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(WASHINGTON) — Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis is calling on Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ranking Member Dick Dubin, D-Ill., to subpoena both Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden as part of an investigation into “the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment or access by domestic and foreign interests” that Curtis is urging the senators to open.

Curtis’ letter comes after he posted a video on X Friday saying that reports that Donald Trump Jr.’s two-day wedding afterparty in May had been funded by a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin “stink” and are “corruption.” He promised further action on the topic.

President Donald Trump said last week that his son had repaid the oligarch for the afterparty costs, though no evidence of that alleged repayment has been publicly offered.

“As I understand it, he paid them back. He didn’t want to have that, so I hear he paid them back. A person that he knows pretty, I guess a friend of his, gave him a wedding party. That’s very common,” the president said.

“The country should not have to accept one standard for the family of a Republican president and another for the family of a Democratic president. Nor should congressional oversight begin and end when control of the White House changes hands,” Curtis writes in the letter.

“I therefore respectfully request that the Senate Judiciary Committee launch an investigation into the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interests,” Curtis’ letter continued. “As part of that investigation, I urge the Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden to testify regarding their past business dealings, relationships with foreign individuals and entities, gifts, or other benefits they have received, and any instances in which their relationship to the President was invoked or understood to provide value.”

Hunter Biden, the youngest son of former President Joe Biden, has faced years of Republican and congressional scrutiny over unproven claims that he and his father, who was then vice president, allegedly pressured a Ukrainian oligarch to pay them millions of dollars to orchestrate the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who at the time was investigating Burisma, the energy company of which the oligarch was CEO. Hunter Biden sat on Burisma’s board at the time.

Sen. Durbin said Tuesday that he supports Curtis’ “good faith request” for the investigation.

“Corruption must never be tolerated,” Durbin said in a statement, in part. “To ignore this is to run the risk of being complicit. I will join in supporting Senator Curtis’ request of the Judiciary Committee.”

An ABC News request for comment sent to Sen. Grassley did not immediately receive a response.

Curtis is not a member of the Judiciary Committee and would not be involved in any vote to subpoena Hunter Biden or Donald Trump Jr. However, his is the most direct admonishment regarding recent reports concerning Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding that has come from any Republican on Capitol Hill.

In his letter, Curtis raises direct concerns both about Hunter Biden’s “substantial business with foreign entities … while his father held or sought public office” and about “the relationship of President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with foreign business figures and the acceptance of significant gifts.”

Curtis writes that concerns about Trump Jr.’s activities are “compounded” by his “promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting.”

“These reports raise legitimate questions about foreign access to members of a sitting president’s family and whether such relationships can create actual or perceived expectations of favorable treatment,” Curtis writes. “They also may create expectations of a returned favor that would not be in the best interests of the American people or our allies, and could even create national security vulnerabilities.”

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(WASHINGTON) — One Washington, D.C.-area waste collection company says the long-term agreements it has made with its customers means it can’t raise its rates fast enough to keep up with the rising cost of diesel fuel.

Marc Shaener, director of market development for JLT Trucking Inc., told ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze on Friday that rising diesel costs are costing the company $100,000 more per month for its fleet of more than 100 trucks.

“There’s no relief in sight,” Shaener said. “We can’t sustain it any longer, period, in that it’s going to detract from investment. It’s going to take away from our employees. It’s going to shrink business.”

Diesel prices have risen nearly 60% since the war with Iran began almost seven months ago. The average price of diesel hit a record high on Monday at around $6.49 per gallon, according to GasBuddy. The national average price sat near $3.70 a year ago.

Diesel prices rose 30.7 cents over the last week, according to GasBuddy, boosted by the flareup in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters today that the Navy is trying to push back against the Iranians “trying to terrorize international shipping.”

“We’re very cognizant of the fact that because the Iranians are terrorizing international shipping, energy prices are elevated,” Vance said. “We’re doing everything that we can to, one, try to clamp down on those prices, but give American people some relief in the interim.”

President Donald Trump has previously pointed to Ukraine’s attacks on energy infrastructure in Russia as driving up prices.

“Russia has unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry due to its War with Ukraine,” Trump posted on his social media platform on Monday. “A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission.”

Shaener said his fleet burns about 2,000 gallons of diesel a day to collect waste and recyclables in the D.C. and Baltimore region. He said he’ll now spend an extra $1.2 million a year on fuel.

“They rebounded so high and so fast that we can’t even change pricing fast enough to account for that cost,” Shaener said. 

He said JLT can’t increase its rates to keep up because its contracts usually adjust annually or every five years so it has been forced to absorb its higher costs. 

Shaener said his business is an economic indicator.

“When things go down, trash is the first to feel it. And we’re starting to feel it already,” he said. “People have budgets to hit. They can’t afford this, so they have to cut somewhere. They cut from the trash.”

Shaener said he feels like JLT’s employees and customers are political “pawns.”

“We have to tell our customers. We have to tell our employees. We have to tell our investors why we can’t do what we want, what we planned to do,” he said. “Why is that? That’s because someone somewhere is running a government that decided that they’re going to impact our industrial fuel economy.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The three news outlets banned from the White House by President Donald Trump on Monday filed a First Amendment lawsuit to restore their access.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico are seeking a temporary restraining order demanding the White House restore their reporters’ credentials after Trump announced the ban on Friday.

In a joint statement on Monday, the three news outlets said the lawsuit aims to “protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” the statement said.

Trump said in a social media post following the news on Monday that the barring of journalists was not “an assault on the Free Press” but instead “an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he claimed was a national security “threat.” 

Trump said in a post to social media on Friday, “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”

At an event in the Oval Office shortly after he posted his message, the president suggested there may be more restrictions on other outlets. Trump told reporters he supports a free press, but that “you need a fair and honest press.” 

“It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house,” Trump said.

Journalists from the three outlets were turned away from the White House over the weekend. A reporter from CNN said on air that she was told by a Secret Service agent that her badge had been deactivated. 

The three outlets are challenging the legality of the president’s ban on multiple fronts, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argues the ban violates the outlets’ reporters’ due process rights, that it unlawfully retaliates against their protected speech and that it violates the First Amendment by barring them from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons. 

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the news outlets wrote.

The lawsuit warns of a cascading effect for other news organizations should Trump seek to expand the scope of the ban, as he said he may do in his Friday remarks in the Oval Office. 

“The ban is already severely impeding the ability of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO to cover the President and his administration,” according to the lawsuit. “Every day, critically important news is breaking at the White House and in the press pool: President Trump is the commander in chief of a country at war; he is traveling to New York today to address the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow; he is meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday; and he is steering national policy on the ever-advancing technology of artificial intelligence. And the ban inflicts an injury on all news media organizations—who now risk a similar fate if they engage in reporting the President deems insufficiently favorable.” 

The five members of the White House TV pool — ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Fox News Media and CNN — issued a statement on the matter on Monday, saying, “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Vice President JD Vance on Monday pushed back on the notion that Trump’s actions constituted a ban, saying that the White House would not provide “special access” to outlets it deems are spreading “propaganda” against the president and his agenda. 

“He’s not banning media outlets. What he’s doing is saying we’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda,” Vance said.

Trump’s initial social media post said he was “banning” the news outlets.

Vance was pressed by pool reporters traveling to with him on how this is not an attack on the First Amendment. Vance said the outlets are still able to report on the White House — it’s just that they won’t be able to maintain what he called “special access” to the building. 

“Well, they can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports. They can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration. What the president has said is, ‘we’re not going to give you special access inside the White House,'” Vance said.

The civil case has been assigned to D.C. District judge Timothy Kelly, who in 2018 oversaw former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s lawsuit that similarly sought to restore his press pass.

At the time, Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee, ruled in Acosta’s favor after finding that the Trump White House did not afford him proper due process in revoking his credentials. 

The full D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court have yet to establish settled precedent in the wake of Trump’s earlier attempted ban on The Associated Press from being part of the press pool and attending certain White House events last year. 

While a D.C. District court judge backed the AP, a three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit put the ruling on hold and later wrote that “restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion.” 

Monday’s lawsuit is expected to cite a 1977 ruling in which the full D.C. Circuit found that the White House cannot arbitrarily deny a journalist a press pass without due process. 

“As the D.C. Circuit has long held, the interest that members of the press have in their White House hard passes is ‘protected by the first amendment’ and ‘undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment,'” the attorneys wrote, according to the court papers shared by Politico.

ABC News’ Fritz Farrow and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The three news outlets banned from the White House by President Donald Trump on Monday filed a First Amendment lawsuit to restore their access, according to a joint statement published by CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the outlets’ joint statement said.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” it added.

Trump said in a social media post following the news on Monday that the barring of journalists was not “an assault on the Free Press” but instead “an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he claimed was a national security “threat.” 

Trump said in a post to social media on Friday, “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”

At an event in the Oval Office shortly after he posted his message, the president suggested there may be more restrictions on other outlets. Trump told reporters he supports a free press, but that “you need a fair and honest press.” 

“It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house,” Trump said.

Journalists from the three outlets were turned away from the White House over the weekend. A reporter from CNN said on air that she was told by a Secret Service agent that her badge had been deactivated. 

The three outlets are challenging the legality of the president’s ban on multiple fronts, according to the lawsuit, a copy of which was shared in Politico’s morning Playbook newsletter on Monday.

According to the document, the lawsuit will argue the ban violates the outlets’ reporters’ due process rights, that it unlawfully retaliates against their protected speech and that it violates the First Amendment by barring them from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons. 

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the news outlets wrote.

The lawsuit warns of a cascading effect for other news organizations should Trump seek to expand the scope of the ban, as he said he may do in his Friday remarks in the Oval Office. 

“The ban is already severely impeding the ability of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO to cover the President and his administration,” according to the lawsuit. “Every day, critically important news is breaking at the White House and in the press pool: President Trump is the commander in chief of a country at war; he is traveling to New York today to address the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow; he is meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday; and he is steering national policy on the ever-advancing technology of artificial intelligence. And the ban inflicts an injury on all news media organizations—who now risk a similar fate if they engage in reporting the President deems insufficiently favorable.” 

The full D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court have yet to establish settled precedent in the wake of Trump’s earlier attempted ban on The Associated Press from being part of the press pool and attending certain White House events last year. 

While a D.C. District court judge backed the AP, a three-judge panel with the D.C. Circuit put the ruling on hold and later wrote that “restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion.” 

Monday’s lawsuit is expected to cite a 1977 ruling in which the full D.C. Circuit found that the White House cannot arbitrarily deny a journalist a press pass without due process. 

“As the D.C. Circuit has long held, the interest that members of the press have in their White House hard passes is ‘protected by the first amendment’ and ‘undoubtedly qualifies as liberty which may not be denied without due process of law under the fifth amendment,'” the attorneys wrote, according to the court papers shared by Politico.

ABC News’ Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that immigrants facing deportation to third countries must be given sufficient notice before being sent to nations where they have no ties.

The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit struck down a Department of Homeland Security policy that allowed the swift deportation of immigrants to third countries.

“An individual’s right to contest removal to a country based on a fear of persecution in that country means little if one does not receive prior notice of the intended removal destination and a meaningful opportunity to contest that destination,” wrote Circuit Judge Seth Aframe.

The ruling on Friday allows migrants to contest deportations to countries other than their place of origin.

According to the lawsuit, immigrants were routinely transferred to third countries with little to no notice when the administration cited “diplomatic assurances” that the receiving nation would not mistreat them.

ABC News previously interviewed a group of Latin American men who were deported to the Central African Republic and were not informed of their destination until several hours into the flight.

“I feel kidnapped,” one of the men, Aristides Fernandez Garcia, said. “They have violated all the rights that exist in life, because we are human beings.”

In recent months, the administration has expanded third-country deportations after securing formal deals with 35 countries, including Liberia, Ghana, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.

Savi Arvey, director of policy for refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First, said the U.S. has spent nearly $50 million on these deportation agreements.

“I think the fact that the administration is sending refugees to the most dangerous countries in the world, to countries run by corrupt autocrats where they’ve been arbitrarily detained and sent back to persecution and torture, shows that the administration has a complete disregard for due process, for international law and for human dignity,” Arvey said.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to visit the U.N. General Assembly next week, where he will address the international organization and meet with global leaders, according to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz.

Trump will address the assembly on Tuesday and then have meetings with global leaders, Waltz said. Most notably, the president will meet face-to-face with Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez in a pull-aside meeting.

It will be the first time that the leaders will meet since the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured then-President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year. It also comes weeks after Trump announced that the U.S. and Venezuela reached a deal that he said would give the U.S. majority control of billions of barrels of oil reserves in the Caribbean country.

Other leaders Trump will meet with include United Kingdom Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and, in a multilateral meeting, the leaders of Gulf countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Waltz.

On Trump’s meeting with the Gulf leaders, a senior administration official told reporters that the president will hear concerns from Gulf countries about the Iran war directly. 

“In one way or another, we expect the Iranian regime to abandon its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, so I think just continuing to have that engagement and that diplomacy with our Gulf partners in that meeting will be incredibly important,” the senior administration official said. “But also, as you all know, the president truly values hearing from them and hearing their concerns. His engagement with them is ongoing and important, but hearing from them as a group will be incredibly important.”  

The official said Iran would be a “key topic” in Trump’s conversations at the General Assembly.

Trump’s address to the U.N. on Tuesday will highlight how his administration has “confronted complex problems head-on,” Waltz said.

“We expect the president will highlight how he has, in his administration … confronted complex problems head-on around the world, many of the peace deals that he has driven to conclusion or is in the process of driving to conclusion,” Waltz told reporters.

“He will touch on the importance of ensuring that Iran never has a nuclear weapon, which is not only demanded by the United States, has been demanded by the U.N. Security Council and repeated resolutions, and he’ll talk about some of the United States’ accomplishments in over the past year, since the last time he was here, including in the Western Hemisphere, progress on the president’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza, and more,” Waltz added.

During his hourlong address at the General Assembly last year, Trump lambasted the leaders gathered in the conference hall, saying, “Your countries are going to hell,” while touting the work of his administration.

The president also accused the U.N. of not living up to its promise.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked. “It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Reporters for CNN, MS NOW and Politico say they were denied access to the White House grounds Saturday a day after President Donald Trump said the two news organizations and Politico were banned from the location.

“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” Trump said in a social media post Friday.

ABC News observed a CNN reporter and photographer being turned away from the White House security booth on Saturday.

The CNN photographer told ABC News that their passes were confiscated as he and the reporter exited the booth. The reporter flashed her now-empty ID card sleeve.

CNN later reported on air that a photographer and reporter were refused entry Saturday morning, with a reporter saying on CNN that she was told by a Secret Service agent that her badge had been deactivated. 

In a statement, CNN said that it has “a right under the U.S. Constitution to do our reporting without hindrance or interference from the government and this ban is an illegal assault on this fundamental right.”

MS NOW released a statement Saturday that said some of its journalists were barred from entering the White House grounds.

“MS NOW intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy,” the network said in a statement. “We stand firmly behind our anchors, our reporters, and our newsroom.”

An MS NOW correspondent reported on air shortly after being denied that one MS NOW producer was able to enter the grounds.

“I asked, ‘We are both with the same network’ and [Secret Service] took a look at their computer — the two officers — and they said they weren’t sure what was going on, but at the end of the day they had to take my badge because it was disabled,” she said.

Politico’s Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Greenberger put out a statement Saturday that said a reporter was denied entry to the White House by Secret Service and her press credentials were taken away.

“We stand by her and all reporters here covering the White House. As we said yesterday, we will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights,” he said in his statement.

The White House did not immediately comment about the reporters’ access being denied.

MS NOW, CNN and Politico had earlier pushed back against the president’s move and vowed to continue their coverage.

The president said restrictions on other outlets would follow. 

At an event in the Oval Office shortly after his post Friday, the president told reporters he supports a free press, but that “you need a fair and honest press.”

“It’s sick. I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stuff. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house,” Trump said.

In a statement Friday, CNN said it “stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting. We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

Politico said Friday it “will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.”

It also said that Trump’s claim Friday that the outlet received government subsidies “are false and have been thoroughly debunked.”

White House Correspondents Association President Jacqui Heinrich said in a statement Friday: “The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a ‘ban on the free press.'”

“This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office,” she wrote.

Trump said he decided to make the announcement on Friday citing “cumulative stories.”

It is still unclear what exactly the ban means in practical terms.

Trump insisted he’s not trying to intimidate the press. “No, no, no, no,” he said, reiterating “I like to see honest press.”

The White House tried to ban then-CNN reporter Jim Acosta during Trump’s first term. CNN sued to restore Acosta’s press credentials and the White House later dropped its effort.

Earlier in this term, the Trump White House banned The Associated Press from participating in the pool that covers the White House because it refused to comply with his edict renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. That case remains in litigation.

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(WASHINGTON) — Several hundred activists are expected to gather at the Kennedy Center on Friday in opposition to President Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of the presidential memorial and threats that he will close and demolish it.

Activists are expected to gather Friday evening to link hands and form a human chain outside the Washington venue, demanding Trump be removed as its chairman for failing to protect and manage it. Trump installed himself as chairman of the Kennedy Center last year after removing its previous leadership and replacing board members with his own appointees.

“The demonstration opposes the recent sudden closure of the facility, the installation of security fencing, and political efforts to alter or demolish portions of the presidential memorial,” the group said on its website.

The Hands Off the Arts organization behind the rally and protest said they expect hundreds of people to gather on the center’s steps for musical performances, testimonials and speeches before forming a human chain around the building. The group has held various protests outside the performing arts venue this year.

Earlier this week, Trump said the Kennedy Center could be “ripped down” if his administration doesn’t receive recognition on the performing arts center as tensions over his name being removed from the venue mount.

“I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition. Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close. It’ll end up being ripped down,” the president told reporters.

The activist coalition said its goal is to reclaim the Kennedy Center from “authoritarian overreach and protect other arts and cultural institutions from similar fates,” according to the group’s website. 

“This is not the Kennedy Center you know and love. It’s not the Kennedy Center you deserve,” the group said on its website. “We know what the Kennedy Center is meant to be, and can be again — the nation’s cultural center, active with life, joy, and incredible art.”

The group says it formed after leadership changes at the Kennedy Center in recent months. 

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days’ notice before making any major physical changes to the building, including demolishing it as Trump has threatened.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper issued the order after lawyers for Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the board, cited Trump’s warning that the center could be “ripped down” and submitted photographs appearing to show the Trump examining a placard labeled “Kennedy Center DEMOLISHED” on Wednesday night. The photos were taken Wednesday night through a cabin window on Air Force One.

The venue “cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper ruled. 

The judge earlier this week ruled that Trump’s name could not be added to the center’s exterior without congressional approval. The board previously placed his name on the facade, and removed it in June after an earlier ruling.

Trump has argued that the center is in poor condition and requires substantial government support to remain open.

“It’s in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape,” Trump said Wednesday. “You see steel falling down. You see plaster falling off ceilings. You see a lot of dangers.”

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