could give the president and the Department of Government Efficiency more room to shrink the federal government and its workforce.
Asked if he was worried about his leadership position, the New York Democrat said he thinks he has the “overwhelming support of my caucus” and that other Democrats respected what he was doing.
The Treasury Department will extend its use of extraordinary measures through June 27 to allow the federal government to pay its bills until Congress addresses the debt ceiling, Secretary Scott Bessent wrote today in a letter to lawmakers.
What to know: The US hit its roughly $36 trillion debt limit on January 21, forcing Treasury to turn to extraordinary measures and the cash it has on hand to avoid a first-ever default, which would likely cause global economic upheaval. Once the nation hits the debt ceiling, which it has done repeatedly, it can no longer borrow to cover its obligations in full and on time.
What are these extraordinary measures? They are mainly behind-the-scenes accounting maneuvers. Bessent noted that Treasury is not able to provide an estimate of how long the extraordinary measures and the cash may last due to “considerable uncertainty,” stemming in part from the unpredictability of tax receipts. The department expects to update Congress in the first half of May, after most of the tax revenue from the spring tax filing season has been received.
Though they control Congress, Republicans are divided over how to handle the debt ceiling. The House has included a $4 trillion increase to the cap in its budget resolution, but the Senate did not include any change to the debt ceiling in its narrower version of the legislation. Both chambers must approve the same budget resolution before Congress can move forward. President Donald Trump has pushed GOP lawmakers to address the limit as soon as possible.
Nine Senate Democrats and one independent who caucuses with Democrats joined Republicans today on a key procedural vote to advance a bill that would ultimately avert a government shutdown at midnight, despite intensifying pressure from across the Democratic Party to block the GOP’s funding measure.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others voted 62-38 to advance the House-passed spending bill to a final vote, with President Donald Trump earlier praising Schumer for the move.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against advancing the measure that would fund the government through September 30.
Now that the Senate has taken this procedural vote, the chamber will vote on four amendments to the government funding bill and then take a final passage vote on the measure.
These are the members of the Democratic caucus who voted to advance the measure:
This post has been updated with additional information about the vote.
There will “almost certainly” be a deal that would keep TikTok operational in the United States by the April 5 sale deadline, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview with NBC News on Friday.
“There will almost certainly be a high-level agreement that I think satisfies our national security concerns, allows there to be a distinct American TikTok enterprise,” Vance told NBC.
Some background: Then-President Joe Biden passed a law last year requiring TikTok’s US operations to be sold off by its parent company ByteDance or face a ban in the United States. President Donald Trump extended the ban deadline by 75 days when he took office, hoping to help broker a deal for the app to be sold to an American owner.
Last month, Trump tapped Vance and national security adviser Michael Waltz to oversee the potential TikTok deal.
Several prominent bidders have emerged as potential buyers for the platform’s US operations, including a group led by billionaire former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and “Shark Tank”-famous investor Kevin O’Leary. But ByteDance and the Chinese government have offered little public indication that they would agree to such a deal.
Trump said last week he would “probably” extend the TikTok deadline further if a deal isn’t reached by April 5. But Vance told NBC, “We’d like to get it done without the extension.”
However, he expressed optimism that “we’re going to be in a place where we can say TikTok is operational, and it’s also operational in a way that’s protective of Americans’ data privacy and America’s national security.”
President Donald Trump teased the launch of a new anti-drug campaign during his speech at the Justice Department on Friday.
“We’re doing this campaign, and I think we can get it down 50 — 5-0 percent — with this campaign, because when people see all the horrible things that these drugs do to you, we’re especially focused on fentanyl. When they see all of the horrible things that happen when you take drugs — how you look, you lose your look, everyone’s vain. They don’t want to lose their look,” the president said.
“I think when they see these things, they may say, ‘You know what, I’m going to take a pass.’”
The president’s remarks, which came almost an hour into his speech at the Justice Department, echo what he had said on the campaign trail about waging a “war” on drug cartels during his second term.
President Donald Trump repeated two false claims today about immigration statistics during his presidencies.
First, he said, “In our first full month in office, we achieved the lowest level of illegal border crossings ever recorded.”
He could have accurately said the number of migrant apprehensions by the Border Patrol in February 2025, 8,347, was the lowest in many decades, but it’s not the lowest number on record. Official federal statistics show there were fewer Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southwest border in some of the months of the early 1960s and in years prior.
Second, he said that “by the time I got out” of office the first time, “we had the lowest numbers ever. My favorite chart of all time was brought down that day and, on that chart, it said we had the lowest numbers ever.”
But the chart doesn’t actually show that illegal immigration was at its lowest level at the time Trump left office, though text beside a red arrow on the chart claims that’s what it shows. In fact, the arrow actually points to April 2020, when Trump still had more than eight months left in his first term and when global migration had slowed to a trickle because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
After hitting a roughly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, migration numbers at the southern border increased each month through the end of Trump’s first term.
The Senate has begun voting on breaking a Democratic filibuster on the funding bill to avoid a government shutdown at midnight.
This vote needs 60 votes to advance.
President Donald Trump falsely claimed in his Friday remarks at the Department of Justice that former President Joe Biden was “essentially found guilty, but they said he was incompetent and therefore let’s not find him guilty, I guess.”
“Nobody knows what the ruling was,” he said, continuing, “I think I would have rather been found guilty than what they found with him. They said he didn’t know what the hell he was doing and therefore … let him go.”
Facts first: Biden was not found guilty, “essentially” or not, and there was no judicial “ruling” at all. Biden was not even charged with a crime. The special counsel who was appointed to look into Biden’s handling of classified documents, Robert Hur, wrote in his public report that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” adding that “several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges.”
Trump appeared to be referring Friday to the fact that Hur wrote in the report, “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
But Hur did not say he would have brought charges against Biden if not for this. Hur wrote at length about various facts of the case and possible Biden defenses that meant that he thought would make it too difficult for the government to win a unanimous guilty verdict.
President Donald Trump heaped praise on the federal judge in Florida who threw out his classified documents criminal case last summer, calling the jurist he appointed during his first term “amazing” and “brilliant.”
“We had an amazing judge in Florida, and her name is Aileen Cannon,” Trump said today during a wide-ranging campaign-style speech at the Justice Department. He went on to claim that he didn’t know her and never spoke to her. (Cannon has said the same.)
“I did appoint her,” Trump said, going on to criticize unnamed “public relations lawyers” who criticized Cannon’s handling of the historic case. “They were saying she was slow, she wasn’t smart, she was totally biased. ‘She loved Trump.’”
“Actually, she was brilliant, she moved quickly. She was the absolute model of what a judge should be,” the president said. “And she was strong and tough.”
Cannon, whom Trump appointed to the Southern District of Florida in 2020, threw out the classified documents case last July after concluding that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution. She did not rule on whether Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was proper or not.
Smith’s appeal of Cannon’s ruling was pending when Trump was reelected, and the special counsel later moved to drop the appeal as it related to Trump after his November win.
Smith indicted Trump in 2023 for allegedly taking classified national defense documents from the White House after he left office and resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve the materials.
Cannon has previously defended her independence from Trump. “I have no control over what private citizens, members of the media, or public officials or candidates elect to say about me or my judicial rulings,” Cannon said in a ruling last year. “I have never spoken to or met former President Trump except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding, through counsel.”
President Donald Trump said in a Friday speech that he got “pretty good news” on a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, without expanding on what it was, and that his administration had “very good calls” on Friday with both countries.
“Just before I came here I got some pretty good news,” Trump said while giving a speech at the Justice Department. “So, but we have to see what happens. It’s a long way to go,” the president said.
“I think we have it,” the president added before cautioning the conflict could lead to World War III.
“We’ve had some very good calls today with Russia and with Ukraine. They’ve agreed for a ceasefire, if we can get it with Russia,” the president said.
The president again appeared to blame the Ukrainians for the war when he said that you should not “pick on somebody that’s a lot larger than you.”
The president’s remarks come as he said said in an interview taped Thursday that his administration would know a “little bit more on Monday” about the US-proposed temporary ceasefire in the war.
President Donald Trump took to the podium at the Justice Department Friday afternoon and railed against Biden-era officials for acting, in his view, in a partisan and corrupt way.
While the president welcomed allies — including his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley — his speech quickly turned to outrage over the failed investigations into him.
The president, standing in the Justice Department’s great hall next to 180 kilos of fake fentanyl sitting underneath a box that said in capital letters, “DEA evidence,” proclaimed that he was the “chief law enforcement officer in our country.”
“I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred,” he said. Those abuses, the president said, included how investigators “spied on my campaign, launched one hoax and disinformation operation after another.” Tump also claimed investigators “broke the law on a colossal scale.”
They “persecuted my family, staff and supporters, raided my home, Mar-a-Lago, and did everything within their power to prevent me from becoming the president of the United States,” Trump said.
“Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and good will built up over generations,” the president said. “They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.”
President Donald Trump praised Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer for announcing he will vote for the House-passed GOP spending bill to avert the government shutdown.
During remarks today at the Justice Department, Trump said he has “great respect” for what Schumer did, adding that he “couldn’t believe what I heard. But you know I think he’s going to get some credit for it.”
Trump had also congratulated Schumer in a Truth Social post earlier on Friday, saying the senator from New York was “doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!”
On Capitol Hill: Republicans need eight Senate Democrats on board to clear a key procedural hurdle on the government funding bill. That vote is expected to happen this afternoon.
Senators completed two out of three votes in their afternoon vote series, but the third one — a highly anticipated procedural vote on the government spending bill — was pushed back.
According to two Republican senators, lawmakers are trying to lock down a time agreement that would help the Senate move swiftly to final passage of the government funding bill after the critical initial vote to break a Democratic filibuster on the measure.
They would need all 100 senators to agree to speed things up.
“There is continuing to be tremendous pressure on the Democrats who want to keep the government open to shut it down,” Republican Whip John Barrasso said. “This isn’t over until the 100 votes have been cast.”
President Donald Trump pledged to expel what he described as the “rogue actors and corrupt forces” from the government as he addressed the Department of Justice on Friday.
“We will expose, and very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels you’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said.
“It’s going to be legendary,” Trump added. “It’s going to also be legendary for the people that are able to seek it out and bring justice.”
The president bragged about revoking the security clearances of some of the former officials who investigated him — and about pardoning the rioters who were convicted for the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, calling them “political prisoners who had been grossly mistreated.”
“We removed the senior FBI officials who misdirected resources to send SWAT teams after grandmothers and J6 hostages,” he said.
The president also said it was a “great honor” to fire former FBI Director James Comey as he addressed the DOJ.
President Donald Trump is speaking at the Justice Department, the storied building from which the government pursued criminal investigations and prosecutions against him.
The White House said it will be a law-and-order speech.
“All I’m going to do is set out my vision. It’s going to be their vision, really, but it’s my ideas,” Trump said yesterday, when asked about his expected remarks.
“We want to have justice and we want to have safety in our cities as well as our communities,” he added, while noting that he will also cover immigration and border security in the speech.
More on the speech: Flanked by staunch allies he tapped to run the organizations he says attacked him relentlessly and unjustly, the event is a marked departure from how former presidents treated the department, taking pains to stay away from it and its law enforcement components so that its work would not appear political.
The speech is the first time that a president of the United States is delivering a political address inside the department since 2014 when Barack Obama unveiled new guidance for intelligence-gathering in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of US surveillance programs.
The Supreme Court signaled Friday that it’s in no hurry to resolve President Donald Trump’s emergency appeals on birthright citizenship.
The justices handling the three separate cases ordered the groups challenging Trump’s executive order to respond by April 4. That timeline is longer than usual and means the court will take weeks to resolve the cases.
Trump is asking the Supreme Court to curtail a series of lower court orders that are blocking him from enforcing his birthright citizenship policy. While the administration has repeatedly framed that request as “modest,” it would in practice allow the policy to move forward nationwide except for a handful of people involved in the lawsuits.
By comparison, in the recent emergency case involving nearly $2 billion in foreign aid, the court ordered a response two days after the Trump administration sent up its emergency appeal.
The briefing schedule was set by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who are assigned to handle cases rising from appeals courts based in Washington, DC, San Francisco and Boston.
FBI Director Kash Patel touted the actions of the FBI since he was sworn in as director during a speech at the Justice Department ahead of President Donald Trump’s visit Friday afternoon.
Patel said that in the past few weeks, the FBI has made hundreds of arrests against alleged gang members and seized kilos of drugs like fentanyl.
“That’s just what you can do when you put the great men and women of law enforcement in one room and get the hell out of their way,” he said.
Patel continued:
“I told you when I first got this job that we would crush violet crime, that we would take the fight to anyone who wishes to do harm to our way of life or to hurt our citizenry. That we would go to the ends of the very earth to bring them back to face American justice produced right here in this very hall in this very building.”
Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said in a statement she will vote to avert a government shutdown, saying it would be “devastating for the American people” and would give President Trump “free reign to cause more chaos than harm.”
The senator joins Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. John Fetterman as the third Democrat to say they will vote to avert shutdown.
Remember: Republicans need eight Senate Democrats on board to clear a key procedural hurdle on the government funding bill.
“Shutting down the government gives President Trump and Elon Musk even more power to cherry-pick who is an essential employee, who they want to fire, and what agencies they want to shutter,” said the Nevada senator. “And a shutdown would force federal courts to slow work on lawsuits against this administration’s illegal actions. The last government shutdown cost the American economy $11 billion and thousands of hardworking Americans were harmed. I cannot vote for that.”
“This was not an easy decision,” she continues. “I’m outraged by the reckless actions of President Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans in control of Congress, so I refuse to hand them a shutdown where they would have free reign to cause more chaos and harm.”
Cortez Masto told reporters that she would not allow Trump to “to cherry pick agencies that he wants to fund. Cherry pick who gets paid, who gets fired, who gets their job back.”
And she said a shutdown would “cost the economy billions of dollars.”
President Donald Trump said in an interview taped on Thursday that his administration would know a “little bit more on Monday” about his efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, without providing more specifics or details.
“As you know, we have a ceasefire agreement with the Ukrainian group, and we are trying to get that with Russia too. And I think thus far it’s gone OK. We’ll know a little bit more on Monday, and that will be hopefully good,” the president told Sinclair’s Sharyl Attkisson in an interview that’s airing in full on Sunday.
CNN has reached out to the White House about Trump’s comment.
Trump also said he was being “a little bit sarcastic” about his repeated remarks that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours, before adding that he thinks he’ll be “successful” in getting it done.
CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo contributed reporting to this post.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would not answer when CNN asked him if he has lost confidence in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, given the two Democratic leaders have different views on how to handle the GOP government spending bill.
“Next question,” Jeffries said during a news conference Friday.
It was Jeffries’ first public comments since Schumer came out in support of the bill to avert a shutdown at midnight and bucked the position of House Democrats.
In a moment that put the divide within the Democratic party on display, Jeffries repeatedly criticized the position of Senate Democrats but refused to call out Schumer directly, arguing the dispute is “not about one individual.”
When asked if Schumer has acquiesced to President Donald Trump, Jeffries said, “That’s a question that’s best addressed by the Senate.”
When pressed if it was time for new leadership in the Senate, Jeffries again said “next question.”
Jeffries said that his conversations with Schumer this week have been private and “will remain private.”
Despite his attempts to dodge answering questions about Schumer specifically, Jeffries went after Schumer’s logic for supporting the Republican government spending bill.
“It’s a false choice that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and House Republicans have been presenting, between their reckless and partisan spending bill and a government shutdown,” Jeffries said. “We do not support a bill that is designed to hurt the American people.”
Jeffries also implied that only House Democrats, who are pushing for a short-term government funding extension while appropriators hash out a deal, are on the right side: “We’ve made that decision as House Democrats and we’re going to stick by that decision because we believe we are on the side of the American people,” Jeffries said.
This post has been updated with more of Jeffries’ remarks.
A group of influential House Democrats, led by their caucus’ spending leader Rep. Rosa DeLauro, plan to urge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday to not “acquiesce to Republicans’ lawless destruction of our government.”
“We cannot acquiesce to Republicans’ lawless destruction of our government, and we cannot forfeit Congress’s Constitutional authority to dictate federal spending,” DeLauro and other House Democratic appropriators wrote Friday in a draft letter to Schumer obtained by CNN.
More context: The sharply worded missive from House Democrats calls on the Senate Democratic leader to abandon his plans to vote for the GOP funding bill. It is part of a last-ditch pressure campaign from the other side of the US Capitol, where House lawmakers are fuming at Schumer’s decision to back the President Donald Trump-endorsed bill to avert a shutdown at midnight.
“We urge all Senate Democrats to stand with House Democrats and with the American people,” the letter states.
More than 60 House Democrats wrote to Schumer in a separate letter Friday, urging the New York Democrat to oppose the stopgap measure. “The American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican dysfunction and chaos,” the group wrote.
CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed reporting to this post.
Newly sworn-in Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney forcefully responded to a question about US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada as the 51st state, saying it will never happen.
“Personally, I’ve been clear … that we will never, ever, in any way, shape or form, be part of the United States,” Carney said on Friday.
He emphasized some differences between both countries. “America is not Canada. Look at the ceremony we just had,” Carney continued, referring to his swearing in, which was accompanied by remarks from two indigenous elders.
Carney emphasized that he respects Trump, pointing to their shared experience in the private sector and gently correcting a journalist who called the US president by his surname without his title.
“Just to be clear, we respect the United States. We respect President Trump,” Carney said.
“President Trump is has put some very important issues at the top of his agenda. We understand his agenda. We understand the importance of addressing the scourge of fentanyl, which is a challenge here in Canada as well as the United States,” he added.
Some Senate Democrats who are voting against the GOP government funding bill refused to criticize Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer for saying he will back the legislation, insisting that Democrats had been pigeon-holed into two bad options.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, when asked about Schumer’s leadership, told reporters, “I understand … these are tough, tough calls. We’re stuck with two bad choices presented by a unified Republican front.”
His fellow Virginian, Sen. Tim Kaine, added, “It’s a very, very difficult choice. There were no good options. I feel very strongly that my vote is the right vote, certainly the right vote for Virginians, it’s the right vote for veterans.”
It’s not that Democrats aren’t aware of the anger their base is feeling, they just largely stopped short of translating that into criticisms of their party’s Senate leader.
“I understand the anger” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told CNN of Schumer. “But I am respectful of his position.”
New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Lujan told reporters that Republicans “came up with two horrible ideas, two horrible choices. That’s what we have before us,” and continued to push for a one month, stop-gap bill.
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock added, “It’s the American people who are in peril. They are imperiled by this CR (continuing resolution), and the leader is clear about that, that we were faced with two bad alternatives.”
However, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued that Democrats should not cave. “I believe Democrats should not go along with the Republican efforts to put a new budget in place that greases the skids for tax cuts for billionaires and takes it out of the hides of seniors, veterans and little kids,” she said.
Former House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday issued veiled criticism of Senate Democrats who are backing the GOP funding bill to avert a government shutdown, saying they have bought into the “false choice” that they either need to support the GOP spending bill or face a government shutdown “instead of fighting.”
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America,” the California congresswoman said in a statement on X.
“Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable,” she said without naming Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who announced yesterday that he will vote to keep the government open.
“Democratic senators should listen to the women. Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice: a four-week funding extension to keep government open and negotiate a bipartisan agreement,” she argued.
In a speech Thursday announcing his decision, Schumer said, “Democrats are being faced with the choice of accepting a package they despise or allowing a shutdown” and argued that a shutdown is a “far worse option.”
Congress is facing a midnight deadline to fund the government or risk a partial shutdown.
A federal lawsuit filed Friday morning alleges the Department of Education is attempting to “sabotage” the civil rights functions of the agency — leaving students unprotected from discrimination by “decimating” the staff at the Office of Civil Rights.
The reductions are part of the massive cuts affecting nearly 50 percent of federal employees at the agency.
“The gutting of OCR’s staff means that no complainant has a fair shot at accessing an OCR investigation. Anyone who files any claim is unlikely to secure relief from OCR,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia was brought by two parents and a disability rights group, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates.
More about the Office of Civil Rights: OCR aims to protect students by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable for combating discrimination, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and against students with disabilities.
The Education Department’s civil rights office has been among the hardest hit by layoffs at the agency this week, with the Trump administration shuttering seven of its 12 regional offices. The program also lost the largest proportion of employees of all the programs affected — losing 243 of 557 workers, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Ed Reform Now.
CNN reached out to the Department of Education but did not get an immediate response.
The Senate is expected to hold a vote this afternoon to break a Democratic filibuster on the House-passed spending bill — a critical initial step on the measure as Congress stares down a midnight government funding deadline.
About the timing: It’ll be part of the Senate’s afternoon vote series that is expected to begin at 1:15 p.m. ET, and senators are expected to vote on a few other measures.
Democratic votes will be needed to break the filibuster, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday night that he would vote for the GOP stopgap funding bill.
While a key first step, the Senate will have to take a second vote to give final approval to the funding bill. Senate leadership does not yet have a timing agreement on when that final vote would occur.
The Trump administration is “aggressively pursuing recent leakers” within the intelligence community, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a post on X on Friday, accusing officials of illegally exposing classified information.
“Politically motivated leaks undermine our national security and the trust of the American people, and will not be tolerated,” Gabbard wrote. “Unfortunately, such leaks have become commonplace with no investigation or accountability. That ends now. We know of and are aggressively pursuing recent leakers from within the Intelligence Community and will hold them accountable.”
She cited a number of recent media stories that she claimed without providing evidence were based on “unauthorized leaks within the IC,” including reporting from the Washington Post, NBC and smaller outlets, including the cybersecurity-focused news organization The Record.
Typically, if a government employee is discovered to have revealed classified information, while the agency that “owns” an employee or the exposed information will do its own investigation, a criminal referral will also be made to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution. It was not clear whether that had happened in any of these instances.
Gabbard has vowed to root out what she has described as politicization within the intelligence community that she now leads.
CNN has reached out to a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “there is reason to be cautiously optimistic” after US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, but the top US diplomat noted it is “a difficult and complex situation.”
“It will not be easy, it will not be simple, but we certainly feel like we’re at least some steps closer to ending this war, bringing peace, but it’s still a long journey,” Rubio told reporters in Quebec on Friday.
Rubio did not give further details about the meeting in Moscow, but noted he spoke with Witkoff “late last night” and that the US envoy had spoken with President Donald Trump.
“We’re going to reconvene. The President will have options available to him. Decisions will be made after that,” he said.
Rubio also would not characterize Putin’s public response rejecting an immediate ceasefire “other than he said he agreed with it in concept.” He did not say if he believed that Putin’s comments were a delaying tactic.
“We’re in a better place today, I hope, I believe, we have reason to believe, than we were a week ago, but we still have a long ways to go,” he said. “It could come together pretty quickly if everyone aligns, but I don’t know how aligned we are yet. That’s what we’re going about to find out.”
In one notable moment this week, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet – who has not been shy about his frustration with his party leadership in the past — erupted during one of Senate Democrats’ private meetings.
Two sources familiar with the moment told CNN that Bennet accused Senate Democratic leadership of having “no strategy, no plan and no message” on the spending bill.
Tensions in the Democratic Party are simmering on Capitol Hill ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline to avert a government shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Thursday night that he would vote for the Republican-passed stopgap bill to fund the government through September 30 to “minimize harms” to the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Russia is setting out conditions to “complicate and drag out the process” of peace negotiations.
“The exchange of prisoners and an unconditional 30-day full interim ceasefire are the first quick steps that could significantly bring us closer to a just and lasting peace. Ukraine is ready to take these steps because the Ukrainian people want peace more than anyone,” Zelensky said in a social media post detailing a diplomatic call with Vatican leadership on Friday.
“Meanwhile, the world sees how Russia is deliberately setting conditions that only complicate and drag out the process, as Russia is the only party that wants the war to continue and diplomacy to break down,” the Ukrainian president said.
His comments come a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the US-brokered ceasefire proposal as US special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow.
US supports foreign ministers’ statement: Meanwhile, the United States backed a G7 foreign ministers’ statement on Friday supporting Ukraine’s “territorial integrity and right to exist” amid negotiations to try to end the war with Russia following Moscow’s full-scale 2022 invasion.
In the lead-up to Friday’s joint statement, there was uncertainty about whether the US would be willing to support strong language on the war.
“We reaffirmed our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and right to exist, and its freedom, sovereignty and independence,” the ministers said in the statement.
The statement also commends “Ukraine’s commitment to an immediate ceasefire” and calls on Russia “to reciprocate by agreeing to a ceasefire on equal terms and implementing it fully.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, may have “significantly underpaid his Social Security and Medicare taxes” in recent years, according to a memo prepared by Democratic staff on the Senate Finance Committee and obtained by CNN.
Oz, who is appearing before the committee Friday morning for his confirmation hearing, paid “negligible” Social Security or Medicare taxes in 2022 and no such taxes in 2023 – avoiding $440,000 in levies, according to the memo and Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee’s ranking member.
The celebrity doctor would be responsible for overseeing Medicare if he is confirmed. CMS provides health care coverage to more than 160 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act health insurance.
“Game time,” Oz told reporters Friday as he arrived for his hearing.
Oz took the position that he was not liable for certain taxes – including a self-employment tax, known as SECA – on income from his media entity Oz Property Holdings, the memo said.
“What that means is the person who is nominated to run Medicare thinks that it’s acceptable not to pay his taxes into Social Security and Medicare, like nurses and firefights do out of every paycheck,” Wyden said at the hearing.
Oz’s accountant told the committee’s Democratic staff that the doctor was relying on the limited partner exception, which allows certain income to be excluded from self-employment earnings. But Democratic staffers contend that he was actively involved in the company that bears his name, noting that “Dr. Oz’s position is counter to the position of the Department of Treasury.”
A spokesperson for Oz pushed back on the staff’s charge, saying the “Office of Government Ethics has conducted an extensive review of Dr. Oz’s finances as part of the regular vetting process” and “OGE has transmitted to the Senate a letter indicating that any potential conflicts have been resolved.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said Friday that those in his party upset with members voting to keep the government open are “free riders” because shutting it down wasn’t a good option.
“There are going to be people that are going to vote no on this, but they will be free riders because they know, secretly, they know that shutting the government down is (going) to be a disaster,” the Pennsylvania Democrat told CNN.
Fetterman, who came out early in support of the Republican funding bill, said Democrats would never have had any options to get out of a shutdown.
“Now the people in the House on the Democrats are yelling, ‘Shut the government down.’ Well, tell me how that’s going to end, because they’re going to realize what you know: the GOP owns the open exit ramp. How do you get out of it?” he said.
Asked by CNN if he thought Democrats had any leverage in this situation, Fetterman said, “What leverage? What leverage do we have? Democrats keep showing up at every knife fight with a casserole. You know and they have these cheesy paddles.”
“If you think now you’re tough to shut the government down then what’s how do you get back again? Because millions of Americans are going to be impacted, “ he said. “What’s the exit ramp? How do we even restart the government? … Because it’s gonna be under the terms of Musk and Trump and the GOP.”
This post has been updated with the latest comments from Sen. Fetterman.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday defended his decision to back a Republican-passed spending bill and vote to avert a shutdown, amid anger from House Democrats and the party base.
“I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” he argued during his morning remarks on the Senate floor. “Clearly, this is a Hobson’s choice. The CR (continuing resolution) is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Schumer maintained that a shutdown would be a “distraction” that would help the Trump administration.
“They can stay in a shutdown as long as they want; there is no off ramp unless they decide to take that off ramp, and they won’t, because this is their best tool for achieving their goal: slash government, slash spending, and use that money for tax breaks for billionaires,” added Schumer. “So, a shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for distraction from his awful agenda.”
He insisted that even the Senate Democrats who vote against the funding bill are not in favor of a shutdown, saying that they have “wrestled” with how to approach Friday night’s deadline. He also argued that voting to avert a shutdown does not mean that Democrats are finished fighting Trump.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this morning that he expects the chamber will vote to avert a shutdown later in the day, ahead of the midnight deadline.
The timing of the final vote is still up in the air, as Republicans negotiate with Democrats to reach a timing agreement.
“The sooner we get this wrapped up the better, honestly, but you know, obviously it’s somewhat dictated by the tempo the Democrats are dictating,” Thune said.
He also noted that there may be amendment votes ahead of final passage of the bill, including potentially on the Democrats’ preferred one 30-day funding bill.
The Trump administration delivered an extraordinary ultimatum to Columbia University, threatening to permanently end federal funding to the school unless it cedes control of an international studies department and implements sweeping changes to other campus policies.
In a letter sent Thursday night, federal officials said the university must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”
It must also ban masks on campus that are meant to conceal the wearer’s identity “or intimidate others,” adopt a new definition of antisemitism and abolish its current process for administering discipline to students.
The letter described those changes and others as “preconditions” in order to begin ”formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States government.”
The letter marked a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to impose extensive changes on academic institutions. It comes as federal immigration officials have also targeted specific student protesters, including Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested over the weekend for his role in Columbia University demonstrations against Israel.
In a notice to the student body Thursday, Columbia University officials said agents with the Department of Homeland Security searched two additional university residences with a warrant Thursday evening. No one was arrested or detained, according to the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, who said she was “heartbroken” by the news.
The university did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the Trump administration’s demands.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday she will go after those who “weaponized our government” and warned that she will continue to sue and pull federal funding for sanctuary cities.
“President Trump’s mission was very clear. His directive was make America safe again. That’s what we’re going to do, no more weaponization. We’re going to go back to fighting basic crime, getting these cartels out of our country by securing our borders, prosecuting the worst of the worst, seizing the drugs, which is what President Trump has directed us to do since the second he’s been in office,” Bondi said on Fox Business.
Bondi said people “will be held accountable who weaponized our government.”
“If you targeted someone, if you went after someone because of their political affiliation, we will be investigating you,” she added. “We will be looking at you because that’s the weaponization, and it has to stop.”
Her comments precede President Donald Trump’s visit to the Justice Department on Friday. Trump, whom Bondi said has never been to the Department of Justice, is expected to outline his vision on crime and immigration.
On sanctuary cities: The attorney general also criticized sanctuary cities, which are jurisdictions with policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement actions. When asked if there would be sanctuary cities in four years, Bondi said “no way.”
“I wouldn’t even say four years. I’d say give it to the end of the year, sanctuary cities are over. There are no more sanctuary cities as far as the federal government is concerned. What a sanctuary city means is they are harboring criminals. They are harboring illegal aliens, and if you’re tipping someone off when there’s going to be an ICE raid, DHS raid, we will find you and we will prosecute you,” she said.
President Donald Trump praised Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday for announcing he’d vote for Republicans’ stopgap spending bill.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in which he said that “the big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming.”
He added: “We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights.”
Trump lauded the New York Democrat, writing, “Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning! DJT”
Some context: The Democratic leader’s decision privately disappointed many in his caucus, and stunned his House colleagues across the US Capitol — leaving the party deeply divided on the path ahead at a moment when their base is clamoring for a strong response against Trump and Elon Musk’s actions to radically reshape the federal government.
“We are in a perverse, bizarro land where we’re having to decide between letting Donald Trump wreck the government this way or wreck the government that way,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said of Democrats’ predicament.
CNN’s Lauren Fox and Sarah Ferris contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump on Friday called Thursday’s meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin “very good and productive.”
“We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday, and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump also highlighted that thousands of Ukrainian troops are surrounded by Russian forces, claiming that he has “strongly requested” to Putin to spare their lives, describing the potential outcome as a “horrible massacre.”
Before his meeting with Witkoff on Thursday, Putin questioned the US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, setting forth tough conditions and demanding concessions from Kyiv despite saying he supported a truce in theory.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Friday that car tariffs on Japan, Korea and Germany “would be fair.”
“That would be fair, right? If you’re going to tariff cars from anywhere, it’s got to be tariff cars from everywhere,” Lutnick said when asked by Fox’s Maria Bartiromo if tariffs on cars will go into effect on April 2 on those countries.
“That’s the whole point, it’s bring it home,” Lutnick said. “Don’t make it so that Japan has an unfair advantage over Korea or Germany or anywhere. The idea is, Donald Trump is focused on fairness.”
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump backed down from an extraordinary trade war escalation that had threatened a massive surge in tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.
However, he threatened to “substantially” increase tariffs on cars coming into the United States from Canada starting on April 2.
The president said those autos tariffs “will, essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada. Those cars can easily be made in the USA!”
US national security adviser Michael Waltz conveyed “some cautious optimism” regarding a potential ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war, shortly after a meeting between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin took place in Moscow.
“We do have some cautious optimism,” Waltz told Fox host Sean Hannity on Thursday night when asked about the likelihood of a ceasefire agreement.
“Of course, both sides will have their demands, and of course, both will need to make compromises, and the shuttle diplomacy — going back and forth — is happening,” Waltz continued.
The national security adviser also highlighted that Witkoff is “out there” following the meeting, “bringing things back” for Trump to make decisions on the next steps.
“I’ve spoken to my counterpart, Special Envoy Witkoff. He is out there and bringing things back for us to evaluate and for the President Trump to make decisions on next steps,” Waltz said.
On Thursday, Putin questioned the US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire in the Ukraine war before his meeting with Witkoff, setting forth tough conditions and demanding concessions from Kyiv despite saying he supported a truce in theory.
Thursday was filled with major headlines as the Trump administration continues to make sweeping changes to the federal government and as time is running out to avoid a government shutdown.
Here are the biggest lines from yesterday:
Looming government shutdown: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he will vote to keep the government open, signaling that there is a viable path ahead to avoid a midnight shutdown.
Birthright citizenship: President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court in a series of emergency appeals to allow him to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship, elevating a fringe legal theory that several lower courts have resoundingly rejected.
Federal employee rulings: Two federal judges ruled that thousands of probationary employees must be temporarily reinstated to their jobs after being laid off en masse as part of the Trump administration’s effort to rapidly shrink the federal workforce.
Department of Education: A new lawsuit from Democratic attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia alleges this week’s mass layoffs at the Department of Education are gutting the agency as a way to implement an unlawful plan by Trump to dismantle the department.
Here’s what you can expect today:
Pipeline discussions: New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul will visit the White House this morning to discuss a pipeline, which is a proposed expansion of an existing gas pipeline that would bring it into New York.
Trump remarks: The president is set to deliver what the White House calls a law-and-order speech this afternoon at the Justice Department. Before his remarks, he is expected to sign more executive orders in the Oval Office.
Immigrants lawsuits: A federal court will hear arguments in two lawsuits over access to, and the transfer of, immigrants in the United States to detention at Guantánamo Bay under Trump’s recent order.
Facing intense pressure over the threat of a shutdown, lawmakers are racing to push through a government funding plan today.
Here’s what Americans could soon face if Congress doesn’t approve a government funding bill by midnight:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent “additional signals” to US counterpart Donald Trump through his special envoy Steve Witkoff, the Kremlin has said.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Putin met Witkoff late Thursday night. “Additional information (about the US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia) was provided to the Russian side. Putin also passed information and additional signals to President Trump through Witkoff,” he said.
The meeting lasted several hours and stretched into early Friday morning, two Trump administration officials told CNN.
Witkoff left Russia shortly after the meeting wrapped and traveled to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, one of the sources said.
According to Peskov, “there are, of course, grounds for cautious optimism,” regarding a potential resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. He added that Putin had expressed solidarity with Trump’s position but also raised some questions that “need to be addressed together” and said that “much remains to be done.”
The exact time for a potential call between the Russian and US presidents has not yet been determined, but there is a mutual understanding between both sides on the need for a direct conversation, according to the Kremlin.
Peskov denied reports that Russia requested the removal of Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg from the US negotiating team due to his alleged pro-Ukrainian stance.
“We believe any relationship should be built on the basis of mutual respect, and of course, we will not interfere in the Americans’ internal decisions on appointments,” he said.
CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump will outline his vision on crime and immigration today at the Department of Justice, where he said he will discuss “the complete gambit” on topics related to safety in his remarks.
“All I’m going to do is set out my vision. It’s going to be their vision, really, but it’s my ideas,” Trump said yesterday, when asked about his expected remarks.
“We don’t want to have crime in the streets. We don’t want to have people pushed into subways and killed,” Trump said. “We want to have justice and we want to have safety in our cities as well as our communities,” he added.
Trump said he will also cover immigration and border security in the speech.
Trump’s visit will further highlight his hands-on approach to the Justice Department, where he has installed loyalists while removing numerous officials perceived as disloyal.
New York’s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul will visit the White House on Friday morning to discuss a pipeline, President Donald Trump said on Thursday.
“The governor is coming in, governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who’s a very nice woman. She’s coming in tomorrow morning at nine o’clock to meet me,” the president said while meeting with the secretary general of NATO in the Oval Office.
The pipeline, which the president has discussed before, is a proposed expansion of an existing gas pipeline that would bring it into New York. It had previously been blocked by officials due to environmental concerns.
CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report.
The Trump administration is expected to invoke a sweeping wartime authority to speed up the president’s mass deportation pledge in the coming days, according to four sources familiar with the discussions.
The little-known 18th-century law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, gives the president tremendous authority to target and remove undocumented immigrants, though legal experts have argued it would face an uphill battle in court.
CNN previously reported that the authority was being widely discussed at several agencies as administration officials prepared to implement the law. The primary target remains Tren de Aragua (TDA) , a Venezuelan organized crime group that is now operating in the United States and other countries and was recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
At the start of his term, Trump had ordered his administration to designate TDA as a foreign terrorist organization and use the measure to remove those identified as members.
The announcement, which could come as soon as Friday, has been a moving target as officials finalize the details. The move would likely pave the way for quicker removals of certain immigrants.
CNN reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
More about the law: It’s designed to be invoked if the US is at war with another country, or a foreign nation has invaded the US or threatened to do so. Legal experts say it would be difficult for Trump to use the act when the US isn’t being attacked by a foreign government, even if the administration does cite threats from gangs or cartels.
The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked three times in US history — all during war — according to the Brennan Center. During World Wars I and II, it was used to justify detentions and expulsions of German, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Japanese immigrants. The law played a role in the infamous US policy of Japanese internment during World War II, according to the nonpartisan law and policy institute.
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