House Democrats file six articles of impeachment against defense secretary Pete Hegseth
Yassamin Ansari, a Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, and colleagues including John Larson of Connecticut filed six articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, accusing the defense secretary of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in relation to the attack on Iran without congressional authorization, deadly strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats, sharing classified information on Signal and other official acts.
The articles also include Hegesth’s “efforts to withhold material facts relating to civilian casualties and operational conduct in Iran and Venezuela”; his attempt to punish the senator Mark Kelly, a retired US navy captain, for reminding service members that they can refuse illegal orders; and forcing transgender service members from the military.
“Pete Hegseth did not follow his oath to the US constitution,” Ansari told the reporter Pablo Manríquez. “He committed a war crime in Iran with the attack on a school that killed over 160 children. So not only do we need to end this war, but we need to hold accountable and prosecute anyone in the US administration who may have committed war crimes.”
“Pete Hegseth has been committing crimes and violating his oath,” Ansari added. “So I have no doubt that if this absolute clown – this former Fox News, not even a real anchor – continues in his position, there will be more, and we will get more support and I urge my colleagues to join me. He is a national security risk to the United States.”
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On Monday, Virginia’s governor, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat and the state’s first female governor, signed into law a bill that eliminates tax exemptions for organizations connected to the Confederacy.
HB167, passed by Democrats in the Virginia house and senate, specifically removes the Virginia division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Stonewall Jackson Memorial, the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, along with other groups, from the state’s list of organizations that are exempt from state property taxes.
Founded in 1894, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is a non-profit with chapters in states including California, Kentucky, South Carolina and others. The organization is largely responsible for the proliferation of Confederate statues and monuments across the country after the US civil war. According to tax filings published by ProPublica, the group raised more than $2.1m in revenue, had more than $1.1m in expenses and possessed $15.8m in assets in 2025.
Delegate Alex Askew, who sponsored versions of the bill for three consecutive years, celebrated the bill’s passage into law.
“Governor Spanberger’s signing of this bill is a proud moment and an important step forward for Virginia,” he said in a statement.
Richmond and Danville, both in Virginia, were capitals of the 11 treasonous, slaveholding states that seceded from the Union and attempted to form their own country built on enslavement. But in the last year, Virginia Democrats have worked to reshape the state’s reputation.
US Catholic bishops issue a 'clarification on just war theory' in response to JD Vance comments on Pope Leo
Bishop James Massa, the chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on doctrine, issued a formal response on Wednesday to JD Vance’s comment the night before that Pope Leo should “be careful when he talks about matters of theology” in relation to the US war on Iran.
“For over a thousand years, the Catholic Church has taught just war theory and it is that long tradition the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war,” Massa wrote. The bishop continued:
A constant tenet of that thousand-year tradition is a nation can only legitimately take up the sword ‘in self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2308). That is, to be a just war it must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy Father actually said: ‘He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.’
“When Pope Leo XIV speaks as supreme pastor of the universal Church, he is not merely offering opinions on theology, he is preaching the Gospel and exercising his ministry as the Vicar of Christ. The consistent teaching of the Church is insistent that all people of good will must pray and work toward lasting peace while avoiding the evils and injustices that accompany all wars.
On Tuesday, at a sparsely attended Turning Point USA event in Georgia, the vice-president had suggested that the pope’s criticism of war, after the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran, was a matter of opinion.
Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism, seemed to suggest he understood the Catholic doctrine for determining whether a war is morally justifiable or not better than the pope.
“There are certainly things that the pope has said in the last few months that I disagree with,” Vance said at the University of Georgia event. “Let me just take one very concrete example related to this conflict in Iran. So the pope said something where he said, and I’m going to try to remember the exact quote, but he said that ‘God is never on the side of those who wield the sword’.”
“When the pope says that God is never on the side of people who wield the sword, there is more than a thousand-year tradition of just war theory,” the vice-president added. “We can, of course, have disagreements about whether this or that conflict is just.”
“How do you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those innocent people from those who had survived the Holocaust?” he continued.
“I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” Vance said. “If you’re going to opine on matters of theology, you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth and that’s one of the things that I try to do and it’s certainly something I would expect from the clergy.”
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Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation to stop Donald Trump from collecting potentially billions of dollars from claims he brought against the US federal government.
The Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act was introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives in response to a series of claims Trump has filed against agencies that he oversees. He is seeking $230m from claims filed under a 1946 federal law related to the search of his Mar-a-Lago property, and to the investigation into Russia interference in the 2016 election that brought him to power. Such claims are usually handled by career officials in the justice department, but Trump has stacked the department with bureaucrats believed to be loyal to him.
In another instance, he has sued the Internal Revenue Services after his tax returns were disclosed to news outlets, and is seeking $10b.
“It is such a blatant and obvious conflict for the president to be able to use the administration as his own personal ATM. We must immediately pass this legislation and close any loopholes that allow an executive to grift money from the American taxpayers,” said Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat who is backing the bill in that chamber.
Jamie Raskin, the Democratic ranking member on the House judiciary committee, said: “Trump’s systematic exploitation of executive branch power to loot billions of dollars from American taxpayers is the ongoing scandal of this ruthlessly corrupt Administration. The ‘Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act’ will prevent the president from pursuing the emerging MAGA grift of suing the government as a ‘plaintiff’ on bogus grounds and then settling the suit as ‘defendant’ for big bucks.”
The bill would stop presidents and vice-presidents as well as their family and trusts from collecting damages from the government, curb their ability to file administrative claims and impose new guardrails on lawsuits they bring against the government.
Its prospects in the Republican-controlled Congress are unclear.
The supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has delivered a sustained attack on her conservative colleagues’ use of emergency orders to benefit the Trump administration, calling the orders “scratch-paper musings” that can “seem oblivious and thus ring hollow”.
Jackson, the court’s newest justice, delivered a lengthy assessment of roughly two dozen court orders issued last year that allowed Donald Trump to put in place controversial policies on immigration, steep federal funding cuts and other topics, after lower courts found they were probably illegal.
While designed to be short-term, those orders have largely allowed the US president to move ahead, for now, with key parts of his sweeping conservative agenda.
Jackson spoke for nearly an hour on Monday at Yale Law School, which posted a video of the event on Wednesday.
Here's a recap of the day so far
Scott Bessent said that he was “confident” that Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, would survive his confirmation hearing next week. The treasury secretary’s comments come after Trump told Fox Business that he would fire Jerome Powell at the end of the month if the Senate was unable to confirm Warsh to lead the central bank.
However, John Thune, the Senate’s top Republican, urged the justice department to “wrap up” its ongoing investigation into Powell. The probe threatens to stall Warsh’s confirmation. Outgoing Republican senator Thom Tillis, a deciding vote, has said repeatedly that he won’t support any nomination as long as there is an investigation into Powell.
In a vote of 47-52, Senate Democrats failed to pass a war powers resolution to curb the Trump administration’s military campaign in Iran. This is the upper chamber’s fourth failed attempt, but its first since Congress returned from its most recent recess and the ongoing two-week ceasefire with Iran began. At an earlier press conference, Democrats vowed to force a war powers resolution vote every week until it advances.
Also on Capitol Hill, Thune is preparing to bring a “narrow” budget bill, to fund federal immigration enforcement until the end of Trump’s term, to the Senate floor. However, he’s set to face pushback from GOP lawmakers in both chambers, who argue that they should use a reconciliation bill, which only requires a simple majority to advance, to include more priorities before the midterm elections. Meanwhile, the House postponed a vote to extend a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), amid pushback from several Republicans who are clamoring for greater reforms.
The House voted to hold a vote on a bill that would extend temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants living in the US until April 2029. Six lower-chamber Republicans joined all Democrats to advance the bill via a discharge petition. This is the maneuver that forces a vote if there are more than 218 signatories. There will now be a full vote on the bill itself on Thursday.
On Truth Social, the president leaned into controversy and shared another altered image. However, this time it depicts Jesus Christ embracing the president. “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” Trump wrote. This comes as the administration’s standoff with Pope Leo XIV continues. In Georgia on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance urged the pontiff to be “be careful” when talking about matters of theology.
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Thune calls for justice department to 'wrap up' probe into Fed chair Powell
John Thune, the Senate majority leader, called on the Department of Justice to “wrap up” its investigation into the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.
“I think it’s in everybody’s best interest to wrap up the investigation. I’ve said that before, it would be better if it winds down,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill today.
As I reported earlier, the inquiry into the head of the central bank threatens to stall the confirmation of Donald Trump’s pick to replace Powell, Kevin Warsh.
Outgoing Republican senator Thom Tillis, who will be a crucial vote during Warsh’s confirmation hearing next week, has said repeatedly that he won’t support any nomination as long as there is an investigation into Powell.
The investigation appears to be ongoing. Prosecutors showed up unannounced on Tuesday at the construction site for the Fed’s renovations, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unnamed source and a letter.
Meanwhile, Trump went on a lengthy tangent during a Fox interview about the Fed’s renovations, alleging without evidence that it “is probably corrupt, but what it really is is incompetence”, and seemed unfazed by the possibility that Tillis could block Warsh’s nomination.
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Senate Democrats fail to pass war powers resolution for fourth time
In a vote of 47-52, Senate Democrats failed to pass a war powers resolution to curb the Trump administration’s military campaign in Iran.
The Republican senator Rand Paul voted yes on the measure, bucking his party. While John Fetterman was the only Democratic senator to vote against the resolution.
This is the upper chamber’s fourth failed attempt, but its first since Congress returned from its most recent recess and the ongoing two-week ceasefire with Iran began.
At an earlier press conference, Democrats vowed to force a war powers resolution vote every week until it advances, in order to get Republicans “on record” as supporting the war.
“Our numbers will grow,” said Chris Murphy, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee. House Democrats are pushing for a vote on a similar measure this week.
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House to vote on extending temporary protections for Haitians immigrants
The House voted to hold a vote on a bill that would extend temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants living in the US until April 2029.
Six lower chamber Republicans joined all Democrats to advance the bill via a discharge petition. This is the maneuver that forces a vote if there are more than 218 signatories.
A reminder that TPS provides relief to people already in the US if their home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary events. The Trump administration has sought to end most enrollment in the program – and tried to strip the status from a string of countries, including Haiti, Somalia and Venezuela – saying it runs counter to US interests. However, many of these attempts have been challenged and blocked in federal court.
In February, a district court judge blocked the Trump administration from stripping TPS from up to 350,000 Haitians.
There will now be a full vote on the bill itself on Thursday. It faces a bigger hurdle in the Senate, where it will need 60 votes to clear the filibuster.
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Bessent says he's 'confident' that Warsh will be confirmed by Senate
Scott Bessent said that he was “confident” that Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, would survive his confirmation hearing next week. This comes after Trump’s comments to Fox Business that he would fire Jerome Powell at the end of the month if the Senate was unable to confirm Warsh to lead the central bank.
Bessent said that Republicans on the Senate banking committee are “aligned” on Warsh’s candidacy. However, one of the deciding votes – outgoing GOP senator Thom Tillis – has said he will not confirm any nominee until the federal investigation into Powell is dropped.
Powell’s term ends on 15 May, and if there is no confirmed successor, the president has vowed to oust the incumbent amid a probe into Powell’s handing of Federal Reserve renovations.
Bessent, however, maintained his conviction that there would be no showdown. “I am very optimistic that the Kevin Warsh will be the chair of the Fed on time,” he told reporters at the White House.
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Bessent was asked about gas prices in today’s briefing, namely when the US will get to $3 gas. The treasury secretary said that this will depend on “how the negotiations go [with Iran]”.
The US kept its side of the ceasefire, he says, but the strait of Hormuz has not been reopened.
“So we will see, and I’m optimistic that during the summer we will see gas with a 3 right in front of it, sooner rather than later,” he says.
Bessent adds that he’s been meeting with his Middle Eastern counterparts, who say that “once the strait is open they can start pumping again within one week”.
Pressed on whether this can be achieved by the summer, Bessent says:
I am optimistic that sometime between June 20 and September 20, we can have $3 gas again.
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Responding to a question from far-right commentator Jack Posobiec, the press secretary said that the rape and sexual misconduct allegations against former congressman Eric Swalwell are “despicable and disgusting”.
She added that it’s “plausible” there are “many other Democrats” in Washington who knew about Swalwell’s “perhaps illegal behavior”.
Scott Bessent said that “over six million filers have claimed no tax on tips with an average deduction of $7,100” while “over 25 million filers have claimed no tax on overtime with an average deduction of $3,100”.
The treasury secretary added that the average refund this year will be $3,400.
As Karoline Leavitt begins her briefing, she extols the larger tax refunds that Americans can expect this year.
“What the American people must not forget is that every single Democrat in Congress voted against these tax refunds. The media has largely omitted this fact and other critical details in their stories covering the benefits of the Trump tax cuts,” the press secretary said.
However, as my colleague Anna Betts reports, while some taxpayers are receiving larger refunds this year, due to 2025 changes enacted by Republicans, this comes alongside rising living costs.
The most recent data has shown that US inflation surged in March, with prices up 0.9% compared with last month and 3.3% over the year, amid the US-Israel war with Iran. And the University of Michigan’s consumer confidence survey, also released last week, recorded a 10.7% drop to its lowest level on record.
Treasury secretary to deliver remarks at White House briefing
In a short while, we’ll hear from Karoline Leavitt, who will hold a White House press briefing. She’ll be joined by the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent and head of the Small Business Administration, Kelly Loefller.
We’ll bring you the latest lines as things get under way.
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Earlier, I reported that the House was planning to vote on a bill to extend a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), – which allows intelligence agencies to collect communications of foreign nationals outside the US without the need for warrants or court orders. However, the lower chamber has postponed the vote amid pushback from several Republican representatives, who are clamoring for greater Fisa reforms.
Earlier, Trump urged GOP members of Congress to pass a “clean” extension of section 702, which is set to expire next week. The president previously lambasted the bill, calling it an afront to civil liberties and has claimed that its been weaponized against him. However, the ongoing war on Iran appears to have shifted Trump’s view. “I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country!” he wrote on Truth Social.
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Donald Trump said today that Hungary’s prime minister-elect, Peter Magyar, who defeated nationalist and key Trump ally Viktor Orbán, was “going to do a good job”.
Orbán, who maintained close ties to Moscow, was ousted in Sunday’s ballot after 16 years in power as voters handed a decisive victory to Magyar’s Tisza party with a record turnout.
“I think the new man’s going to do a good job – he’s a good man,” Trump told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, who posted the remarks on X.
Noting that Magyar was formerly a member of Orbán’s party and had similar views on immigration, Trump was quoted as saying: “I think he’s going to be good.”
Magyar for his part said he was heartened by the fact that Trump spoke about him “in very friendly terms”.
JD Vance visited Budapest last week to rally with Orbán, and hailed the 62-year-old as a “model” for Europe.
Trump reportedly said he did not know if it would have made a difference if he had personally gone to Hungary to campaign for Orbán.
“He was behind substantially,” Trump told Karl. “I wasn’t that involved in this one. Viktor’s a good man, though.”
Orbán’s defeat is a major blow to global nationalists and so-called strongman politics, signaling the waning allure of the Trumpism movement in Europe and raising questions about whether proximity to the US president could be a political liability.
The US vice-president said on Monday he was “sad” about Orban’s loss but promised Washington would work with Magyar.
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The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has said he “does not want to engage in a theological debate with the pope”, amid the Trump administration’s public feud with the first American pontiff, who has become an outspoken critic of the US president’s war on Iran.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Johnson said:
I’m not one to criticize clerics and religious leaders. We defend free speech, and we certainly defend the right the free exercise of religion.
A pontiff or any religious leader can say anything they want, but obviously, if you wade into political waters, I think you should expect some political response, and I think the pope’s received some of that.
As we reported earlier, JD Vance issued a back-handed comment to Pope Leo XIV, telling a Turning Point USA event in Georgia that the pope should “be careful” when talking about matters of theology.
Johnson, for his part, said:
I don’t want to engage in a theological debate with the pope. I certainly respect the pope. I would just say that these are matters that people of good faith and good sense can debate and think through. And I think that’s what that reflects.
Last week, without naming the president, the pope said a “delusion of omnipotence” was fuelling the war in Iran.
Donald Trump has lashed out on several occasions, calling the leader of the Catholic church “weak on crime” and saying that he was catering to “radical left lunatics”. The vice-president also chimed in earlier this week, and urged Leo to “stick to matters of morality” in an interview with Fox News.
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Donald Trump’s counter-blockade of the strait of Hormuz has “reversed” a gradual increase in ships getting through the choke point since the US launched its war with Iran in late February.
Data from AXSMarine said that an average of five vessels per day crossing in most of Marchrose to 10 at the end of the month and into early April “before any ceasefire was announced, suggesting traffic was already beginning to recover”.
“The early-April ceasefire added modest momentum, with crossings peaking at 17 on 12 April. However, within 24 hours of the counter-blockade enforcement, daily crossings fell back to single digits.
“As of 15 April, 949 merchant vessels are tracked west of Hormuz inside the Gulf, with 307 operating without automatic identity signals (AIS). This puts the AIS-dark rate at 32%, more than double the pre-conflict baseline of 17%,” it said in its latest report on strait traffic.
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Thune pushes reconciliation bill to fund immigration enforcement
John Thune, the Senate majority leader, is preparing to bring a budget bill to fund federal immigration enforcement until the end of Donald Trump’s term. This comes as a funding bill to fund the entire Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains stalled in Congress.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have largely been protected from the record-breaking partial shutdown that’s affected the wider department, thanks to the billions of dollars they received through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law last year.
Now, Thune is hoping to pass a “narrow” bill to ensure ICE and CBP are protected from any further funding standoffs down the line. However, the top Senate Republican is set to face pushback from GOP lawmakers in both chambers, who argue that they should use a reconciliation bill, which only requires a simple majority to advance, to include more priorities ahead of the midterm elections. Thune, for his part, maintains that keeping the legislation limited is a better strategy.
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Trump shares altered image of Jesus embracing him
On Truth Social, the president leaned into controversy and shared another altered image. However, this time it depicts Jesus Christ embracing the president.
“The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” he wrote.
This comes after Trump received immense pushback from conservative Christian supporters and allies this week for sharing an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure. The president later deleted the post and claimed that he thought it pictured him as a doctor, healing the sick.
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Several shots lost their recommendation from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after a judge’s stay against changes made by the Trump administration – which may affect access to the shots in some states. And no new vaccine recommendations may be made as long as the vaccines committee is halted.
Access to existing vaccines – and the future development of new vaccines – has been increasingly called into question under the second Trump administration, as the now-halted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made controversial recommendations and health officials made unilateral changes to routine vaccines, with long-term and global implications.
Recommendations for the current annual flu and Covid shots no longer exist, and the recommendation for a new shot to protect babies against RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) is also on hold. It’s not clear if new shots will be recommended in coming months, even in anticipation of respiratory virus spikes.
“We could see delays in updates of vaccines,” said Jen Kates, senior vice-president and director of the Global and Public Health Policy Program at KFF, a health policy non-profit. “We’re going into some pretty uncharted territory.”
America’s vaccines landscape has been thrown into greater tumult after a judge essentially overturned all decisions made by the vaccine advisers, who were hand-picked by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime vaccine opponent.
Read the full report:
Vought budget hearing on Capitol Hill interrupted by protesters
On Capitol Hill, Russell Vought, who serves as Donald Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is answering questions from lawmakers about the White House’s latest budget request to Congress for 2027. A reminder, this proposal includes an historic ask for $1.5tn in defense spending, an increase of more than $440bn from last year’s blueprint.
As Vought began speaking, he was interrupted by a number of protesters, who appeared to be HIV activists, over the reports that the administration has withheld congressionally appropriated funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
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Controversial FISA resolution heads to House floor
Today, House speaker Mike Johnson will attempt to pass an extension of a key provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section 702 of the law authorizes intelligence agencies to collect communications of foreign nationals outside the US, without the need for warrants or court orders.
Johnson has faced consternation from Democrats, but also from members of his own party, who argue that extending 702 would be a threat to Americans’ privacy.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump weighed in, and repeated calls for GOP lawmakers to “unify” and pass an extension. The president previously suggested attaching his restrictive voter ID bill, the Save America act, to the bill in order to satisfy conservative holdouts, who appeared unwilling to move forward without reforms.
However, Trump is now urging the Republican conference to keep things simple and “stick together” to pass a “clean bill”.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence maintains that the information collected under 702, allows the government to protect the US and allies from “hostile foreign adversaries, including terrorists, proliferators, and spies, and to inform cybersecurity efforts”.
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Trump says China is ‘very happy’ he is permanently opening strait of Hormuz
Donald Trump said that China and the United States are working together, and that Beijing is “very happy” that the US president is opening the strait of Hormuz.
“I am doing it for [China], also,” Trump said on Truth Social. “This situation will never happen again. They have agreed not to send weapons to Iran.”
Trump predicted that Xi Jinping will give him a “big, fat, hug,” when he travels to China next month for his postponed trip. “We are working together smartly, and very well!” the president added.
Trump threatens to fire Powell if he doesn’t leave at end of his term
Donald Trump has threatened to fire Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, if he doesn’t step down at the end of his term next month.
Trump has nominated financial executive Kevin Warsh to lead the central bank. Warsh will face Senate lawmakers in a confirmation hearing next week.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said he would remove the Powell if Warsh was ultimately not confirmed by 15 May, the end of Powell’s term. It is possible for the incumbent Federal Reserve chair to stay in the position while lawmakers confirm a permanent replacement.
Warsh’s nomination faces a hurdle, given that Senator Thom Tillis, a deciding Republican vote on the banking committee, has vowed to withhold his support for any nomination to lead the central bank as long as the Trump administration continues to investigate Powell for alleged mismanagement of the Federal Reserve renovations.
Tillis has branded the president’s efforts to punish Powell as political retribution for the Fed chair’s unwillingness to cut interest rates at Trump’s command.
On Fox, Trump said the investiation into Powell is “more than a criminal probe”, but also about “incompetence”.
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A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East, including Iran’s threats to shipping beyond the strait of Hormuz, if the US naval blockade of Iranian ports continues.
This comes after Donald Trump told Fox News that the war on Iran is “very close to over”, and hinted at another round of peace talks in Pakistan in the coming days.
Vance heckled at Turning Point event over war in Gaza, says pope should ‘very careful’ talking about theology
At a Turning Point USA event in Georgia on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance was heckled by a protester who seemed to criticized the conflicts in the Middle East, including the war in Gaza.
“Jesus Christ does not support genocide,” the audience member shouted. The vice-president addressed the demonstrator and agreed with their statement, before responding to further comments from the heckler who appeared to say that the administration “supports a genocide in Gaza”.
Vance said that the “humanitarian situation in Gaza was an absolute catastrophe” before the US stepped in. “You know who’s the person that got a peace agreement in Gaza? Donald J Trump.”
The protester later accused the administration of “killing” and “bombing children”, language that appeared to allude to the strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 168 people. A Guardian investigation into the incident uncovered evidence indicating the attack was likely carried out by the US.
During the TPUSA event, Vance also continued to issue back-handed comments to Pope Leo XIV, who the administration continues to undermine publicly.
“I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology,” the vice-president said of the pontiff.
Last week, without naming the president, that a “delusion of omnipotence” was fuelling the war in Iran.
Trump quickly lashed out on several occasions, calling the pope “weak on crime” and saying that he was catering to “radical left lunatics”. Vance, for his part, chimed in earlier this week, and urged Leo to “stick to matters of morality” in an interview with Fox News.
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Donald Trump is in Washington today. While the president will spend most of the day in policy meetings that are closed to the press, first lady Melania Trump will make a rare trip to Capitol Hill to take part in a House Ways and Means committee roundtable on improving foster care and education.
While we’re not expecting to hear from Trump today, Karoline Leavitt will hold a White House press briefing for at 1pm ET, where she’ll be be joined by treasury secretary Scott Bessent. We’ll bring you the latest lines as that gets underway.
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, Donald Trump had said fuel prices could be the same or “maybe a little bit higher” by the November midterm elections.
But in a separate interview with Bartiromo, which was taped on Tuesday at the White House and broadcast this morning, Trump claimed he’d been misquoted and tried to overcome the blowback from his previous comments.
He said he’s happy with oil costing about $92 per barrel. “It’s going to come dropping down very big as soon as this is over,” he said, referring to the war. “And I think it can be over very soon.”
Later in the interview, he predicted that gas prices, now averaging slightly above $4 a gallon, will be “much lower” by the elections.
Speaking about the war, Trump said, “When that’s settled, gas prices are going to go down tremendously.”
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Leaders of some of the largest unions in the US have unveiled a drive to jumpstart the country’s ailing labor movement and combat growing wealth inequality under Donald Trump.
To make it easier for workers to join a union, and strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses, a string of prominent organizers joined together to launch Union Now, a non-profit designed to increase labor union density.
“This is really about trying to put power in the hands of people,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the largest flight attendants union in the US, and one of the leaders of the push.
She suggested the time had come for workers to start thinking – in some ways – more like the companies that employ them. “There’s 70% of workers who want a union, and 10% have them,” said Nelson. “If it were a company, they would figure out how to get the product into the hands of the 70% who wanted it.”
The architects of Union Now hope it will provide mobilizing workers with financial firepower. “The reality is that even if unions spent all of their money on organizing and all of their efforts on organizing, it wouldn’t be enough,” Nelson said. “They have to also do all the representation of their current members, have contract fights and all the rest.”
The US military said it killed four more people in a boat strike in the eastern Pacific ocean on Tuesday, marking the third deadly attack on vessels in the region in four days.
The US Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the killings in a social media post, claiming, without providing evidence, that the men killed were “narco-terrorists”.
The US military’s boat strikes have now killed at least 174 people since September.
Military officials have consistently alleged that the targets of its lethal boat strikes were “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” but have not presented intelligence or specific details about the individuals to support those assertions.
Legal experts and human rights advocates have repeatedly condemned the strikes as extrajudicial killings that violate US and international law, saying the military cannot execute civilians whom it accuses of crimes.
Trump warns US-UK trade deal ‘can always be changed’ with relations in ‘sad state’
Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.
The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”.
UK ministers have cited the agreement signed last May as an example of the continuing close ties with the US, which they argue persist despite Trump’s increasingly harsh criticism of Keir Starmer and his government.
However, they are furious at the economic fallout on the UK and other nations from the US decision to go to war with Iran, potentially triggering a global recession that would affect the UK more than any of the other G7 nations.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said she is “frustrated and angry” that the US launched strikes without a clear idea of its objectives, while Starmer said last week he was “fed up” with Trump’s actions causing energy bills to rise.
Trump, in his latest interview with a journalist on his personal mobile phone, told Sky News that the so-called special relationship between the US and UK was in a “sad state” and again accused Britain of being “not there when we needed them” over the Iran conflict.
“Well, it’s been better, but it’s sad. And we gave them a good trade deal, better than I had to, which can always be changed,” he said. “It’s the relationship where when we asked them for help, they were not there when we needed them, they were not there when we didn’t need them. They were not there, and they still aren’t there.”
The latest version of the Save America act could, if it is passed, upend voting for all Americans in the middle of a federal midterm election year and create costly, chaotic changes for elections workers.
As this explainer by Rachel Leingang sets out: “this year’s version [of Save] includes expansive documentary proof of citizenship requirements and criminal liability for election officials from the initial Save act, in addition to a very strict voter ID requirement for casting a ballot and a provision that requires states to regularly turn their voter rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security.”
George Chidi is the Guardian’s politics and democracy correspondent. His recent reporting has included looking at the states bringing in strict proof-0f-citizenship requirements to register to vote and covering efforts by the FBI to investigate Fulton county in Georgia over the 2020 election, the results of which are still challenged by Donald Trump’s supporters.
Guardian reporter Sam Levine has spent years focusing on voting rights in the US, including for our ongoing series The fight for democracy. His recent stories include covering fears about Donald Trump’s hopes to “take over the voting” in November’s midterms, as well as efforts to stop Trump limiting mail-in voting by civil liberties groups.
George and Sam will be online at 12pm ET (5PM BST) on Wednesday. Comments will be open until then and throughout the live Q&A.
Post your questions in the comments now about the impact of the Save act on November’s midterms, what they’ve witnessed in years of covering voter crackdowns in the United States and their hopes and fears for American democracy.
US taxpayers spend hundreds more on military as Trump pushes for vast increase
Many US households spent hundreds more tax dollars on the military last year, according to new analysis, as Donald Trump’s plans to dramatically increase federal defense spending faces growing scrutiny.
Millions of Americans will race to file their taxes today, the final day for federal returns, amid concern over rising living costs and government spending.
The US-Israeli war with Iran has drawn vast US expenditure on war into the spotlight: Pentagon officials reportedly told lawmakers in March that they estimated the cost of the war had exceeded $11.3bn in the first six days alone, before Trump proposed increasing defense spending by roughly 40% earlier this month, while other government programs would face cuts totaling 10%.
About $4,049 of the average taxpaying household’s federal income taxes went to military-related spending in 2025, according to a new report from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) thinktank – up from $3,707 in 2024.
Military-related spending in 2025 includes around $1,870 going to Pentagon contractors, about $770 to military personnel, $130 for nuclear weapons and $57 for aid to foreign militaries.
“These enormous sums for the Pentagon and militarism more broadly come with enormous costs to ordinary people – both in terms of the opportunity cost for other programs and the drain on our wallets,” the IPS said.
The spending of 2025 tax receipts does not account for the cost of the US-Israeli war with Iran, which began in February 2026.
President Donald Trump’s security aide Sebastian Gorka is seeking to become the next head of the National Counterterrorism Center, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, nearly a month after the center’s previous head quit due to differences over the war in Iran.
Joe Kent, who previously headed the center, had said while resigning last month that Iran posed no imminent threat to the United States.
The US National Counterterrorism Center and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the Washington Post report.
Republicans try to talk up refunds on Tax Day but impact is appears less than hoped for
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
It is Tax Day and Republicans are ramping up their efforts to highlight last year’s sweeping tax cuts and turn them into political capital.
Party leaders had anticipated that the legislation would lead to a surge in refunds, creating a tangible benefit for voters and delivering a much-needed boost at the ballot box.
However, early indications suggest that may not be the case. Refunds have risen only modestly, reports Politico, with most taxpayers not noticing the difference.
Donald Trump says his “big, beautiful bill” gave the American people the biggest ever tax cuts – although, depending on your yardstick, the 2025 cuts would rank at the third or sixth biggest since 1980.
But Republicans are pushing to keep the tax cuts in the forefront of voters’ minds, even if they may have overplayed their tangible impact.
Of course, the president’s decision to go to war in the Middle East has done little to alleviate the cost of living pressure facing ordinary Americans.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform said a quick solution to the war with Iran could reduce some of the pressure on prices that are currently overshadowing tax cuts.
Speaking at a pre-Tax Day event, he said: “But that’s not guaranteed. I run a taxpayer group. War’s kind of out of my control sometimes.”
In other developments:
Eric Swalwell officially resigned from Congress amid the threat of an expulsion vote and other misconduct allegations he has denied. A special election to fill his vacant seat will be held 18 August. At a Los Angeles press conference on Tuesday, Lonna Drewes accused Swalwell of drugging and raping her in 2018, telling reporters she “did not consent to any sexual activity”.
The House still needs to pass a bill to fund several Department of Homeland Security (DHS) subagencies, like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Coast Guard, amid a record-breaking partial government shutdown. The Senate advanced measure that remedies this funding lapse, but doesn’t include money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol, has stalled in the lower chamber.
Meanwhile, House Democrats on Tuesday proposed creating a commission that would work with JD Vance to remove Donald Trump from office under the 25th amendment, should they determine he is no longer fit to serve. The measure, introduced by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, follows a series of statements from Trump, including his recent warning that Iran’s “whole civilization will die” if it did not capitulate to his demands, and a social media post that depicted him as Jesus Christ.
Donald Trump has said that talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan over next two days, according to an interview with the New York Post. “You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump was quoted as saying.
The US state department said Tuesday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed-upon time and place. The state department “expressed hope” that the meeting between Israel and Lebanon would “lead to peace agreement”.
The Senate will hold its confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, the president’s pick to fill the vacant seat of Federal Reserve chair, next week, on 21 April. Both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are expected to probe Warsh about his wealth and ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his views on the Fed’s independence.
The justice department has asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of several leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were involved in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. In a court filing, the department asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions – a step further than moves Trump made to commute the leaders’ prison sentences last January when he granted clemency to all defendants charged in the attack.
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