(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge on Friday denied the Department of Justice’s request to lift an order requiring the removal of President Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center.
The Trump administration still faces a deadline of Friday to remove Trump’s name from the building.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — As UFC fans descend on Washington, D.C., for Freedom 250 on Sunday and events surrounding it Friday and Saturday, security will also be strict, according to the top Secret Service agent for D.C.
UFC Freedom 250 has been designated a Special Event Assessment Review 1 event, like the Super Bowl, Indianapolis 500, Kentucky Derby and college football games, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Entrance to the South Lawn of the White House, where the UFC Octagon has been erected, is invitation-only for some 4,000 guests. The larger crowd will be watching on The Ellipse, outside the White House grounds.
The UFC Fan Fest and Watch Party on the Ellipse is free, but tickets are required and fans will have to pass through TSA-like screening, according to Tara McLeese, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office.
“Come early, don’t bring large bags, TSA-like security screening,” McLeese told ABC News.
Federal law prohibits flying drones in the airspace over the National Capital Region, so McLeese’s advice for fans is to “leave their drones at home.”
“We will have law enforcement drones for overwatch, but just to make it simple for the public, if they see a drone, we want them to report that,” she said.
The fight on the South Lawn and viewing on The Ellipse kick off a summer of events in the nation’s capital, many celebrating America’s 250th birthday.
“The public safety team here in the Washington, D.C., area is second to none. We have a lot of big events in D.C., and it’s very much a collaborative effort, a team effort here in D.C.,” McLeese said. The Secret Service is partnering with U.S. Park Police for security.
For the first time, the annual 4th of July fireworks display on the National Mall will be designated a National Special Security Event, with security levels on par with presidential inaugurations. The event is something Secret Service is also “very focused on,” McLeese said, adding that people attending the celebration will also have to pass through TSA-like screening.
In years past “you could just walk up and put a lawn chair and a blanket out. That will be different this year,” she said. “You won’t be able to just show up. There will be specific places, designated places to go through security before you can get on the Mall.”
The Secret Service uniformed division and agents have been involved in three shootings in the past two months — the first at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when a gunman allegedly attempted to get through the screening area with a firearm, the second in which a man allegedly fired on a unformed officer near the Washington Monument and then days later a man allegedly opened fire on uniformed officers over Memorial Day weekend.
“I can tell you that our workforce is training every day, that we are hyper-focused on ensuring that we are ready to respond to any type of threat or attack that comes our way,” McLeese said.
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(WASHINGTON) — The House and Senate on Thursday failed to pass last-minute, short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on Friday.
The House failed to pass a three-week extension of the spy program in a 198-218 vote, well short of the two-thirds majority needed. Nineteen House Republicans voted against the bill. Seven House Democrats voted in favor of it.
In the Senate, three separate efforts to unanimously pass short-term extensions of FISA authorities also failed.
The House and Senate are expected to now leave town as it grows increasingly likely that FISA’s legal authorization will lapse for the first time in the program’s history.
Efforts on Capitol Hill to renew FISA stalled after President Donald Trump tapped Bill Pulte to be acting director of national intelligence. Democrats in the House and Senate are opposed to Pulte, arguing the director of the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency does not have any national intelligence experience.
Pulte is also known in the Trump administration for launching probes into several of the president’s perceived political enemies over allegations of mortgage fraud and possible misuse of authority. Targets of the investigations include Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney GeneralLetitia James, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. They’ve all denied wrongdoing.
The Department of Justice had at one point investigated whether Pulte and his team were interfering in ongoing investigations. Pulte has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
“Today, we just offered a simple, clean, three-week extension of the FISA national security law. The Democrats, 199 of them, voted against a clean, three-week extension for political purposes,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the failed vote. “And when the bill went down, they applauded it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune led an effort to extend the program for one singular week until Pulte is installed to replace Tulsi Gabbard, who announced last month she was stepping down from the post.
“This is a program that saves American lives. And I have to ask the question: I can’t for the life of me figure out why the Democrats continue to support policies that make this country less safe,” Thune said.
House Minority Hakeem Jeffries called Thursday’s vote a “show vote” from Republicans.
“Bill Pulte has no national security experience, no law enforcement experience and no military experience,” Jeffries said. “So, it is highly irresponsible to try to elevate Bill Pulte, as we’ve made publicly clear repeatedly to Republicans and to the administration.”
Speaker Johnson met with Trump twice this week to try to hammer out a FISA deal.
Trump on Wednesday repeated his praise for Pulte, who will take over as intelligence chief for Tulsi Gabbard following her resignation, despite the challenges his temporary appointment presented for FISA.
“He’s going to do a good job,” Trump told reporters. “He’s going to be there for a very short period of time. He will be superseded and replaced by somebody that’s going to have the job permanently.”
Trump on Thursday afternoon, after the FISA votes failed on Capitol Hill, announced a new permanent pick for director of national intelligence: Jay Clayton.
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a permanent pick to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, after the uproar over his temporary pick risked derailing the renewal of a key surveillance law.
Trump said that he is nominating the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to head the intelligence agency.
“I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Trump’s announcement comes after both the House and Senate earlier Thursday failed to pass extensions of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire at the end of the day Friday.
The reauthorization of the spy program was muddied by Trump’s choice of Bill Pulte to serve as acting director after Tulsi Gabbard announced her resignation. Pulte drew bipartisan concern on Capitol Hill over his lack of previous experience in national security and intelligence.
ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Trump on Thursday about Pulte continuing to serve as acting director given his lack of intelligence experience.
“He’s only there for a little while. He’s running it for a short while we get a very talented person, Jay Clayton, in,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
Apart from the national security cases he oversaw while serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Clayton also lacks experience in intelligence gathering and national security matters.
Clayton spent the bulk of his career as a corporate attorney, and prior to his appointment as U.S. attorney last year, lacked meaningful experience in criminal matters.
He has spent the last year overseeing one of the country’s highest profile federal prosecutor’s offices — focusing on drugs, gangs, immigration and fraud cases — and was also tapped to lead an investigation that Trump directly called for into high-profile Democrats such Bill Clinton, Larry Summers and Reid Hoffman’s alleged associations with Epstein. Nothing appears to have resulted from that investigation, and earlier this year acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department did not have any active cases into Epstein associates.
Clayton also oversaw the unsealing of grand jury materials related to Epstein, prompting complaints from victims about the disclosure of their sensitive personal information. The Justice Department’s push to unseal those materials resulted in little new information about the investigations into Epstein and was criticized by judges as a largely performative effort while the DOJ refused to release their own materials.
Clayton’s office has brought the first two prosecutions of insider trading on prediction markets, including cases against a special forces soldier and Google employee, putting his office at the center of the debate about how to govern the sites that critics say are rife with insider trading.
Clayton was never confirmed by the Senate as U.S. attorney, though his nomination was approved by the federal judges in the district and was seen by many as a steady hand to lead the high-profile office. He was, however, the subject of criticism earlier this week when he appeared on CNBC and opined about baseless claims of election fraud in California.
“There’s a great phrase, ‘opportunity for fraud,'” Clayton said, criticizing the state’s mail-in voting laws.
Clayton spent most of his career at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where he represented hedge funds, wealthy investors, large banks and massive corporations such as Deutsche Bank, UBS and Alibaba Group. Clayton represented Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis and Barclays when it purchased Lehman Brothers’ assets out of bankruptcy.
During Trump’s first administration, Clayton led the SEC, cracking down on cryptocurrencies and winning $14 billion in monetary remedies, including returning $3.5 billion to investors. While he championed the “long-term interests of the Main Street investor,” Clayton also pushed deregulations — such as removing the requirement that hedge funds publish stock positions and loosening the rules for corporate auditors — that critics said weakened investor protections.
While Clayton generally avoided the political spotlight while at the SEC, a June 2020 proposal to nominate Clayton to serve as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York briefly resulted in political turmoil. The sitting U.S. attorney, Geoffrey Berman, refused to leave his post after then-Attorney General Bill Barr announced he would be replaced by Clayton. The standoff was resolved with Berman’s deputy taking over the position, and Clayton continued to lead the SEC.
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a new permanent pick to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Trump said that he is nominating the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to head the intelligence agency.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — The House on Thursday failed to pass a last-minute, short-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on Friday.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — Soon after President Donald Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday that the United States has been secretly ferrying “millions of barrels” of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump announced on social media that “more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil” and “more than 200 Commercial Ships” have successfully traveled through the strait.
“Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that this effort has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil making its way through the Straight, and into the Open Market. More than 200 Commercial Ships have safely traveled through the Strait.”
The president referred to it as a “secret mission” that he says was conducted last month amid the ongoing war with Iran, which has led the strait to be closed to regular commercial shipping.
ABC News could not immediately verify the accuracy of Trump’s claims and the numbers of oil barrels and ships that he claims have passed through the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier Wednesday, in the Oval Office, Trump alluded to apparent U.S. operations to stimulate shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with Trump claiming that the U.S. recently “took” 22 ships, amounting to millions of barrels of oil, through the strait.
“Do you know, we’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until right now. We took out the other night 22 ships late at night with no lights, because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it,” Trump said.
In his post Wednesday afternoon, Trump referred to the alleged operation as a “wildly successful effort” that is due to the U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz.
“This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran,” Trump wrote.
Since last month, there have been reports of the U.S. Navy helping ships navigate through the Strait of Hormuz — though U.S. officials have said that the efforts have not been a revival of Project Freedom, the short-lived U.S. military initiative to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump announced Project Freedom in early May — pausing the effort just two days later.
Rather, this most recent effort was a coordination effort where shippers could contact U.S. Central Command and in turn, receive information about where to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, according to a U.S. official.
The coordination effort was first reported by The New York Times.
ABC News confirmed the Times’ report that, as of late last month, approximately 70 commercial ships had been guided through the strait. In addition to the U.S. coordinating safe passageways, the Times reported that many of the vessels traveling through the strait had turned off their transponders to “avoid detection.”
During the Oval Office event earlier Wednesday afternoon, Trump had also indicated that he was choosing to reveal this “secret” mission now because the Iranians had “figured it out.”
“But now I’m going to tell you, because they just figured it out. So now that they figured it out, I can tell you it was very hard for me. I wanted to say it so bad, but it was. I didn’t want to ruin it, but it was very hard,” Trump said.
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(WASHINGTON) — To complete Donald Trump’s “Triumphal Arch” by the time he leaves office, the National Park Service plans to have construction take place 20 hours per day over the next two to three years, according to planning documents released by the Department of the Interior.
The National Park Service last week released designs, renderings and reports related to the planned arch as it seeks public comment about the controversial addition to the D.C. skyline.
“Because the Arch is intended to celebrate 250 years of American independence. … smaller heights were not considered representative of this milestone, unlike the 250-foot Arch proposed in the undertaking,” one of the reports said about the size of the project.
The project is being challenged in federal court, though lawsuits challenging the arch, and other projects like Trump’s White House Ballroom, planned golf course renovations and the repainting and sealing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have so far been unsuccessful in stopping work.
Current designs call for the massive arch to be constructed out of concrete and clad with U.S.-sourced granite — a departure from some of the older D.C. monuments which are constructed from marble or limestone. According to planning documents, construction workers will require multiple cranes up to 320-feet tall — taller than the U.S. Capitol building — and other heavy construction equipment, including concrete pumps, forklifts, skid steers and other tools.
Because the monument will sit near the complicated flight paths for D.C.’s Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), architects included “aviation required safety lighting” into the design of the arch, using the “least intrusive technology available” to minimize light pollution, according to planning documents.
The FAA recently completed a feasibility study about the arch and concluded it would have “no significant adverse effect on airspace and visual/instrument procedures” for the airport and that it would only require red obstruction lights.
“Career safety experts found no adverse impacts to operations at DCA. Their review determined the only requirement would be the top of the structure would need to be lit with red obstruction lights — a common safety tool,” an FAA spokesperson said in a statement, adding that it will next conduct a full aeronautical study with the National Park Service.
According to the documents, the project will include seven phases of construction over a two-to-three-year period. After workers excavate the site, construction would involve about five months of “continuous heavy equipment operations” to drive the foundation system down about 75 feet to bedrock. The NPS report estimated that removing material for the foundation would require about 30 trucks to move 100 loads of soil per day for months.
Once the foundation is completed, workers plan to spend about 10 months constructing the primary concrete structure of the arch and then affix granite panels to the concrete.
“Work would occur year-round, with work occurring in two 10-hour shifts per day (20 hours per day, year-round) for the duration of the construction period,” a NPS report said.
Around the same timeframe, construction workers will begin to assemble the inner structure of the arch, including stairs, elevators, roofing, plumbing, and electrical work. After about two years of work, plans call for a 300-foot mobile crane to be used to install a gold statue atop the arch.
The National Park Service said the construction would likely result in significant traffic disruptions around the Arlington Memorial Bridge.
The design for the arch has not yet been approved by the National Capital Planning Commission. During a hearing last week, the commission asked the Trump administration to address a series of issues with their design, though Trump falsely claimed the design had been approved.
A group of Vietnam veterans also sued over the arch earlier this year and are asking a federal judge to block the construction, arguing the arch should be approved by Congress.
“With every passing day, Defendants’ arch moves closer to construction,” they wrote in a recent court filing.
The Trump administration has argued that a 100-year-old statute related to the building of the nearby Arlington Memorial Bridge authorizes construction of the arch. Department of Justice lawyers have also argued that the plaintiffs lack standing and that the lawsuit is premature.
“Forcing such disclosures of internal deliberations — before NPS has concluded its decision-making process — would ‘wreak havoc’ on the Executive Branch,” DOJ lawyers wrote in a court filing.
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(WASHINGTON) — Closely watched primaries in four states on Tuesday showed a resounding victory for a Democrat who was facing some controversies but amassed much popular support, the continued strength of President Donald Trump’s endorsement, and set up a key governor’s race in November.
Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s primaries:
Platner triumphant in Maine even amid controversies
Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and military veteran, is slated to take on longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election for the U.S. Senate in Maine, romping to victory in the primary even amid multiple controversies.
That included a late-breaking controversy from a New York Times report last Thursday that some of the Army veteran’s former girlfriends said that his actions could be “intimidating and disturbing.”
Platner denied allegations of being physically intimidating towards former partners, and said after the story broke that he had been open to Mainers about his past, and that it had never crossed his mind to drop out of the race.
Tuesday night’s results showed Maine Democrats rallying behind Platner, as he romped to a projected victory in the primary with almost 75% of the vote as of late Tuesday. While Maine Gov. Janet Mills was also on the ballot, she had suspended her campaign weeks ago and appeared on track to get less than a fifth of the vote.
“Over the last nine months I have seen Mainers come together behind a vision to take back our power from corporations and billionaires,” Platner told supporters on Tuesday night.
Platner’s win gives Democrats an everyman candidate who has been able to attract huge crowds and support.
But he and other Democrats now face months of a general election campaign where Republicans say they will bring up Platner’s controversies every chance they get, both to strike at Platner and to hound Democrats over supporting someone who the GOP says goes against values Democrats claim to support.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), for instance, shared a digital ad right as polls closed in Maine that called Collins “a senator we can be proud of” and portrayed Platner as out-of-touch and scandal-ridden.
But Platner will have the Democratic establishment backing him, too. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both of New York, wrote on Tuesday night, “Over the past year, we have created a path to win a Democratic Senate majority and put a stop to the chaos and damage of the Trump administration by defeating the Republicans who enable his harmful agenda. … In November, Maine voters will elect Graham Platner, and we will win a Senate majority.”
Trump candidate advances in South Carolina while one who defied him doesn’t
Most of the U.S. House and governor candidates Trump endorsed in the 2026 cycle have won their primaries, even when Trump endorsed against established incumbents. In South Carolina’s Republican primary for governor, Trump’s endorsement was again on the ballot, as the president had endorsed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette — snubbing two U.S. representatives running for the seat, Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman.
And the power of Trump’s endorsement was borne out again, to an extent, as ABC News projected that Evette and state Attorney General Alan Wilson will advance to a June 23 runoff in the Republican governor’s primary.
While Trump’s endorsed candidate did not win outright, that might not be a shock, given the sheer number of prominent candidates running and South Carolina’s runoff rules, in which the top two candidates go to a runoff if no one gets more than half of the vote.
Mace, who overall is a staunch supporter of the president, had voted for the release of files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in defiance of Trump’s wishes. Some observers had seen Trump’s snub of Mace’s gubernatorial bid as another example of his political vengeance against lawmakers who opposed him, although Trump did not mention Mace in his endorsement of Evette.
“I voted to release the Epstein files and lost some support for that,” Mace said during remarks on Tuesday night, where she conceded the gubernatorial race without mentioning Trump.
Evette, on the campaign trail, had promoted her own conservative bona fides and strongly pushed for the state to redraw its congressional districts, a move Republican state legislators ended up rejecting.
A toss-up match set for governor in Nevada
While the candidates who won Nevada’s primaries for governor were not surprising in and of themselves, the results on Tuesday set up what’s likely going to be one of the most closely watched gubernatorial elections this fall.
Republican incumbent Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is running for a second term and has Trump’s endorsement, cruised to a projected victory in his primary, while Democrats nominated Aaron Ford, the state’s Attorney General, as their candidate.
Democrats have said they think Lombardo is the most vulnerable governor up for reelection during the 2026 cycle. They’ve argued that voters impacted by rising prices and Latino voters in the state who are souring on the Trump administration will turn against him.
Republicans, meanwhile, have argued that Lombardo is the best choice to continue leading the Silver State. The Nevada Republican Party wrote in September that Lombardo “has shown he’s a true champion for Nevada families and our conservative values. As Sheriff, he kept our communities safe, and now as Governor, he’s battling against the Democrats’ radical agenda.”
The Cook Political Report rates the seat as “Toss Up,” meaning it could be anyone’s game come November.
ABC News’ Jared Kofsky, Clarissa Gonzalez, and Juhi Doshi contributed to this report.
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(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Tuesday urged a federal judge to reject a lawsuit seeking to stop the White House’s Ultimate Fighting Championship event scheduled for this weekend, attacking its plaintiffs as “two people who believe they have superior taste and want to spoil the event for everyone else.”
In a filing Tuesday evening, the department argued the lawsuit brought by two Virginia residents lacks any reasonable standing while describing the timing of the filing as “inexcusable” given the event was first announced nearly a year ago.
“It would be easy enough to simply avert their gazes for the weekend. Instead, they seek to enlist the power of a federal court to impose their idiosyncratic preferences on the rest of the country and ruin an event designed to celebrate the United States of America,” the department said. “No one is holding Plaintiffs in a jiu jitsu lock, forcing them to watch UFC Freedom 250 against their will. The public interest does not favor allowing them to exercise a heckler’s veto, particularly at this late date.”
In a lawsuit filed this weekend, the Public Integrity Project — representing a political activist and Vietnam veteran — claimed the event was improperly permitted, skipped an environmental review, and is an extraordinary use of public land to benefit President Donald Trump and his allies.
Calling the event “deeply corrupt,” the lawsuit alleged that the Trump administration improperly used a temporary rule for “America 250” to bypass the permitting requirements normally required to host events on National Park Service land. They argue that because the event is being organized by a private entity, not the federal government, and is not explicitly “for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American Independence,” the fight does not qualify for that temporary rule.
In its filing, the Trump administration described the UFC fight as “one of the most highly anticipated events” in a series of others intended to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States, at one point likening it to the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn and the Congressional Picnic.
At the same time, the filing highlights the extraordinary collaboration between the government and the UFC in preparing for the event, citing “well over $60 million and tens of thousands of hours of labor” that “have been expended” in order to carry it out.
“More than 4,000 spectators are expected to attend on the South Lawn, including more than 1,000 members of our armed services, and more than 120,000 visitors are expected to watch from the nearby Ellipse after winning free tickets in a lottery,” the filing said. “Fourteen world-class athletes, who have been training for months, have traveled from all over the world to compete (including for two world championships).”
The filing continued: “All these hopes could be dashed at the very last moment, however, by the whim of two people who believe they have superior taste and want to spoil the event for everyone else.”
The government has informed the judge overseeing the case, Amit Mehta, that counsel is available on Thursday in the event he wishes to schedule oral arguments.
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