House and Senate Republican leaders will meet today to hash out a unified plan for approaching government funding negotiations with Democrats.
Republican leaders from both sides of the Capitol will meet today, according to Politico, to devise a unified plan for approaching government funding negotiations with Democrats before the March government shutdown deadline.
House appropriations chair Tom Cole said in an interview late Tuesday night that he and Speaker Mike Johnson were hoping to land an agreement with their Senate counterparts on “a path forward” on how to fund government programs.
“The best-case scenario is that we walk out united about what we need to do,” Cole said.
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Trump threatens to sue authors and journalists who use anonymous sources in their reporting
President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform this morning, threatening to sue journalists who use “anonymous” sources in their reporting.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump criticized books and articles that feature “so-called ‘anonymous’ or ‘off the record’ quotes”.
“At some point I am going to sue some of these dishonest authors and book publishers, or even media in general, to find out whether or not these ‘anonymous sources’ even exist, which they largely do not,” he wrote. “They are made up, defamatory fiction, and a big price should be paid for this blatant dishonesty. I’ll do it as a service to our Country. Who knows, maybe we will create some NICE NEW LAW!!!.”
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee last year, will not run for Minnesota’s newly open US Senate seat, according to his spokesperson.
“Governor Walz is not running for the United States Senate,” spokesperson Teddy Tschann said, according to CBS News. “He loves his job as Governor and he’s exploring the possibility of another term to continue his work to make Minnesota the best state in the country for kids.”
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President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign more executive orders this afternoon.
According to his public schedule, Trump is set to sign executive orders at 3pm ET today in the Oval office.
Musk to attend first cabinet meeting of Trump's second term
Elon Musk is set to attend Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his second term at 11am ET this morning, despite not being a cabinet member.
The White House said on Tuesday that Musk would be participating in Trump’s first official cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN that “Elon, considering he is working alongside the president and our cabinet secretaries, this entire administration will be in attendance tomorrow.”
Leavitt added that Musk will be talking about the efforts of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and “how all the cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse” at their agencies.
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A freshman Democratic congressman is introducing a bill to protect the jobs of veterans working for the US government amid mass firings by the Trump administration, the latest legislative response to the turmoil rippling across federal agencies.
The bill from Rep Derek Tran, an Army veteran and former employment lawyer, would require that any veterans terminated without reason from the federal government since the start of President Donald Trump’s term be reinstated.
It would also require federal agencies to submit reports to Congress on the veteran dismissals and provide justifications for their actions, the Associated Press reports.
“They sacrificed so much to protect our country, to defend our freedom,” said Tran, who represents parts of Orange County, California. “Now they’ve been kicked to the curb.”
The bill is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled House, but it serves as the latest example of how Democrats are trying to harness public backlash to Trump’s efforts to upend the federal government through the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) which is led by billionaire adviser Elon Musk.
Nearly 6,000 veterans have been fired across the federal government, according to data from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. That data found that Doge has fired about 38,000 federal employees since the start of Trump’s second term.
US abstains from World Trade Organization condemnation of Russia's aggression in Ukraine – report
The United States has reportedly abstained from co-sponsoring a joint statement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) that condemns Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, according to a report from Reuters citing diplomatic sources and a Geneva trade official.
More than 40 WTO members, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, agreed to the statement, which was presented during the Ukraine trade review session at the WTO.
This marks the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that the United States has not supported this annual statement.
Trump faces Truth Social backlash over AI video of Gaza with topless Netanyahu and bearded bellydancers
Donald Trump is facing a backlash on his Truth Social platform after sharing an AI-created video (see post 11.43) of him sipping cocktails with a topless Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, in a future imagining of the Palestinian territory devastated by Israel’s war.
Oliver Holmes and Paul Owen report that after the 78-year-old president shared the footage – which includes the caption “Gaza 2025 … what’s next?” – he faced a backlash on his social media platform.
One Truth Social user wrote: “I could not be a bigger supporter of President Trump but this particular video is in very poor taste. Very poor taste, indeed!” Another wrote: “I hate this. I love our president, but this is horrible.”
The video might have gone down particularly badly with Trump’s Christian supporters, with several comments referencing the idolatry of the golden statue, and others lamenting a scene showing Trump in a nightclub alone with a woman dressed as a bellydancer as a crowd looks on.
“Only one deserves the glory and the honor, Mr President,” wrote another user. “The statue is a symbol of the antichrist, please humble yourself to God. Jesus is king and only Him.” Other users described the video as “sick” and “filth”.
One account, with the name Kainoa P, wrote: “You’re doing great Mr President. But don’t let it get to your head. God put you in that position for His glory, not yours.”
Read the full report here:
US economy ‘less safe’, experts say, as Trump hobbles consumer watchdog
Millions of Americans are more likely to be ripped off by scammers and thieves as a result of a bid by the Trump administration to defang the top US consumer watchdog, former officials have warned.
Donald Trump has indicated he wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was set up after the financial crisis to shore up oversight of consumer financial firms, prompting critics to accuse him of setting the stage for “one of the biggest cons” in modern memory.
The billionaire tycoon Elon Musk, engaged in a government-wide “efficiency” blitz with the president’s blessing, has suggested the agency is already dead. Only in a court filing late on Monday did Russell Vought, the CFPB’s acting director, clarify it would continue to exist – albeit in a “more streamlined and efficient” form – under the new administration.
With the CFPB incapacitated by layoffs, work stoppages and widespread confusion over its future, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, who played a key role in setting up the agency, held a forum on its future on Capitol Hill on Tuesday alongside other Senate Democrats.
Read the full report here:
There has been reaction to Trump’s proposal for a “gold card” for wealthy foreigners (post 11.14am) which would give them the right to live and work in the US as well as a route to citizenship in exchange for a $5million fee.
Immigration and wealth advisers have said the proposed initiative is unlikely to trigger a major inflow of wealthy global investors seeking US citizenship because of concerns over higher taxes, Reuters reports.
Bassim Haidar, a former UK non-domiciled multimillionaire said:
I do not believe that the current POTUS offer will have a big impact, as getting a green card in the US if you meet certain criteria, is not difficult.
Paying $5 million for a golden visa and getting taxed on your global income defeats the purpose.
John Hu, founder of Hong Kong-based John Hu Migration Consulting said raising the investment threshold to $5 million would be a deterrent for many Chinese nationals.
“The total number of applicants, if the golden visa is going to replace the EB5, will drop significantly,” he told Reuters.
‘Like being on the Titanic’: US aid workers dread bleak future after Trump cuts
In a village in Lesotho, a small country in southern Africa, Sasha teaches hundreds of children at a local primary school. A significant part of her work as an education volunteer at the US Peace Corps is to educate her students about HIV prevention. Almost a quarter of Lesotho’s 2.3 million population lives with HIV, giving it the second-highest level of HIV infection in the world.
At the beginning of February, Donald Trump halted virtually all US foreign aid. The 90-day pause left many agencies scrambling to follow the new guidance, affecting programs such as the one Sasha works for. In Lesotho, she and other volunteers work to mitigate the effects of HIV/Aids stigma through grant-funded programs like a soccer camp. All of that stopped.
Volunteers were instructed to stop any HIV-related prevention programming, according to emails reviewed by the Guardian. Many families also rely upon Pepfar– the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief – which provides HIV/Aids medication for more than 20 million people worldwide. Sasha said that Pepfar-focused nurses at the local clinic were told to stop coming to work.
Read the full report here:
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Reuters is reporting that defence secretary Pete Hegseth is considering making a visit to South Korea next month, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency, citing defence sources.
Donald Trump has shared a bizarre AI-generated video of “Trump Gaza” on his Truth Social platform.
The US president posted the clip, which appears to have been published beforehand by accounts unaffiliated with the White House, on Wednesday.
It features Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, sunbathing in a Dubai-style resort while Elon Musk is showered with banknotes while walking on a beach.
The clip echoes Trump’s recent comment on Gaza when he said: “We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal … the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be so magnificent.”
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Trump may rue firing experts when environmental rollbacks land in court
Amid spending freezes and policy rollbacks from Donald Trump, environmental advocacy groups are gearing up for a long series of legal showdowns with the administration.
The experience of suing Trump during his first term has left the movement better prepared, but the court battles will still be daunting, with the administration appearing to test the nation’s legal boundaries in an effort to consolidate power under the executive branch.
Trump’s firing of experts might backfire by reducing his ability to defend weakening rules, advocates say, though there are also fears, stirred by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance, that the administration will not obey court rulings.
“The authoritarian statements that the president has made and his vice-president have made, the suggestion that the executive is in some way above the law and that they might ignore the decisions of federal courts, are deeply disturbing and highly antidemocratic,” said Jason Rylander, legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
Read more here:
Donald Trump has said the US is set to sell a “gold card” to wealthy foreigners giving them the right to live and work in the US as well as a route to citizenship in exchange for a $5 million fee, CNN reports.
Trump said from the Oval Office:
We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card. This is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship. And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.
The president said the sale of the cards will begin in about two weeks.
He suggested millions of them could be sold and when asked if he would sell the cards to Russian oligarchs, Trump responded:
Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.
The card will replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa programme, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said, adding prospective recipients would to go through vetting “to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens”.
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Russian and US delegations will meet in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss how to restore their respective diplomatic missions, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Moscow has had no ambassador in Washington since the previous envoy, Anatoly Antonov, left his post last October, Reuters reports.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has said high-level teams would work to restoring the countries’ diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow as part of negotiations towards ending the conflict in Ukraine.
The UK prime minister leaves for Washington today prior to his meeting with Donald Trump on Thursday in what will be Keir Starmer’s biggest diplomatic test to date.
On Tuesday Starmer announced the biggest increase in defence spending since the cold war, with the budget rising to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 - three years earlier than planned - and paid for by slashing the aid budget.
Following the announcement US secretary of defence Peter Hegseth, who said he had spoken to his UK counterpart John Healey, described the increase as “a strong step from an enduring partner”.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is likely to visit the White House on Friday to sign a rare earth minerals deal to pay for US military aid to defend against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
A initiative by the United States to increase electricity supply in Africa has been dismantled by President Trump’s administration after more than a decade of work, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Almost all of Power Africa’s programmes have been listed for termination and the majority of its staff fired, the report added, according to Reuters.
Opening summary
Welcome to our coverage of events on Capitol Hill. Republicans narrowly passed a budget blueprint on Tuesday evening, barely scraping together the votes to advance Donald Trump’s tax-cut and immigration agenda.
The House approved the plan in a vote of 217-215, with the representative Thomas Massie, the lone Republican voting in opposition.
No Democrats supported the measure, describing it as a betrayal of middle and low-income voters on behalf of “billionaire donors” like Trump adviser Elon Musk. They warn the budget will result in cuts to Medicaid.
The fiscal year 2025 proposal includes approximately $4.5tn in tax cuts alongside increased spending for defence and border security. To offset these costs, the plan will ask congressional committees to find about $2tn in spending reductions over the next decade.
After Tuesday’s vote, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, said: “Children will be devastated. Families, devastated. People with disabilities, devastated. Older Americans, devastated. Hospitals, devastated. Nursing homes, devastated,” and he said he would “make sure that every single one of these extreme Maga Republicans is held accountable for betraying the people they represent”.
Johnson told reporters after the vote: “We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda.”
In other developments:
More than 20 staffers of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) stepped down on Tuesday, saying in a joint letter they refused to use their expertise to “dismantle critical public services”.
Donald Trump has stepped in to defend Elon Musk from a mounting backlash in his own administration after some cabinet members told US federal workers to ignore the billionaire entrepreneur’s demand that they write an email justifying their work. “What he’s doing is saying: ‘Are you actually working?’ Trump said. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.
It comes as Federal workers faced fresh uncertainty about their futures on Tuesday after Elon Musk gave them “another chance” to respond to his ultimatum that they justify their jobs or risk termination, contradicting guidance from some Trump administration officials that the request was voluntary.
Cabinet officials will face Musk on Wednesday as the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that the tech billionaire will join Trump’s first cabinet meeting despite not being a member of the cabinet. He will be “talking about all of Doge’s efforts and how all of the cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies.
Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive appears to be having less impact than he is claiming. The Associated Press found that almost 40% of the federal contracts scrapped so far will not save the American taxpayer a penny. The Associated Press looked at a list of 1,125 federal government contracts that Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) boasted it had torn up in the first month of the new Trump administration. The news agency found that of those, 417 were likely to produce no savings to the federal budget.
Workers at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have been invited back to its office “to retrieve their personal belongings” as the Trump administration continues its bid to shut down the foreign aid agency.
