Politics

(WASHINGTON) — Current and former U.S. Agency for International Development officials, speaking anonymously due to fear of retribution, blasted the Trump administration’s gutting of the aid agency, saying it has left critical partners in the lurch and much of its staff in limbo overseas.

In addition to the humanitarian work that has halted, scores of career USAID workers living abroad are also seeing their lives turned upside down. Several officials were very emotional describing their current situations and uncertainty.

All USAID humanitarian work around the world has effectively stopped, these current and former officials said, despite the State Department saying there are waivers for lifesaving programs.

“Right now, there is no USAID humanitarian assistance happening,” a current USAID official in the humanitarian division said. “There are waivers put in place by Secretary Rubio for emergency food assistance and a number of other sectors, but they are a fraud and a sham and intended to give the illusion of continuity, which is untrue.

The official also slammed the waiver as unclear and largely unactionable because staff has been furloughed, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency seized control of the agency.

“There is no staff left anymore to actually process waiver requests or to move money or to make awards or to do anything,” that official added. “We’ve ceased to exist.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday pushed back on nongovernmental organizations saying aid programs remained paused despite the waiver.

“I issued a blanket waiver that said if this is lifesaving programs, OK — if it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you’re not included in the freeze,” he said. “I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that.

“And I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they’re deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point,” Rubio added.

But the above USAID official pushed back, saying those sectors are “actually unable to access their lines of credit here in Washington, D.C., for money already obligated to, already contractually put forward by the U.S. government.”

“And this is meaning [a] lack of provision of assistance,” the official continued. “This is meaning staff layoffs, meaning absolute confusion and mayhem. Some may have some money to keep going for a little bit, but not for long.”

Another former official who spoke with numerous USAID humanitarian partner organizations said, “Not one has received any funding since the stop-work order to continue work, even if theoretically that work is allowed to continue.”

One current USAID official based in Asia is pregnant.

She broke down in tears on the call, explaining how she doesn’t know what is going to happen to her family, worried that the administration is going to “abandon” her overseas or back in the U.S.

“I am among more than a dozen American families that are either on or planning obstetric medevac to deliver our babies. We have a nursery painted with a crib ready for our baby that has taken us three years of fertility treatments to conceive,” the official based in Asia said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Instead of nesting and planning for their arrival, we are unsure if Secretary Rubio and President Trump are going to abandon us overseas or abandon us when we land on American soil. We have been told there is no money to assist USAID families that are awaiting the arrival of our infants with resettlement in the U.S.”

“We have been using refugee resources from our churches and community groups that we usually use to help refugees from places like Syria and Afghanistan,” the official added. “We are using these resources to figure out how to land as close to on our feet as possible. Unless the tide of public opinion shifts, each of these families are going to arrive homeless, jobless and insurance-less within a matter of days, or possibly even hours, of stepping foot on American soil.”

The spouse of a current official in the Latin America region said their family does not have a home to return to in the U.S.

“My spouse has served in a war zone. We have school-aged children with typical challenges you would face in the U.S., but with not the resources you would have in the U.S., that we’ve had to manage, and we’ve been willing to move wherever is best for the agency,” this official explained.

“We worked across administrations with programs changing, growing, shrinking, and it’s a circumstance right now where we literally have focused our life on this USAID mission, and we do not have a home to go back to, which is quite typical of Foreign Service families, and we don’t know how we’re supposed to pick up and just leave,” the official added.

“How do you leave when you have not just family, not just school-age kids — you have pets, you have things, you don’t have a home to go back to, and you have a mission that you believe in and that you’ve supported for decades?” the official said. “And it’s just the rug pulled under you.”

Rubio said this week it is “not our intention” to uproot USAID families abroad despite the agency issuing a 30-day mandate for their return.

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(WASHINGTON) — As President Donald Trump works at a breakneck speed to implement his second-term agenda , including wholesale firings and sweeping policy changes, he and his advisers assert his power over the executive branch is complete and can’t be questioned.

Still, his flurry of executive actions and orders spark a critical question: Does he have the power he claims to have?

Multiple court challenges are underway trying to stop his attempts to end birthright citizenship and temporarily freeze federal loans and grants.

More legal pushback will unfold amid Trump’s unprecedented purge of the executive workforce and reshaping of what Congress set up as independent agencies, the dismantling of which is largely being carried out by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump quickly fired 17 independent watchdogs and the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Longtime Democratic Federal Election Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said Trump sent a letter removing her from the commission. His administration has directed all federal DEI staff be put on leave. The Justice Department fired more than a dozen of prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Millions of employees were offered buyouts, with tens of thousands of people accepting them.

His administration has touted the moves as long-overdue cutting of waste in favor of a merit-based system. His critics slam them as a radical restructuring of the federal government aimed at consolidating presidential power — and placing loyalty to Trump over regulatory agency expertise designed to be insulated from political influence.

The ‘unitary executive theory’

Driving Trump’s strategy is a legal framework championed by conservatives, perhaps most notably by Trump’s newly-confirmed director of White House Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025. (Democrats held an all-night protest of Vought’s nomination on the Senate floor Wednesday into Thursday, though his nomination was later approved by Republicans.)

The so-called “unitary executive theory” has various iterations but centers on the idea that the Constitution gives the president sole control over the executive branch of government.

Its advocates point to Article II, which reads in part: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

“I think that means he has the power to control subordinates throughout the executive branch, including in the independent agencies and how they exercise power. And as a corollary to that, he has the power to remove or fire subordinates in the executive branch,” said Steven Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor and former Reagan administration official who co-authored a book on the unitary executive theory.

Trump in 2019 said: “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

Setting up Supreme Court test cases?

Some of Trump’s firings, especially those that seem to fly in the face of statutory protections for civil service workers from being removed without cause, are likely to result in lawsuits that put that theory in front of the courts.

“I think they are setting up test cases, and this Supreme Court is very likely to expand the theory and overrule other cases that are in tension with it,” said David Driesen, a law professor at Syracuse University.

In 2020, the Supreme Court found a provision from Congress limiting the president’s authority to remove the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau violated the Constitution — a departure from precedent. The Trump White House has pointed to that ruling as justification for some of its firings.

Trump pushing limits on executive authority

But some say Trump is leaning on the theory to go even further, blatantly trying to take over powers the Constitution gives to other branches of government, namely Congress, violating the separation of powers and the concept of checks and balances.

“This is where the debate is: at what point does the kind of power that Trump wants and the way he exercises his power cross over from a constitutional vision about presidential power to an a-constitutional vision,” said Bob Bauer, a law professor at New York University and former White House counsel under President Barack Obama.

“The unitary executive theory has a history that isn’t nearly, in my judgment, what is claimed for it and now put into effect by Trump and his allies,” Bauer added.

Trump has sought to sidestep Congress and take control of federal spending, trying to freeze money already appropriated by lawmakers. His OMB pick, Vought, told senators during his confirmation hearing that the Trump administration would seek to impound funds it believes are being misspent.

Even bolder, Trump’s pledging to dismantle entire agencies. Turmoil is roiling USAID as its being taken over by the State Department and its staff reduced from 14,000 people to fewer than 300 staff, sources said. Trump is expected to move soon on his proposal to cripple the Department of Education just short of eliminating it.

Many of this will play out in the courts in the months ahead. But experts said, in the meantime, harm will be immediate and possibly felt for years to come.

“He’s going to do an enormous amount of damage that the courts can’t in all cases readily remediate,” Bauer said. “By the time he’s finished emptying out some of these agencies and in some cases closing them, putting all that back together again is going to be very challenging.”

“It will take years to rebuild some of these institutions. So, Trump and his team will accomplish much of what they want before the courts can fully and effectively respond. He will have created new facts on the ground.”

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in a high-stakes visit for a key ally that depends on the United States for security and trade.

At the top of the agenda is military cooperation to deter threats, foreign investment in the U.S., opportunities to develop technology and American energy exports, according to senior Trump administration officials.

Japan’s prime minister will be looking to strike a personal connection with Trump and get reassurance that Trump won’t hit Japan with tariffs or abandon its security guarantees. Ishiba faces the challenge of navigating Trump’s long-held views that allies take advantage of the U.S. while not paying enough for the cost of American military assistance.

He will likely look to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022 after he left office. Abe used his personal relationship with Trump to push for Japanese interests and avoid a trade war during Trump’s first administration.

The senior administration officials hinted they’ll be looking for concessions and commitments from Japan in the form of investments in the U.S.

“We all know that Trump pays a lot of attention to deficits,” a senior administration official said. “We welcome Japanese investments in the United States, including in the U.S. manufacturing sector.”

“There will be a lot of discussion about that, as well as exports from the U.S., most likely in the energy sector,” the official added.

The CEO of SoftBank, one of Japan’s largest companies, visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago during the transition period and recently came to the White House, promising to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years, creating 100,000 jobs.

“The United States is proud of our long and close alliance with Japan, and it’s time for a new age of U.S.-Japan relations to bring peace and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific. Our two nations will continue to work together to ensure we deter threats in the region through our full range of military capabilities. Today, you should expect President Trump and Prime Minister Ishiba to discuss realistic training exercises and increase our cooperation on defense equipment and technology,” the senior administration official said.

“They will also discuss foreign investment into the United States to create high-quality American jobs. President Trump and the prime minister will also discuss ways to improve our cybersecurity capabilities, increase space cooperation and promote joint business opportunities to develop critical technologies like AI and semiconductors, and lastly, as President Trump aims to unleash American energy exports to the rest of the world,” the senior administration official added.

One senior official also noted the administration supports efforts to hold trilateral meetings with Japan and South Korea and that there will see continuity there.

When asked about whether Trump will ask Japan to raise its defense spending, an issue that Trump has raised with allies across the globe, the officials declined to “get ahead” of discussions.

But one official added, “There are negotiations that go on constantly, quite frankly, about the status of facilities and weapons and deployments and training areas, and so they’re always constantly being adjusted to ensure the strongest possible deployment of the alliance, you know, the capabilities between the two of us and the investment that both countries are making in our shared security.”

One senior administration official added that the visit will be a chance to “continue to develop the long-standing friendship and relationship between our two nations.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gifted President Donald Trump a golden pager during their meeting at the White House this week, Netanyahu’s office said.

Netanyahu’s office released a photo of the gift Thursday, which references Israel’s deadly explosive attacks in Lebanon and Syria in September that killed dozens of people and injured thousands more.

A plaque presented with the golden pager praised Trump as “our greatest friend and greatest ally.”

Netanyahu also gifted Trump a regular pager during the visit.

After receiving the gift, Trump replied, “that was a great operation,” an Israeli official told ABC News about the gift.

Amid the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria on Sept. 17.

The covert Israeli military operation killed at least 37 people in Lebanon, including at least 12 civilians, and wounded over 2,900 people, according to Lebanese authorities.

The civilian deaths included an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad.

At least 14 were also injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria, according to the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and led to the deaths of a number of martyrs and the injury of a large number with various wounds,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon at the time called the operation an “extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context,” in a statement released by the U.N. Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General.

In a release about the gift, Netanyahu’s office said the golden pager “symbolizes the Prime Minister’s decision that led to a turnaround in the war and the starting point for breaking the spirit” of Hezbollah.

“This strategic operation expresses the power, technological superiority and cunning of the State of Israel against its enemies,” the statement added.

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(WASHINGTON) — Lambda Legal and Human Rights Campaign, two leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday challenging the Trump administration over the president’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military.

The lawsuit, which was obtained by ABC News, was filed in the U.S. District Court-Western District of Washington on behalf of six active duty transgender service members, a transgender person seeking to enlist in the military, as well as Seattle human rights organization Gender Justice League.

“By categorically excluding transgender people, the 2025 Military Ban and related federal policy and directives violate the equal protection and due process guarantees of the Fifth Amendment and the free speech guarantee of the First Amendment,” the lawsuit said. “They lack any legitimate or rational justification, let alone the compelling and exceedingly persuasive ones required. Accordingly, Plaintiffs seek declaratory, and preliminary and permanent injunctive, relief.”

U.S. Navy Commander Emily “Hawking” Shilling, who according to the lawsuit has been serving in the military for 19 years, criticized the ban in a statement, saying that the measure is “not about readiness or cohesion, and it is certainly not about merit.”

“It is about exclusion and betrayal, purposely targeting those of us who volunteered to serve, simply for having the courage and integrity to live our truth,” Shilling said.

The lawsuit comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 28, rescinding Biden administration policies that permitted transgender service members to serve openly in the military based on their gender identity.

The order directed the Department of Defense to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender service members and stated that “expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.”

The order further argued that receiving gender-affirming medical care is one of the conditions that is physically and mentally “incompatible with active duty.”

“Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service,” the order continued.

The executive order banning transgender service members in the military came one week after Trump signed a related order on Jan. 20, declaring that the U.S. government will only recognize a person’s gender assigned at birth.

“The assertion that transgender service members like myself are inherently untrustworthy or lack honor is an insult to all who have dedicated their lives to defending this country,” Shilling said in the statement.

Trump issued a similar order during his first term in office that was challenged in the courts and now HRC and Lambda Legal have joined other leading advocacy groups in challenging the order in the courts.

GLAD Law and The National Center for Lesbian Rights also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of six transgender service members on Jan. 28.

ABC News has reached out to the Trump administration but a request for comment was not immediately returned.

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(WASHINGTON) — “Border czar” Tom Homan said President Donald Trump won’t hesitate to use the U.S. military if Mexican cartels target American troops on the southern border.

“I think the cartels would be foolish to take on the military, but we know they’ve taken on the Mexican military before, but now we have the United States military,” he told ABC News Live on Thursday.

“Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely, because the cartels are making record amounts of money,” Homan said, going on to say that they continue to secure the border, “We’re taking money out of their pocket.”

Homan said the troops “need to protect themselves” and that he would send a warning to the cartels if any U.S. soldiers are harmed: “The wrath of President Trump’s going to come down.”

“He has the ability to wipe them off the face of the Earth,” he said.

On his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, allowing the Department of Defense to deploy armed forces to the region.

He also signed an executive order to designate drug cartels and other criminal organizations as foreign terrorist organizations or specifically designated global terrorists.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has also been conducting raids across the nation to round up undocumented migrants for deportation as part of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

The administration has said the first priority in these raids is to target violent criminals.

About three-quarters — 76% — of the 14,000 migrants who have been arrested so far are criminals, Homan told ABC News Live on Thursday.

“Where do the collaterals come? The collateral arrests happen when we’re looking for the bad guy and we find others with them,” he said.

Homan said he doesn’t have a daily quota on arrests of undocumented migrants, saying, “I want to arrest as many as we can arrest.”

“If you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table, but you’re not going to be a priority,” he said.

Asked how the administration contends with deporting families back to dangerous countries, Homan responded, “What country is dangerous?”

Many migrants entering the U.S. come from countries such as Haiti and Venezuela, which have the strictest “do not travel” warnings from the State Department due to violence.

“People need to understand what is asylum. Asylum is, you’re escaping fear and persecution from your home government because of race, religion, political affiliation and participation in a specific social group,” he said.

Homan argued there are many “fraudulent” asylum claims that have overwhelmed the system and legitimate asylum-seekers are “sitting in the back seat.”

“What you don’t do to claim asylum is enter the country illegally,” he said. “You go to a port of entry.”

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(SEATTLE, Wash.) — A federal judge in Seattle has issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship — one day after a judge in Maryland also issued a temporary block on the order.

“It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals,” Judge John Coughenour said.

“The constitution is not something with which the government may play policy games,” Coughenour added. “The preliminary injunction is granted on a nationwide basis.”

During the hearing, which lasted less than 20 minutes, an attorney representing the state attorneys general argued the preliminary injunction is necessary to protect the plaintiffs in the case.

“When we ratified the 14th Amendment, we rendered a collective judgment and a promise that would guide our nation into the future,” the attorney for the state attorneys general said. “It was a promise that citizenship at birth is beyond the power of the government to take away or destroy. The president and the executive branch cannot alone undo that judgment or that promise.”

Drew Ensign, an attorney for the Department of Justice, called the interpretation of the citizenship clause by the plaintiff “demonstrably and unequivocally incorrect” and argued the citizenship clause applies only “to those in the allegiance and under the protection of the country.” The DOJ has argued that a child born in the United States to a mother without legal status cannot receive citizenship unless his or her father is a citizen or green card holder.

When giving his ruling, Coughenour called birthright citizenship “a fundamental constitutional right.”

“There are moments in the world’s history when people look back and ask, ‘Where were the lawyers, where were the judges?'” Coughenour said. “In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today.”

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(WASHINGTON) —  Before deciding to resign from the Office of Personnel Management, a senior agency official was asked a question by a staffer from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “What’s going to break?”

The official, a civil servant serving in a nonpartisan role, who asked that their name not be used, is now one of the tens of thousands of federal workers taking up the “deferred resignation” offer to leave the government.

OPM manages more than $1 trillion in assets and federal retirement, health and life insurance benefits for millions of current and former federal employees and their spouses, along with sensitive data on millions of government employees. It’s now being directed by officials and appointees with links to Musk’s team who have control over its systems, according to sources familiar with its workings.

The agency also helps the government pay its bills: The Treasury Department borrows money from the trust funds OPM manages for employee retirement programs and health benefits under “extraordinary measures” to avoid breaching the debt ceiling. The funds are made whole once Congress acts to suspend or lift the debt ceiling.

OPM is leading efforts directed by President Donald Trump to shrink the federal workforce and could be facing deep cuts of its own, which current and former officials worry could impact its day-to-day business. The agency’s chief financial officer, Erica Roach, was pushed out of her role this week and chose to resign rather than move into another role after being asked to submit 70% cuts to her office, according to multiple sources familiar with the move. And Melvin Brown, who served as OPM’s chief information officer, was replaced on the second day of the Trump administration, sources told ABC News.

“Eighty-five percent of federal workers work outside the D.C. area,” Rob Shriver, the managing director of Democracy Forward’s civil service initiative and the deputy director of OPM under President Biden, told ABC News. “These are VA nurses, they are law enforcement officers. They are people who process Social Security benefit claims, they are people who inspect our food.”

He added, “They deserve to depend on getting their retirement benefits, the health benefits that the American people have promised them. Taking steps to harm that is going to hurt working class and middle-class people.”

Agency veterans worry that removing and reassigning career officials and accountants who manage these systems could lead to potential problems with government payments and systems – and, they say, raise the risk of missed payments or claims.

On Tuesday, OPM released a memo to government agencies recommending that chief information officers be redesignated as “general” roles rather than “career reserved,” a move that could allow for more political appointees to work in roles generally filled by career civil service workers.

“It’s a complex financial ecosystem, with major implications not just for federal employees but the federal government overall,” a source familiar with the agency’s work told ABC News.

A DOGE spokesman did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Current and former OPM officials told ABC News that Musk’s team includes engineers and aides who have joined him in government from across the private sector. Some of them wear the same “uniform” in the office and have been spotted sleeping overnight in the office building.

Others have refused to identify themselves in conversations with career officials, sources told ABC News.

“They’re scorching the earth,” one former agency official told ABC News, describing Musk’s team. “It’s a different mindset from SpaceX than providing services to the American people.”

“If you’re building an unmanned spaceship and you forget a screw, the ship might crash. You lose money, but no one is hurt,” the former official added. “If you’re delivering services to the American people and you stop financial assistance, that is impacting people.”

An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on internal agency deliberations.

Musk, who is working in the government as a special government employee, campaigned intensely alongside Trump, and vowed to help reshape the government.

Following an executive order signed by Trump directing his efforts, Musk’s team has embedded in agencies across the federal government, gaining access to IT systems and other crucial programs and data at individual departments and agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Transportation.

The Trump administration has effectively shut down the US Agency for International Development, recalling employees in the field and freezing most foreign assistance programs, with the help of Musk’s team and its access to agency systems.

On his social media platform over the weekend, Musk said he discussed the work on USAID with Trump and that the president agreed with “shutting it down.”

“None of this could be done without the full support of the president. And with regard to the USAID stuff, I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said. “I want to be clear. I actually checked with him a few times, ‘Are you sure?’ Like, yes, so we are shutting it down.”

The White House has repeatedly defended the work of Musk and his team.

“President Trump was an elected with a mandate from the American people to make this government more efficient,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a briefing with reporters. “He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk, vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and the two of them with a great team around them. We’re going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure its accountable to American taxpayers.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Mike Johnson led a cross-section of House Republicans for a trip down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House on Wednesday, where they’re huddling with President Donald Trump to chew over their strategy to advance the president’s ambitious agenda.

“This is part of the process…the America First Agenda. We look forward to furthering that discussion. So, it’s going to be a good meeting,” Johnson, R-La., said before emphasizing the leadership is “working on a one-bill strategy.”

It’s not just elected House GOP leadership attending the meeting, as both conservatives and moderates are expected to join the discussion. Asked about the meeting’s goal, Johnson told reporters that the objective is “to move the ball forward.”

“I think we will,” he said. “We’re at a good place.”

Republicans must pass a budget resolution to unlock a complex process to enact sweeping reforms to taxes, energy, border security and more. But Johnson currently has just a one-vote cushion to pass legislation through the lower chamber, so Republican leaders are cognizant that even a pair of dissenting Republicans could doom their collective efforts.

“We’ve got to work very meticulously with our members to first make sure we have the votes to get a budget passed,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Wednesday. “We can’t have 22 [Republicans] opposing. We can’t have four opposing. And so we’re working through a lot more detail now on what reconciliation would look like on the front end before we actually get the budget passed.”

Leaving the Capitol Wednesday morning, Scalise boasted that he’s “very confident” Republicans will reach consensus on a budget plan — though he admitted that the meeting today is a “critical step” in the process.

Scalise also raised concerns about the Senate’s evolving approach, which could punt tax reform to a second attempt to overhaul the budget late this year. The No. 2 House Republican explained that delaying tax reform in 2017 undercut the anticipated economic growth at the time.

“You didn’t really get the bounce because it took so long to get the second bill done,” Scalise said. “The President remembers that. You know, it’s one of the reasons we lost the majority. And so do you want to repeat that history, or do you want to do it earlier? You get the benefits earlier, and increase the likelihood that you actually get tax [reform], because the question of whether or not you can even pass a second bill is a real, real, serious concern.”

Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told senators during a closed-door lunch on Wednesday that the Senate will take the reins and begin work to advance its own package next week.

Senate Republicans plan to discuss their two-bill approach with Trump at Mar-A-Lago on Friday.

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(WASHINGTON) — A Senate Judiciary Committee vote on advancing Kash Patel’s nomination to be FBI director was delayed Thursday after Democrats raised objections.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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