(SANA’A, Yemen) — President Donald Trump announced he ordered the U.S. military to launch “decisive and powerful military action” against the Houthis in Yemen.
“They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social. “We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”
A U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that U.S. air and naval assets hit dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen, including missiles, radars and drone and air defense systems. The official characterized the attacks as an opening salvo against the Houthis and sends a strong message to Iran.
A spokesman for Yemen’s ministry of health said at least nine people have been killed in the strikes and another nine injured. He said most of the casualties were civilians, and the number of those killed and injured will be updated as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
The strikes are the largest and most significant military action that Trump has taken in his second term.
The Houthi attacks were carried out by fighter jets from the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, now in the northern Red Sea, as well as Air Force attack planes and armed drones launched from bases in the region, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Trump approved the plan on Friday, the source added.
The strikes Saturday are the result of several high-level White House meetings this week with Trump and top national security aides, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Michael E. Kurilla.
The attacks could intensify in scope and scale depending on the Houthi reaction, a source familiar with the plan said.
The source stressed this is not expected to be a single day event and said that “this will be decisive.”
Earlier in March, the Houthis warned they would resume attacking shipping vessels if Israel’s blockade of aid in Gaza continued.
Trump also had a stark message for Iran, writing that its support for the Houthis must end “immediately.” The president redesignated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization via an executive order in first days in office.
In a message to the Houthis, Trump threatened that if the attacks don’t stop, then “hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before.”
The Biden administration also conducted multiple strikes against the Houthis as they disrupted international shipping lanes in the Red Sea with attacks.
The last U.S. airstrike in Yemen against the Houthis occurred on Jan. 8, while former President Joe Biden was still in office, when a precision strike targeted two underground ammunition bunkers. There had been no other airstrikes since then partly because the Houthis stopped attacking ships during the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.
Trump slammed his predecessor, writing, “Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going.”
Since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, causing disruptions to global trade through one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Houthi rebels had initially framed their attacks as a way to pressure Israel to stop the war that was launched following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. But as shippers began to avoid the regions of the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, the rebel strikes still continued.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Following the Department of Education’s gutting of nearly 50% of its workforce Tuesday evening, educators have expressed deep concern — not only for students’ futures but for their own as well.
Tara Kini, chief of policy and programs at the Learning Policy Institute, told ABC News on Friday the job cuts will have “huge impacts” on teachers.
She pointed to the loss of federal money that previously funded teacher training programs as particularly devastating, especially for programs for teachers of special needs, marginalized and multilingual students.
“The fact that those grants will be able to go out the door means that we’re going to have fewer teachers trained, particularly for high-need subject areas where there are shortages all over the country,” she said.
“We will lose counselors, social workers, behavior specialists — people who ensure safety and stability for students who need it most,” Robert Castleberry, a fifth grade teacher in Kansas and the American Federation of Teachers’ Kansas secretary, said in a statement to ABC News.
“I hope this change by the government doesn’t set educators back years while our states are working to try and figure out how to distribute all those funds,” said Michael Brix, an instructor at the Peoria Public Schools’ Woodruff Career and Technical Center in Illinois and a member of the Peoria Federation of Teachers.
As President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order proposing to return education power to states, senior Department of Education officials stressed the massive reforms on Tuesday are going to help the department get funding to states in a more cost-efficient way.
“What we are doing now is not working,” the officials said. “It’s just not, so it’s time for change and that’s what’s starting tonight.”
But Kini said the cuts this will exacerbate preexisting issues of teacher shortages and lack of funding that has already been prevalent in America.
“Our schools are already grossly underfunded in Connecticut,” said Jennifer Graves, special education teacher in New Haven, Connecticut, and vice president of New Haven Federation of Teachers. “We are really, really struggling already and constantly working in a deficit model to support not only general education students but especially our most vulnerable populations — our multilingual learners and our students with disabilities.”
As a result, teachers could become more overworked and struggle to accommodate student demands, with Kini speculating that classes could get combined and offer less individualized attention.
“Or they may cut some courses like electives altogether because they don’t have teachers to teach it,” she continued. “They may staff classes with substitute teachers or long-term substitute teachers … who aren’t trained for the job, and none of those options are good for student learning.”
Mike Carvella, a third grade math and science teacher in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, told ABC News during a rally on Friday how students with individualized education plans, or IEPs, can be denied by private schools, causing them to flood the public school system and subsequently affect teachers.
“That’s going to put more kids with IEPs into more underfunded public schools and put more pressure on public school teachers and public school districts to educate kids who are already marginalized and already have learning problems,” he said.
Kini noted the coronavirus pandemic in which teachers faced shortages and were forced to pick up “more of the burden” while simultaneously juggling their own responsibilities.
She also emphasized how vital federal funding programs are for allocating resources to marginalized students.
“The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds teacher training and professional development for special education teachers, and that’s a huge chunk of federal funding that’s going to be impacted. It’s going to impact the numbers of special education positions,” Kini said. “The same is true for Title 1 funding for low-income students and Title 3 funding for multilingual students.”
IDEA is a law that ensures free public education to children with disabilities, including special education and other resources.
The DOE promised that it would continue delivering all statutory programs, including funding for special needs and disadvantaged students, formula funding, student loans and Pell Grants for low-income students.
Yet sources told ABC News that most of the reduction in force affected the Offices for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid, effectively terminating many of the department’s employees who are tasked with investigating discrimination within schools and helping the nation’s students achieve higher education.
Kini spoke to the job cuts at OCR, emphasizing that students will not be protected from unlawful discrimination and explaining how this would consequently force teachers to pick up an additional responsibility and “play more of that watchdog role.”
When asked about the future of teaching, Kini expressed a bleak outlook over the likelihood of young people seeking to pursue education as a career.
“It would be a little bit of speculation there, but I think it would be a reasonable conclusion for a young person today to look at what’s happening with the uncertainty in education, and particularly with the cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, and say, ‘You know what? That doesn’t seem like a stable career choice for me right now,'” Kini said.
Jim Ward, a retired educator and retired National Education Association employee who traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., for Friday’s #EDMatters Rally outside the department’s headquarters, emphasized to ABC News how students remain the most important priority.
“All the dedicated educators that are here today are serving in those classrooms because they care about the needs of every single student, not just the ones that look like them — although their workforce is quite diverse, too — which you might not see in some of the more exclusive private schools,” Ward said.
Lori Stratton of Kansas also attended the rally, telling ABC News how “meaningful” it was for her to be present on Friday.
“I’ve been a teacher for 34 years. Most of my sons are in education. My husband’s in education. Most of my family’s in education. This is our business. You know, we are believers,” she said. “We have dedicated our lives to supporting students in public schools, and I feel like it’s an American value. I feel like there is not a bigger democratic American value than supporting education.”
(WASHINGTON) — Hours after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in anticipation of the president invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from deporting plaintiffs for two weeks.
The judge also set a hearing for Saturday at 5 p.m.
Although there has been no announcement of the act being invoked, the lawsuit claimed the ACLU and other representing parties have reason to believe President Donald Trump has invoked “or will imminently invoke” the Alien Enemies Act to speed up the administration’s mass deportation goals and target the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang.
As early as Friday, Trump was expected to soon invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation, as part of the efforts to carry out mass deportations, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The ACLU is representing five plaintiffs it believes have been moved to detention centers in Texas intended to be “staging facilities to remove Venezuelan men under the AEA,” court documents show. Four of the five plaintiffs have been accused of being members of Tren de Aragua.
The ACLU claims they have been wrongfully accused of being gang members, some seemingly only based on their tattoos, despite the fact that some are seeking protection in the United States from the same gang they’re now accused of being a part of.
The AEA states that it can only be invoked when there is a war with or an invasion by a foreign government or nation. It allows the president to order all citizens of that foreign nation who are not naturalized in the U.S. to be arrested and removed “as alien enemies.”
In essence, members of that hostile nation could be swiftly removed from the country with little to no due process.
The ACLU argues that the government would be illegally invoking the act to target alleged members of Tren de Aragua because the gang is not a nation and there is no invasion as outlined by U.S. law.
“The Trump administration’s intent to use a wartime authority for immigration enforcement is as unprecedented as it is lawless. It may be the administration’s most extreme measure yet, and that is saying a lot,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel.
The Department of Defense is not expected to have a role in the invoking of the authority, which could be used to deport some migrants without a hearing.
There have been discussions inside the administration about invoking the act, multiple sources said.
Trump had previously said on the campaign trail that he planned to invoke the act.
The act hasn’t been used since World War II, when it was used to detain Japanese Americans.
During World War II, the Alien Enemies Act was partially used to justify the internment of Japanese immigrants who had not become U.S. citizens. The broader internment of Japanese-Americans was carried out under executive orders signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and not the Alien Enemies Act since the law does not apply to U.S. citizens.
ABC News’ Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday suspending security clearances of Mark Pomerantz and those who work at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The order also restricts government access to lawyers and employees at the New York-based law firm.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to suspend security clearances held by individuals at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Paul Weiss) pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
Pomerantz oversaw the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s investigation into Trump and his business practices.
Notably, the executive order was signed the same day that Trump spoke at the Department of Justice, where he attacked those who prosecuted him.
The new executive order is the third time Trump has taken action against a law firm. On Wednesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked parts of Trump’s executive order targeting Perkins Coie, ruling the order was unconstitutional.
The language in this executive order mirrors that of the order that targeted Perkins Coie.
Judge Beryl Howell said the actions being taken by the Trump administration targeting these firms are “terrifying” to the legal community and noted that the DOJ’s arguments in support sent “chills down my spine.”
This firm also has other high-profile Democrats among its ranks, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Homeland Security Secretary Jey Johnson, and was among the biggest donors to Democrats and former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.
“The executive order is focused on the activities of Mark Pomerantz, who retired from the firm in 2012 and went on to work at the District Attorney’s office nearly a decade later,” Paul Weiss said in a statement to ABC News. “Mr. Pomerantz has not been affiliated with the firm for years. The terms of a similar order were enjoined as unconstitutional earlier this week by a federal district court judge.
ABC News’ Alexander Mallin and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tussled with reporters Friday, pushing back against the notion that the Democratic Party is fractured as some Senate Democrats, including their leader, were on the cusp of joining Republicans to avert a government shutdown.
“Is it time for new leadership in the Senate?” a reporter asked.
“Next question,” Jeffries answered, notably withholding his public support for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“There are some colleagues of yours here in the House that are feeling betrayed. Is that what you’re feeling right now?” another reporter asked.
“The vote hasn’t happened yet,” Jeffries said.
“Have you lost confidence in him — since you guys see this so differently?” a reporter asked.
“Next question,” Jeffries repeated, dismissing the biting query.
“None of you are willing to say at this point that you have confidence in Chuck Schumer as leader?” Rachael Bade, an ABC News contributor and Politico’s Capitol bureau chief and senior Washington columnist, asked.
“You keep engaging in these parlor games because you want to take the focus off the American people,” Jeffries dodged.
It was a common strategy from Jeffries, who repeatedly rejected attempts from reporters to learn more about the divisions between House Democrats and Schumer, who announced Thursday that he would vote to keep the government open.
Schumer’s announcement has been met with full-throated criticism from House Democrats, who were powerless to block Republicans from passing the measure earlier this week.
“House Democrats are here. We’re ready to pass a four week spending bill that keeps the government open and will allow the House and the Senate to negotiate an actual agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” Jeffries, D-N.Y., said. “But we do not support a bill that is designed to hurt the American people that Donald Trump and far right extremist Republicans are trying to jam down the throats of everyday Americans.”
Jeffries continued to push for a month-long stop-gap measure, holding out hope that Senate Democrats will stop the bill from passing and appropriators will reconvene bipartisan negotiations.
“We’ll see what happens over in the Senate, there are still undecided and undeclared senators, and we anxiously await that vote,” Jeffries said.
As the caucus melts down internally over Schumer’s decision, House Democratic leaders returned to the Capitol fired up Friday morning following their caucus retreat in Leesburg, Virginia this week.
“What the American people need to know is that House Democrats are willing to work in a bipartisan way to keep government open for 30 days,” House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said. “That’s all we want. That’s our solution.”
While Schumer’s influence over his caucus remains to be seen ahead of the planned vote this afternoon, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark also dismissed the so-called “parlor game” dividing the Democratic Party — and downplayed Schumer’s national celebrity and influence – even though he’s served in the Senate for a quarter century and been the party leader since 2017.
“Most American people, they can’t name us. They don’t know who Chuck Schumer is, but they do know what this administration and Elon Musk and the GOP are planning for them,” Clark, D-Mass., said.
When asked if he’s afraid to say if he has confidence in Schumer, Jeffries grew defensive if not outright angry.
“Do not characterize my remarks. I am not afraid about anything, anything. I was very clear that we look forward to working with every single one of our Senate Democratic colleagues, every single one of them to push back against the Trump administration,” Jeffries said on-camera, leaving the newser in a gaggle with reporters.
“Do you think this is what the American people care about right?” Jeffries quipped, when pressed again on his confidence in Schumer.
(WASHINGTON) — Ten Senate Democrats provided the necessary votes to allow the House-approved government funding bill to advance on Friday afternoon, setting the government funding bill on a glide path to final passage before a deadline at the end of the day Friday.
In a test vote, the Senate voted 62 to 38 to advance the bill — with 60 votes needed to advance it. Democrats voted with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to keep the funding bill moving forward, despite blowback from other members of their party.
While the test vote wasn’t on the final passage of the funding bill, it’s an indicator of how the final vote will go. With the passage of the key procedural hurdle, it’s almost certain to eventually pass.
The vote comes after Schumer took to the Senate floor Friday morning to defend his decision to support the Republican short-term funding bill — a move that has drawn criticism from other Democrats.
His surprise reversal, first announced Thursday evening — a day after he said he and Democrats would try to block the bill — means there will almost certainly be enough Democratic votes to advance the measure to a final Senate vote Friday just hours before the shutdown deadline.
“As everyone knows, government funding expires at midnight tonight. As I announced yesterday, I will vote to keep the government open. I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer said Friday.
He said he believes the short-term funding bill — or continuing resolution — is a “bad bill” but said he believes if the government were to shut down, it would be a far worse outcome for the country.
“The CR is a bad bill. But as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” Schumer said.
Schumer said he believes a government shutdown would mean President Donald Trump and Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would have even more authority to “destroy vital government services at a much faster rate.”
He said they would also have the power to determine which federal employees are considered essential — potentially giving them more power to lay off or fire more government workers and shutter federal agencies.
“A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. Let me repeat, a shutdown will allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, state and country,” he said. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate than they can right now and over a much broader field of destruction that they would render.”
He continued, “In a shutdown, Donald Trump and DOGE will have the power to determine what is considered essential and what is not and their views on what is not essential would be mean and vicious and would decimate vital services and cause unimaginable harm to the American people.”
“Musk has told everybody he wants a shutdown because he knows it will help him achieve his horrible goal of just decimating the federal government from one end to the other. In other words, if government were to shut down, DOGE has a plan in place to exploit the crisis for maximum destruction,” Schumer said.
“A shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for,” he added.
Schumer also defended some of his Senate Democratic colleagues who have come out opposed to the short-term funding bill. He acknowledged the tough decisions they as a caucus had to weigh.
“Our caucus members have been torn between two awful alternatives, and my colleagues and I have wrestled with which alternative would be worse for the American people,” Schumer said.
Trump praised Schumer in a post on his social media platform on Friday, saying it took “guts” for the New York senator to signal his support for the GOP bill.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning,” Trump wrote.
Two separate letters were sent to Schumer on Friday, urging senators to reject the GOP continuing resolution — one from freshman California Rep. Derek Tran and the second from Ranking Member of House Appropriations Committee Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.
Rep. Tran’s letter, which has 66 signatures so far and is addressed directly to Schumer, states that “as members of the House Democratic Caucus, we write to express our strong opposition to the passage of a partisan continuing resolution that potentially legitimizes President Trump and the Republican party’s dismantling of government.”
“We urge you to reject the partisan continuing resolution coming before the Senate and stand with the American people in opposing these draconian Republican cuts. All parties must come back to the negotiating table and work across party lines to keep the government open in a responsible way,” the lawmakers wrote.
Rep. DeLauro’s letter, which came from Democratic lawmakers on the Appropriations Committee, echoed similar sentiments.
“As members of the House Committee on Appropriations, we urge our Democratic colleagues in the Senate to reject the partisan and harmful continuing resolution that will only serve to enable President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republican Party’s ongoing efforts to unilaterally and unlawfully destroy the agencies and programs that serve the American people,” the appropriators said.
“We urge all Senate Democrats to stand with House Democrats and with the American people, reject this continuing resolution,” they added.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appeared to be distancing herself from Schumer’s decision, slammed Democrats who support the House GOP bill.
“America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People,” she said in a statement Friday.
At the same time, Pelosi applauded House Democrats for their near unanimous vote against the measure.
“I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill,” she said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
“A shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for,” he added.
Schumer also defended some his Senate Democratic colleagues who have come out opposed to the short-term funding bill. He acknowledged the tough decisions they as a caucus have had to weigh.
“Our caucus members have been torn between two awful alternatives, and my colleagues and I have wrestled with which alternative would be worse for the American people,” Schumer said.
He added that just because some of his colleagues will vote no on advancing the short-term funding bill, it does not mean they support a government shutdown.
“Different senators come down on different sides of this question. But that does not mean that any Senate Democrat supports a shutdown. Whatever the outcome, our caucus will be united in our determination to continue the long-term fight to stop Donald Trump’s dangerous war on our democracy and on America’s working families,” he said.
About the time Schumer was speaking, Trump praised him in a post on his social media platform, saying it took “guts” for the New York senator to signal his support for the GOP bill.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning,” Trump wrote.
On Friday, House Democrats sent a letter to Schumer saying their “strong opposition” to the funding bill.
“The Republican leadership has deliberately cut Democrats out of the process, and we must not give in to Republican hostage-taking of our vulnerable seniors, veterans, and working-class families to advance their destructive funding bill,” the House Democratic Caucus’ letter said.
The letter recommends a 30-day CR as a short-term solution.
“We urge you to reject the partisan continuing resolution coming before the Senate and stand with the American people in opposing these draconian Republican cuts,” the letter said. “All parties must come back to the negotiating table and work across party lines to keep the government open in a responsible way.”
“If Republicans in Congress want to pass this bill, they should do so with their own votes,” the letter said. “However, since they cannot, Republicans must work with Democrats to pass a clean 30-day continuing resolution and continue negotiating full FY25 appropriations.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appeared to be distancing herself from Schumer’s decision, slammed Democrats who support the House GOP bill.
“America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People,” she said in a statement Friday.
At the same time, Pelosi applauded House Democrats for their near unanimous vote against the measure.
“I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill,” she said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor Friday morning to defend his decision to support a Republican short-term funding bill that will effectively help avoid a government shutdown at the end of the day.
His surprise reversal, first announced Thursday evening — a day after he said he and Democrats would try to block the bill — means there will almost certainly be enough Democratic votes to advance the measure to a final Senate vote Friday just hours before the shutdown deadline.
“As everyone knows, government funding expires at midnight tonight. As I announced yesterday, I will vote to keep the government open. I believe it is the best way to minimize the harm that the Trump administration will do to the American people,” Schumer said Friday.
He said he believes the short-term funding bill — or continuing resolution — is a “bad bill” but said he believes if the government were to shut down, it would be a far worse outcome for the country.
“The CR is a bad bill. But as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” Schumer said.
Schumer said he believes a government shutdown would mean President Donald Trump and Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would have even more authority to “destroy vital government services at a much faster rate.”
He said they would also have the power to determine which federal employees are considered essential — potentially giving them more power to lay off or fire more government workers and shutter federal agencies.
“A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. Let me repeat, a shutdown will allow DOGE to shift into overdrive. It would give Donald Trump and DOGE the keys to the city, state and country,” he said. “Donald Trump and Elon Musk would be free to destroy vital government services at a much faster rate than they can right now and over a much broader field of destruction that they would render.”
He continued, “In a shutdown, Donald Trump and DOGE will have the power to determine what is considered essential and what is not and their views on what is not essential would be mean and vicious and would decimate vital services and cause unimaginable harm to the American people.”
“Musk has told everybody he wants a shutdown because he knows it will help him achieve his horrible goal of just decimating the federal government from one end to the other. In other words, if government were to shut down, DOGE has a plan in place to exploit the crisis for maximum destruction,” Schumer said.
“A shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for,” he added.
Schumer also defended some his Senate Democratic colleagues who have come out opposed to the short-term funding bill. He acknowledged the tough decisions they as a caucus have had to weigh.
“Our caucus members have been torn between two awful alternatives, and my colleagues and I have wrestled with which alternative would be worse for the American people,” Schumer said.
He added that just because some of his colleagues will vote no on advancing the short-term funding bill, it does not mean they support a government shutdown.
“Different senators come down on different sides of this question. But that does not mean that any Senate Democrat supports a shutdown. Whatever the outcome, our caucus will be united in our determination to continue the long-term fight to stop Donald Trump’s dangerous war on our democracy and on America’s working families,” he said.
About the time Schumer was speaking, Trump praised him in a post on his social media platform, saying it took “guts” for the New York senator to signal his support for the GOP bill.
“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning,” Trump wrote.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appeared to be distancing herself from Schumer’s decision, slammed Democrats who support the House GOP bill.
“America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People,” she said in a statement Friday.
At the same time, Pelosi applauded House Democrats for their near unanimous vote against the measure.
“I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to visit the Justice Department on Friday — a move that comes as he has sought to assert control over the nation’s top law-enforcement agency that brought two historic prosecutions against him, which were thwarted by his 2024 election victory.
The rare visit will mark Trump’s first time inside the walls of the Robert F. Kennedy building as president, and follows nearly a decade’s worth of conflict that have proven to be the ultimate stress test for the Justice Department’s post-Watergate norms intended to preserve independence from the White House.
The opening weeks of Trump’s presidency have been a time of unprecedented upheaval for the DOJ, as Trump’s political leadership immediately moved to reassign or oust career officials who served in senior criminal and national security roles across multiple administrations.
Dozens of prosecutors who worked on investigations stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were fired, as well as DOJ and FBI officials who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump.
An effort by the department to drop its criminal corruption case against New York Mayor Adams resulted in a dramatic standoff leading to multiple resignations by prosecutors and other top officials who described the arrangement as a clear “quid pro quo” to secure Adams’ cooperation with the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.
In remarks Thursday to reporters at the White House, Trump said his speech at DOJ would “set out” his “vision” for the department through the rest of his tenure.
“I think we have unbelievable people, and all I’m going to do is set out my vision. It’s going to be their vision, really, but it’s my ideas,” he said. “We want to have justice, and we want to have — we want to have safety in our cities as well as our communities. And we’ll be talking about immigration. We’ll be talking about a lot of things.”
Nearly every top appointee for the department previously represented Trump as a defense attorney in either an official or personal capacity, a reflection of Trump’s expectation for loyalty from a department that he has said he believes stymied his first term and was later “weaponized” against him after leaving office.
While Attorney General Pam Bondi told senators in her confirmation hearing she would “not politicize” her office, her opening weeks, critics argue, have been marked with politically-charged statements repeatedly emphasizing her loyalty to Trump.
“I’ve never seen this before, and we all adore Donald Trump and we want to protect him and fight for his agenda,” Bondi said in an interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
In another interview early this month, Bondi said she was still working to “root out” officials at the department who she said “despise Donald Trump.”
In one of her first directives following her confirmation, Bondi ordered DOJ officials to “zealously defend” the interests of the presidency, and threatened discipline or termination for any attorney who refused to sign onto legal arguments put forward by political leadership.
“When Department of Justice attorneys, for example, refuse to advance good-faith arguments by declining to appear in court or sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” the directive stated.
Trump’s visit to DOJ is his first to any government agency since taking office, though it’s not without precedent. The last visit by a sitting American president to the building was by former President Barack Obama, who attended a departure ceremony in 2015 for Eric Holder — for a retirement ceremony honoring his time as attorney general.
(WASHINGTON) — Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, faces a confirmation hearing Friday before the Senate Finance Committee.
Oz, a doctor and former television host whose nomination to lead CMS has put him in the political spotlight for the first time since his unsuccessful bid for a U.S. Senate seat three years ago, is expected to have to deal with tough questions from Democrats on the 27-member committee, which will vote whether to move his nomination to a floor vote in front of the entire Senate.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in particular, has been increasingly vocal ahead of the hearing about Oz’s financial ties to health care companies that he will now oversee in his role at CMS and his past comments about privatizing Medicare, one of the programs he’ll manage.
She also criticized what she calls his “hostile record” on abortion rights, referring to Oz’s comments on the campaign trail that a woman’s decision to get an abortion should be made by her, her doctor and “local political leaders.”
“The implication that elected officials should be involved in a woman’s personal health treatment decision is terrifying and antithetical to patient health,” Warren wrote to Oz on Thursday.
Warren asked him if he would use his position to issue guidance that could defund Planned Parenthood, or withdraw Medicaid funds from states that protect abortion rights in various ways.
Oz is also likely to be questioned about a report from Democrats who inspected his tax returns and said that he underpaid on Social Security and Medicare taxes by using a limited liability loophole.
“Dr. Oz’s position is counter to the position of the Department of Treasury and results in him not paying into Social Security and Medicare, the very healthcare program he hopes to manage,” Democratic Senate Finance committee staff wrote in the memo, circulated around the committee.
“He avoided hundreds of thousands of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes in the years reviewed,” the staff wrote. They reviewed Oz’s taxes from 2021 to 2023.
The committee staff reviewed Oz’s tax returns and met with the nominee, his accountant and his lawyers earlier in March. Oz and his team maintained that he was not liable for the taxes the Democrats said he owed, according to the memo.
Oz in the past has expressed support for Medicare Advantage, a Medicare-approved plan run by private insurance companies. The plan must follow rules set by Medicare, such as limiting out-of-pocket expenses and covering all services covered by traditional Medicare.
“Medicare Advantage has definitely become a much more important part of the Medicare program. It’s now the most popular coverage option within the program,” Joe Albanese, a senior policy analyst at the right-leaning think tank Paragon Health Institute, told ABC News.
“It’s grown very rapidly in popularity over the past decade,” he continued. “And that’s going change the way that the government interacts with Medicare and Medicare beneficiaries.”
In an op-ed co-written for Forbes in June 2020, Oz said Medicare Advantage offers better care due to there being competing plans. He said Medicare Advantage could also be expanded to all Americans who are not on Medicaid, which would be funded by a 20% payroll tax. He has also promoted Medicare Advantage on his show, “The Dr. Oz Show.”
Oz rose to prominance after frequent guest appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in the early 2000s.
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is removing the Internal Revenue Service’s top attorney, according to two sources familiar with the move, amid an internal debate over sharing confidential taxpayer information with other government agencies.
Acting IRS chief counsel William Paul is set to be demoted to his previous role, and replaced by Andrew De Mello, another IRS attorney who was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as the inspector general of the Department of Education during his first term, the sources said.
Paul was promoted to replace outgoing chief counsel Marjorie Rollinson in January.
His demotion at IRS headquarters comes as representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency have been working to secure agreements with other agencies to use and share taxpayer information across the government, to help with issues including the vetting of federal benefit payments and immigration information.
Section 6103 of the federal tax code requires the IRS keep individual taxpayer information confidential with certain exceptions, and some within the agency have raised privacy concerns about the proposals pushed by DOGE representatives for access to and the sharing of IRS data.
The Treasury Department and a spokesperson for the IRS did not respond to requests for comment.
The IRS is also expected to lose approximately 20% of its workforce — or roughly 18,000 jobs — by May 15 as part of staff cuts directed by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, two sources familiar with the plans told ABC News.
That figure includes the probationary workers already dismissed and IRS workers who accepted the administration’s ‘buyout’ offer over email.
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire the fired workers at the IRS and five other agencies, though the administration has filed a notice to appeal the ruling.
The agency’s taxpayer services and compliance departments are expected to lose thousands of workers in what could be the first of several waves of firings, one of the sources said.
