What to know today
- President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin this morning about ending the war in Ukraine. The White House said they began laying the groundwork for a ceasefire that included an agreement to stop attacking energy targets, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later signaled a willingness to discuss "next steps" with Trump.
- Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts denounced calls by Trump and his allies to impeach U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who blocked the administration's deportation of Venezuelan migrants.
- The Trump administration tonight released the latest batch of files related to President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
- Trump tonight fired both Democratic commissioners on the Federal Trade Commission. The commissioners said their firings were illegal and that they plan to sue to get their jobs back.
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Lisa Murkowski says she's not afraid of a possible Elon Musk-backed primary challenger
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has been critical of the way Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has stripped jobs from federal workers, said today that she’s not afraid of the possibility that he could fund a primary challenge against her.
“It may be that Elon Musk has decided he’s going to take the next billion dollars that he makes off of Starlink and put it directly against Lisa Murkowski,” she told reporters in Juneau. Murkowski, 67, is up for re-election in 2028.
“And you know what? That may happen. But I’m not giving up one minute, one opportunity to try to stand up for Alaskans,” she added.
Murkowski said many of her colleagues are "not saying a word" about their concerns about what’s happening in the Trump administration "because they’re afraid they’re going to be taken down."
"You know what? We cannot be cowed into not speaking up,” she said.
Murkowski also said she doesn't plan to "tear down at every opportunity the president of the United States."
"That’s not constructive to the people of Alaska. I’m going to have to have to figure out where I can work with them," she said.
Musk says he has never done anything 'awful' and that DOGE is only 'implementing the will of the people'
Musk, whose role as de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency has sparked bipartisan criticism, said he is “just implementing the will of the people.”
“I’ve never done anything awful. I’ve only done productive things,” Musk said in an interview tonight with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
Musk argued that he and his DOGE team are sparking backlash because of their success “in getting rid of corruption and waste.”
“We’ve got this narrow window of opportunity with the House, Senate and a popular vote, and really, we’re just implementing the will of the people,” he said.
An NBC News poll published this week found that voters like the idea of DOGE but are not sold on Musk — or his team’s early results.
Asked whether creating DOGE was a good or a bad idea, 46% of respondents said it was good. Asked more broadly about their feelings toward Musk’s initiative, 47% had negative views, and 51% said they view him in a negative light.
Ron DeSantis’ team is urging Florida lobbyists not to back Rep. Byron Donalds for governor
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political operation is making calls urging state lobbyists not to support Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., whose 2026 bid for governor has already socked away more than $3 million — much of which has come from Trump’s donors.
The calls, according to seven people familiar with the effort who requested anonymity to speak freely, are attempts to curb any potential contributions from mostly Tallahassee-based lobbyists to Donalds’ campaign.
Donalds, who represents a southwest Florida district, announced his Trump-backed bid for governor last month, but there remains the prospect that DeSantis’ wife, Casey, also jumps in the race, which would set up a heavyweight GOP primary and continue the long-running political proxy war between Trump and DeSantis.
“They are becoming a lot more aggressive as this thing progresses,” a veteran Republican lobbyist who received one of the calls said. “There are no threats or anything direct like that, but come on. When you get a call from the governor, or anyone around them, in this sort of context, it’s a message-sender.”
Sen. Adam Schiff sidesteps question about his support for Chuck Schumer
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., sidestepped a question today about whether he still has confidence in Schumer after last week's vote on the Republican funding bill.
“I’m not going to opine on the internal caucus politics as a freshman; I’m going to leave that to more experienced people,” said Schiff, who's in his first year as a senator.
Still, Schiff said, Democratic leadership in both chambers of Congress has to be unified.
“We’re going to have to figure out a way where leadership in the House and leadership in the Senate is on the same page and we’re clearly communicating a unified message about the harms this administration is doing,” he said.
All but one House Democrat voted against the Republican funding bill last week, while 10 Democratic senators, including Schumer, voted to advance it in the Senate. Schumer voted against it on final passage.
Judge blocks Trump administration from terminating about $20B in environmental grants
A federal judge tonight temporarily blocked the Trump administration from terminating up to $20 billion in grants for climate initiatives in a case brought by the environmental group Climate United Fund.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., ruled that the administration for now cannot enforce a grant termination letter signed by acting Deputy EPA Administrator W.C. McIntosh that ordered the stoppage of all program expenditures.
“When the court asked EPA to proffer evidence justifying its decision given the terms of the agreement, its only response was to refer to the termination letter, which gave no legal justification for the termination,” Chutkan wrote in her memorandum opinion.
Judge temporarily blocks Trump’s transgender military ban
A federal judge today temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from enlisting or serving in the military.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes of Washington, D.C., ruled that the ban violates the equal protection clause because it discriminates based on transgender status and sex.
Reyes said the ban “is soaked in animus.”
“Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact,” she wrote.
Pelosi expresses support for Schumer but suggests she would've done things differently in his position
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the former House speaker, said today that she still has confidence in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., after his vote last week on the Republican funding bill while saying she wouldn't have done the same thing.
Referring to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Pelosi said at a news conference the same day Jeffries voiced support for Schumer: "Hakeem said that he had confidence in Chuck Schumer, so we're to the next stage on this now."
“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. I think that’s what happened the other day,” she added. “We could have, in my view, perhaps, gotten them to agree to a third way, which was a bipartisan [continuing resolution] for four weeks in which we could have had bipartisan legislation go forward."
Government releases latest batch of JFK assassination documents
More than 60 years after President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, the federal government began releasing what could be the final trove of documents delving into the assassination that shocked the nation and spawned countless conspiracy theories.
The Justice Department’s National Security Division today started unveiling the long-awaited files a day after Trump announced that 80,000 pages related to the fatal Nov. 22, 1963, shooting were about to be released.
“You got a lot of reading,” Trump said as he visited the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “I don’t believe we’re going to redact anything.”
Trump was cagey about what would be in the files. Historians contend that around 4,700 documents haven’t yet been released.
Congressional watchdog office left powerless as House leaders have yet to fill board seats
House leaders have yet to appoint board members to an independent office designed to investigate ethics complaints against lawmakers and their staff members, leaving the entity powerless for the time being and sparking concerns among outside watchdogs.
The House rules package for the new Congress, which was approved in January along party lines, re-authorized the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics and gave it a new name: the Office of Congressional Conduct.
But more than two months later, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who have the authority to fill the board seats, have yet to do so.
Without a board in place, professional staff members are not authorized to launch investigations. If the seats remain unfilled by Saturday, it will mark the longest the office has had a vacant board since it was formed in 2008.
Nebraska Republican booed at town hall while talking about spending cuts
Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb, is facing a confrontational crowd tonight at a town hall in his district.
“I believe that town halls are an important part of the process,” Flood said as he opened up the event in Columbus. “It’s democracy. It’s how we communicate with each other.”
The event quickly turned more intense once the floor was opened up for questions. Flood, who is vice chair of the centrist-leaning Main Street Caucus, was met with loud boos when he said he supported spending cuts.
“For the first time in decades, we have a president that is cutting spending and he is looking to find efficiencies,” Flood said. “And I support that effort.”
He said he knows that “some of you in this room are angry” and repeatedly asked the crowd to let him finish answering its questions.
“Tax the rich,” many members of the audience started chanting at one point.
Flood is one of the few Republicans holding in-person events this week while Congress is in recess.