Newark officials demand answers after ICE raid
Officials in Newark, along with immigrant rights activists, are criticizing a warrantless ICE raid targeting a New Jersey seafood business. Several people were detained during the operation.
Vance addresses March for Life in first public event as VP
In his first public event since becoming vice president, Vance spoke to March for Life participants and commented on Trump's pardon of pro-life activists this week.
“No longer will our government throw pro-life protesters and activists, elderly grandparents or anybody else in prison,” Vance said. “It stopped on Monday, and we’re not going to let it come back to this country.”
Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order pardoning 23 anti-abortion-rights activists, saying, "they should not have been prosecuted."
Trump takes off for Los Angeles
Trump and first lady Melania Trump boarded Air Force One and are flying to Los Angeles to survey the wildfire destruction.
Trump's chief of staff Susie Wiles, national security adviser Mike Waltz and White House staff secretary Will Scharf are also aboard.
Exclusive: Defense Department pauses all official social media accounts for review
Word is spreading throughout the U.S. military about a worldwide stand-down order by the Defense Department regarding all official social media accounts, according to three U.S. defense officials.
While no official memo has been distributed, service members and civilians throughout the world have been told through word of mouth not to tweet or post anything on any official accounts unless it has to do with the Trump administration's mission at the southern border, the officials said. Two of the officials said they are allowed to repost announcements from the official White House account, as well.
The Pentagon is preparing guidance instructing members of the military worldwide about the halt or pause on official social media accounts while there is a review of content, the officials said.
The review is to ensure that messages are focused on new department priorities, including lethality, and that messages are not being posted that are inconsistent with that. Social media posts are not expected to resume until new guidance can be issued about how they will be handled going forward.
The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
GOP ponders how to raise the debt ceiling despite dozens of members who’ve always held out
Members of Trump’s own party could complicate his effort to avoid a standoff over extending the nation’s borrowing limit — which means a complication for Trump’s legislative plans overall as he manages big promises and small Republican congressional majorities.
A dozen GOP senators and 49 House Republicans — more than 20% of each conference — have never previously voted for a law raising the debt ceiling, according to an analysis of roll call votes and data from the Congressional Research Service.
While many GOP lawmakers have supported debt ceiling increases as part of messaging votes that were destined to fail, this group suggests there is a sizable number of Republicans who may be more hesitant to support increases that could actually take effect.
That means raising the debt limit, a must-do for Trump, may not be as simple as just packaging an increase with the “one big, beautiful bill” that Trump wants to use as the main vehicle for his second-term agenda, since that is unlikely to attract much in the way of Democratic support.
Surveillance video obtained by WNBC appears to show an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a small business in New Jersey. Newark’s mayor said the agents entered the back of Ocean Seafood Depot, arrested three undocumented workers and detained and questioned U.S. citizen employees.
Trump administration tests the power to email every federal employee at once
Trump’s administration is testing a new capability that would allow officials to email the entire federal government workforce from a single email address, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in a statement today.
The new capability could allow Trump to communicate directly with millions of federal workers across dozens of agencies simultaneously, with a single click of a mouse.
The White House declined to comment.
The effort aligns with the government modernization goals of the new Department of Government Efficiency, headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, and could take advantage of his team’s engineering experience as they seek to wring savings and efficiencies from government systems.
Judge orders Jan. 6 defendants to keep out of Washington, D.C.
A federal judge today ordered a number of Jan. 6 defendants who had their prison sentences commuted by Trump not to enter Washington or the Capitol complex without his permission.
The order by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes two days after one of those defendants, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, was seen at the Capitol following his surprise release. Rhodes had been spotted in one of the House of Representatives’ office buildings in the Capitol complex, where he said he was advocating for the release of another Oath Keeper who's locked up on charges not related to Jan. 6.
Mehta's order, which took effect today at noon, makes his approval of the defendants' presence in D.C. a condition of their supervised release. All eight covered by the order were members of the Oath Keepers, and were part of the 14 Jan. 6 defendants who had their sentences commuted by Trump.
The president gave approximately 1,500 other Jan. 6 defendants full pardons.
John Bolton slams Trump's decision to revoke his government security
Former Ambassador John Bolton said in an interview on MSNBC today that it makes sense for the government to provide protection for someone like him, who has served the country and "come under threat like this from a bunch of barbarians, like the regime in Tehran."
This week Trump revoked the government security for Bolton, who served as national security adviser to Trump in his first term.
“If you believe that the decision to extend protection should be threat-based, then the decision to remove protection should be threat-based," he said during an interview on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."
“These Iranian threats, I think, are tantamount to threats of war against the United States,” Bolton continued. “If one of us did suffer harm or were killed by the Iranians or through a proxy, I would think the United States would have to retaliate."
Trump cancels Fauci’s security detail
Anthony Fauci’s security protections have been revoked and he has now hired his own security, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
“I think, you know, when you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off, and you know, you can’t have them forever. So I think it’s very standard,” Trump said at a briefing in North Carolina.
During the pandemic, Fauci received a security detail from the federal government after facing threats to his personal safety.
Trump this week also pulled the security details of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton, who had also both received threats.
“They all made a lot of money. They can hire their own security too,” he said of Fauci and Bolton.