President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that New Orleans could be his next target for deploying the National Guard, potentially expanding the number of cities around the nation where he may send federal law enforcement.
Trump says the escalation is necessary because New Orleans has a “crime problem,” but city leaders point out that crime rates have dropped considerably this year.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said on social media that Louisiana would take Trump’s assistance “from New Orleans to Shreveport!” but leaders of the Democratic-controlled city were less supportive.
“Marching troops into New Orleans is an unnecessary show of force in effort to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist,” said City Council President J.P. Morrell.
Trump has already said he plans to send the National Guard into Chicago and Baltimore following his deploying troops and federal agents to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., last month
Here's the latest:
In an embrace of Trump’s health agenda, Florida aims to eliminate all childhood vaccine mandates
Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates, a longtime cornerstone of public health policy for keeping people safe from infectious diseases.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights.
Ladapo didn’t give a timeline for the changes but said the department can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, though others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times that the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”
Florida’s move, a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration’s public health agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.
▶ Read more about how officials in the state are responding to Ladapo’s announcement
White House blasts Harvard ruling and vows to appeal
White House spokesperson Liz Huston took aim at U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in a sharply worded statement for the order that calls for the reversal of cuts of more than $2.6 billion in federal funding for Harvard University. She said the administration would appeal the decision.
“Just as President Trump correctly predicted on the day of the hearing, this activist Obama-appointed judge was always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” Huston said. “To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years. Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars and remains ineligible for grants in the future.”
Trump and Zelenskyy are scheduled to speak Thursday
Planning for the call was confirmed by a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly on the yet-to-be-announced call.
Trump earlier on Wednesday, during his meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, said he expected to soon speak with the Ukrainian leader about the path ahead for the Russia-Ukraine war.
Zelenskyy and European allies of Ukraine are also set to hold talks in Paris on Thursday.
—Aamer Madhani
House majority leader supports federal troops in New Orleans
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican who represents the conservative suburbs of New Orleans, praised Trump’s decision to bring National Guard troops into Washington, D.C., and said New Orleans residents and visitors to the city “deserve that same level of security.”
“We should all be in favor of increased safety for our citizens and lower crime,” Scalise said.
Judge reverses Trump administration’s cuts of billions of dollars to Harvard University
A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered the reversal of the Trump administration’s cuts to more than $2.6 billion in funding research grants for Harvard University.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs sided with the Ivy League school in ruling that the cuts amounted to illegal retaliation for Harvard’s rejection of White House demands for changes to its governance and policies.
▶ Read more about Harvard funding cuts
Voting rights group argues new USCIS policy makes voter registration harder for new citizens
The League of Women Voters is criticizing a new United States Citizenship and Immigration Services policy that blocks nongovernmental groups from helping new citizens register to vote at naturalization ceremonies.
The policy issued Friday says that only state and local election offices will now be allowed to register voters at these events. Previous policy allowed outside groups to do so.
The League of Women Voters’ impact at naturalization ceremonies had been significant. It reported registering some 37,000 voters at the ceremonies in 2022.
USCIS said that it had been an administrative burden to make sure that organizations registering voters at naturalization ceremonies were nonpartisan. It also said it will hand out voter registration applications when election offices can’t.
Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, called the move an attack on immigrants.
“By shutting out the League and other civic partners, USCIS is making it harder for new citizens to register to vote,” Stewart said in a statement.
US sees Rubio mission to Mexico as a grand success
The State Department has hailed Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meeting with Mexico’s president on Wednesday as a success, extolling the virtues of what it said was a reaffirmation of already robust security cooperation in a fragile region now concerned with the prospect of greater U.S. military invention.
In a statement marking the end of Rubio’s talks with President Claudia Sheinbaum, the department said he had thanked her “for Mexico’s partnership to secure our shared border, helping the Trump Administration reach a historic low in border encounters with illegal immigrants.”
Rubio told reporters at a news conference that the level of U.S.-Mexico cooperation was at its highest level ever on fighting narcotics trafficking, transnational crime, ending illegal immigration and promoting prosperity and security.
The statement made only a brief mention of one issue causing friction between the two nations: Trump’s threat to impose massive tariffs on Mexican imports into the United States. The word “tariff” appeared only once in the statement and then in the context of Rubio emphasizing “the importance of resolving trade and nontrade barriers to further the prosperity of both of our nations.”
House Oversight Democrats call for inspector general investigation into Maxwell prison transfer
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are asking the independent watchdog at the Department of Justice to investigate the prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell.
Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse, appearing at a rally and news conference on Capitol Hill Wednesday, said they were especially affronted by the transfer last month to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after she gave interviews to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant and former girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for luring teenage girls for him to abuse.
In a letter to the acting inspector general at the Department of Justice, William Blier, the Democratic lawmakers say that “the public perception that Maxwell has received exceptionally favorable treatment in exchange for misleading testimony is profoundly disturbing and insulting to the victims of her crimes.”
Louisiana’s Governor says he welcomes federal troops in New Orleans
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he supports Trump’s suggestion to send federal troops to the state.
“We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!” Landry said in an X post.
Landry has not responded to questions from The Associated Press about whether he requested that Trump send in federal troops.
New Orleans City Council leaders and several mayoral candidates have rejected the need for federal troops, pointing to the city’s plummeting crime rate this year.
But the office of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the city’s police released a joint statement thanking the federal government for its support.
“Our federal and state partnerships have played a significant role in ensuring public safety, particularly during special events for a world-class city,” the statement said. “The City of New Orleans and NOPD remain committed to sustaining this momentum, ensuring that every neighborhood continues to feel the impact of these combined efforts.”
Trump fundraising off plans for federal intervention in Chicago
The president’s political team sent out a fundraising email on Wednesday that said, “Chicago will be liberated,” and “We’re going into Chicago.”
The email pitch repeats some of Trump’s remarks on Tuesday about his plans to order federal authorities to Chicago and then suggests people make a $15 donation “to join MAGA blitz.”
Trump administration agrees to restore health websites and data
Federal officials have agreed to restore health- and science-related webpages and data following a lawsuit settlement with doctors’ groups and other organizations.
The settlement was announced this week by the Washington State Medical Association, the lead plaintiffs in the case.
Soon after Trump’s inauguration, federal health officials deleted information on topics like pregnancy risks and opioid-use disorder. This was in response to a Trump executive order to stop using the term “gender” in federal policies.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has agreed to restore more than 100 websites and resource.
▶ Read more about health websites
Rubio dodges questions on details of Venezuela attack and says US has the right to ‘eliminate threats’
Rubio dodged questions about if the people in the boat were warned before they were bombed, or if the government is concerned about raising the hackles of Latin American governments, some who perceive the strike as a shift back to the U.S. forcefully intervening in affairs in the region.
“We’re not going to sit back anymore and watch these people sail up and down the Caribbean like a cruise ship,” he said. “It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen anymore.”
Rubio added that Trump as commander-in-chief has the authority “under exigent circumstances to eliminate imminent threats to the United States.”
Rubio defends US strike on alleged Venezuela drug cartels: ‘It will happen again’
Asked about details of the extraordinary strike that took place Tuesday, Rubio once again deflected operational details about how the U.S. confirmed it was a drug cartel in the boat or that they were heading toward the U.S. to the Pentagon.
Rubio went on to defend the operation, saying that previous U.S. interdiction efforts in Latin America have not worked.
“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said, adding that it is just the beginning of a larger U.S. operation in the region.
Rubio credits drop in border crossings at southern border to ‘close cooperation’ with Mexico
“We have seen those numbers drop historically, and that would not have been possible without the close cooperation between our two governments,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday.
The positive tone and complimentary language toward Mexico reflects a shift for the Trump administration as it escalates its efforts to target drug cartels.
DC delegate appears in public after long absence during Trump’s law enforcement surge
Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, has made very few public appearances during the surge of federal law enforcement authorities and the National Guard although her office has been active in introducing legislation to end the use of military personnel and surge.
At a time when the city’s authority to govern itself has been threatened, public pushback by its officials has been one of the few recourses to challenge Trump’s move.
Norton, who has been the representative for the district since 1991, made the rare appearance Wednesday to slam Trump’s takeover. She said the move has turned residents into “props in a political play to showcase his own power.”
Norton, long a champion of D.C. statehood and self-governance, was at the 1963 March on Washington as a 26-year-old Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee worker. She has been visibly slower in her public appearances this year.
As delegate, she is a non-voting member of Congress and requires close ties with allies in Congress.
House GOP launches new probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack
House Republicans are standing up a select committee to reinvestigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, as they continue to contest what happened after Trump sent a mob of supporters to fight the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The new panel, with eight members to be chosen by the House speaker, will have subpoena power to compel witness testimony. It is expected to produce a report of its investigation by Dec. 31, 2026.
Trump was impeached for inciting the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. He was later acquitted.
Despite initial hostilities, Rubio says Mexico cooperation with US is key to combating crime
While in Mexico City, Rubio said he was happy to see “the level of commitment” between U.S. and Mexico in combating crime.
“There are no other governments cooperating more” than the U.S. and Mexico in combating crime,” Rubio said during a press conference Wednesday. “It’s the closest cooperation we’ve ever had, maybe between any country, but definitely between the U.S. and Mexico.”
US and Mexico reaffirm cooperation on combating cartels
The U.S. and Mexican governments announced Wednesday that they were reaffirming their commitment to work together to strengthen security, combat cartels and stop trafficking along the border and fuel theft.
It comes as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was visiting Mexico City, meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and holding a news conference with Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente.
The leaders stopped short of initially announcing a formal agreement, which Sheinbaum has spent weeks pushing for. The governments said they established a “high-level implementation” to make sure new commitments were fulfilled. Mexico and the U.S. were already working together closely to combat cartels and fentanyl trafficking.
They said their relationship is “based on the principles of reciprocity, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, shared and differentiated responsibility, as well as mutual trust.”
New Orleans leaders say federal troops are not needed
New Orleans city leaders recoiled at the notion of sending federal troops into the Big Easy.
“It’s ridiculous to consider sending the National Guard into another American city that hasn’t asked for it,” said City Council President J.P. Morrell. “Marching troops into New Orleans is an unnecessary show of force in effort to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, Landry established a state police force to operate in New Orleans. He also convened a special legislative session focused on combating crime, leading to harsher penalties.
New York City’s top officer says she told Bondi the city doesn’t need the National Guard
New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch says she was “very direct” with the attorney general about her opposition to an enhanced federal law enforcement presence in the city.
“My message was: ‘We got this. We don’t want or need the help of the National Guard in New York City,’” Tisch said in an interview on a local ABC station Wednesday.
Tisch said a federal deployment “creates real safety problems for us at the NYPD” and that “our National Guard are not trained to handle street crime in New York City.”
Trump this week said he’s ready to order federal authorities to mobilize and combat crime in Chicago and Baltimore, following similar actions in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.
Crime is down in New Orleans
While Trump referred to New Orleans as having a “crime problem,” city leaders swiftly pointed out that crime rates have dropped significantly so far this year.
Violent crime is down 20% compared to last year, the New Orleans Police Department reported in May. And murders had been reduced by a third, even when including the 14 victims of a Jan. 1 truck attack.
New Orleans leaders bristle at prospect of federal troops in the city
New Orleans City Council Vice President Helena Moreno condemned any notion of sending federal troops to New Orleans.
“This is about scare tactics and politicizing public safety,” said Moreno, the front-runner in the mayor’s race. “Ultimately leading to the misuse of public funds and resources to attempt to score political points. We cannot allow this and I will fight to prevent any federal takeover of New Orleans.”
Council member Oliver Thomas, another mayoral candidate, told The Associated Press via text message that he had not heard anything about federal troops coming to the city and this would be a “major overreaction!”
City Council member Joe Giarrusso said any suggestion of bringing federal troops into New Orleans would be a “slap in the face” to local and state law enforcement.
Landry’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hegseth says other traffickers could ‘face same fate’ as Venezuelan boat
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the strike on a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela shows that the U.S. will not tolerate drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere.
He would not say when asked Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” if the operation was a drone strike or how it was conducted.
“President Trump is willing to go on offense in ways that others have not been,” Hegseth said, calling it “a new day.”
“And it won’t stop with just this strike. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate,” he said.
Asked about regime change in Venezuela, Hegseth said “that’s a presidential decision.”
DC Mayor announces deal meant to beef up police numbers as Trump’s crime surge continues
Mayor Muriel Bowser’s announcement comes as the nation’s capital looks to emerge from Trump’s federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Bowser’s deal with the city’s police officers includes a 13% pay increase as well as other incentives such as cost-of-living increases and an expanded take-home car program. Bowser has sought to add at least 500 officers for years, often publicly struggling with the D.C. Council over the issue. The department currently contains 3,188 sworn officers, with Bowser looking to boost that number up to around 4,000.
Last week, Bowser publicly acknowledged that Trump’s decision to take over the MPD and flood the city with hundreds of federal law enforcement agents and National Guard troops has succeeded in driving down violent crime numbers. But she has also stated a belief that similar results could have been achieved simply by having more MPD officers in service.
“We’ve always believed that getting back to 4,000 officers was our goal,” she said Wednesday. “We don’t need a presidential emergency.”
Trump again suggests he will soon have answer on whether Putin and Zelenskyy will hold talks
“I’m having a conversation with him very shortly, and I’ll know pretty much what we’re going to be doing,” Trump said. He did not clarify if he was talking about Putin or Zelenskyy.
The president again reiterated that he thought bringing an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be “much easier” than it has proven to be.
Still, he said the bloodshed in Eastern Europe has to end, and he expressed confidence that he’ll be able to bring the conflict to a close.
“I have a power to end things,” Trump said.
Trump suggests he may deploy troops to New Orleans
After saying he was prepared to send the National Guard into New Orleans and Baltimore to help fight crime, Trump is now saying he’s mulling doing similar in New Orleans.
“So we’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago?” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad.”
State and local officials, many of whom are top Democrats, have sharply opposed troop presence in Chicago and Baltimore. Landry, though, is a Republican.
The president added “you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks.”
Khanna, Greene cite bipartisan Epstein files release effort
Wrapping up Wednesday’s news conference, Khanna said a silver lining of the Epstein case might be its ability to bring together Democrats and Republicans.
“They’re bringing us together as a country,” Khanna said, of the stories of accusers, gesturing toward Greene with a smile. “I’ve never done a press conference with Marjorie before.”
Speaking next, Greene echoed Khanna’s comments denouncing what both portrayed as a widespread effort to protect Epstein’s crimes from detection, to the accusers’ detriment.
Massie ended with a plea for Americans to call their representatives and demand support for legislative efforts to release the files.
Earlier Wednesday, the lawmakers said four Republicans had signed onto a bill on the files’ release.
Rubio and Mexico’s president meet
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has started his meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has voiced fears of the U.S. encroaching on Mexican sovereignty.
Their meeting Wednesday in Mexico City comes a day after Trump dramatically stepped up his administration’s military role in the Caribbean with what he called a deadly strike on a Venezuelan drug cartel.
Earlier Wednesday, Sheinbaum again rejected Trump’s suggestion that she is afraid of confronting Mexico’s cartels because they have so much power.
“We respect a lot the Mexico-United States relationship, President Trump, and no, it’s not true this affirmation that he makes,” she said.
Speaking to reporters before the Rubio meeting, she said what her administration planned to agree to with the United States is a “cooperation program about border security and the application of the law within the framework of our (respective) sovereignties.”
Trump justifies lethal US strike on Venezuelan vessel
The president pushed back when sked why the U.S. carried out a lethal strike on a Venezuelan drug-carrying vessel on Tuesday instead of interdicting it and capturing the alleged smugglers.
Trump said the strike would lead to drug smugglers thinking twice about trying to move drugs into the United States.
“There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and, everybody fully understands that,” Trump said. He added, “Obviously, they won’t be doing it again. And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this.’”
Trump decries Epstein scandal as a ‘Democrat hoax’ and says, ‘Really, I think it’s enough’
The president said that “thousands and thousands of documents” had been released but that the “Democratic hoax” would continue.
“No matter what you do it’s going to keep going,” Trump said. “Really, I think it’s enough.”
Democrats and some Republicans in Congress have pushed for more transparency on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. And, while numerous documents have been released as part of the Epstein investigations, the majority contained information that was already public.
Trump’s comments came after Epstein accusers held news conferences on Capitol Hill. One victim asked Trump to come meet her at the Capitol so she could explain while the issue wasn’t a hoax.
Trump says he’s going to ‘find out’ how good relations are after Chinese summit that included leaders of Russia and India
Speaking to reporters, Trump said his relationship with the heads of China, India and Russia are “very good,” but, “We’re going to find out how good it is over the next week or two.”
Trump called the ceremony at the summit hosted by China “very, very impressive” and “beautiful,” and that Chinese Leader Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin “were hoping I was watching.”
He said he felt the United States was slighted by China by not getting more of an acknowledgment for its role in winning World War II. China held a parade to recognize the 80th anniversary of the war ending.
Epstein accusers implore Trump to ‘help us’
People identifying themselves as Epstein accusers are calling on Trump for his help in making public remaining documents in the case.
Taking the microphone one by one following the lawmakers in Washington, several women referenced Trump’s “power” and “influence,” calling on him to “help us, and let our voices be heard.”
The political clash over calls for releasing the files has flummoxed House Republican leadership and been a sticking point for the Trump administration.
Tensions boiled over in July when the Justice Department and FBI issued a two-page statement saying that they had concluded that Epstein did not possess a “client list,” even though Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated in February that such a document was sitting on her desk, and had decided against releasing any additional records from the investigation.
ACLU and White House react to Trump’s loss in Alien Enemies Act case
The appellate court agreed with immigrant rights lawyers and lower court judges who said the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 was not intended to be used against gangs such as Tren de Aragua, which Trump cited as justifying the deportation of Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison.
Lee Gelernt, who argued for the ACLU, said the use of “a wartime statute during peacetime to regulate immigration was rightly shut down by the court. This is a critically important decision reining in the administration’s view that it can simply declare an emergency without any oversight by the courts.”
To Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, it was another decision in which “unelected judges are undermining the will of the American people. This ruling will not be the final say on this matter. We are confident in our position, and we have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”
Trump gives Nawrocki a warm welcome with a jet flyover
The U.S. leader greeted his Polish counterpart at the South Portico of the White House with a hearty shoulder slap and exchange of big smiles.
The two stood side-by-side as four F-35 fighter jets flew over the White House, followed by another formation of four F-16s.
Trump and Nawrocki then went inside together.
Trump says Hamas must ‘IMMEDIATELY’ give back hostages
The president said in a post on his social media network that if Hamas gives back all 20 hostages the group is holding, “things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”
He did not offer any additional comment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks ‘sanctions, tariffs, any pressure’ on Russia
Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Ukrainian officials will “try to connect” with Trump to hear about new ways to increase pressure on Russia.
The Ukrainian leader, speaking at a news conference in Denmark, recalled how he and Trump had previously discussed ways the United States could put pressure on Russia to lead President Vladimir Putin to engage in political negotiations over the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy recalled that he’d asked Trump to put “sanctions, tariffs, any pressure” he could on Russia if Putin didn’t agree to a “diplomatic format of dialogue, not the dialogue by weapon.”
“When we speak about pressure, we mean air defense, we mean weapon deals, we mean drone production, and of course, of course, sanctions,” the Ukrainian leader said at a news conference alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “Such signals we gave (the) president of the United States. He said ‘couple of weeks’, and he will answer on this. ’Couple of weeks’, in my understanding, it’s two weeks or maximum three weeks. This Monday, two weeks ended.”
Attorney calls for careful redaction of remaining Epstein documents
Attorneys for some alleged victims of Epstein and Maxwell also appeared alongside the lawmakers in support of the discharge petition.
The lawyers, along with the lawmakers, stressed their view that pursuit of the release “is a nonpartisan issue.” Attorney Brittany Henderson implored authorities charged with redacting accusers’ names from anything that is ultimately released to protect identities of women who don’t want to be known publicly.
Just ahead of the news conference, women who identified themselves as victims in the case held their own news conference, calling for release of remaining documents. Some stood behind the attorneys and lawmakers as they spoke.
Along with Massie and Greene, fellow House Republicans Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina have also signed the discharge petition.
Khanna and MTG seek more GOP support for Epstein files release
A bipartisan set of House lawmakers has appealed to their colleagues to support a discharge petition that could force a House vote requiring the Department of Justice to release its Epstein files.
Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, of California, said Wednesday during a Washington news conference that four Republican representatives have joined the effort and that just two more GOP signatures are needed to cross the threshold for likely passage.
“There is something that is rotten in Washington,” Khanna said. “We’ve got to stop the partisanship on this issue.”
Khanna was joined by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Plans underway for a ‘midterm convention’ ahead of next fall’s congressional elections
House Speaker Mike Johnson says that when Trump called him recently to discuss the novel idea he thought: “That’s genius.”
The idea is to give Republicans a chance to make their case to voters, who tend to reject the party in power during midterm cycles. Republicans are struggling to hold onto their majority in Congress.
Besides, the speaker added, Trump “loves a big show.”
They’re working with Senate Republican Leader John Thune to make it happen.
“I think that’s a done deal now,” he said.
Putin says Trump is ‘not without a sense of humor’ after social media post
Russian President Vladimir Putin brushed off a social media post by Trump on Wednesday that said he was conspiring with the leaders of North Korea and China against the United States.
Asked about the post at a news conference in Beijing, the Russian leader told journalists, “The President of the United States is not without a sense of humor.”
“Over these four days, during negotiations of all kinds, both in formal and informal settings, no one has ever expressed any negative judgments on the current American administration,” Putin said.
Putin arrived in China on Sunday for a four-day visit. He took part in a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, held extensive talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as well as a number of bilateral meetings with other leaders, and attended a military parade marking 80 years since the end of World War II. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was also present at the parade. Kim and Putin held talks after the event.
Don’t call it the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’
House Republicans emerged from a private meeting with White House officials rebranding Trump’s signature bill: The Working Families Tax Cuts Act.
“We’re so excited about that,” Speaker Mike Johnson said after the meeting.
Polling shows Americans have panned the big bill. Half of U.S. adults expect the new tax law will help the rich, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Most — about 6 in 10 — think it will do more to hurt than help low-income people.
The Associated Press
