Trump gives automakers a 1-month tariff exemption; Vance visits southern border with Noem and Hegseth

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview that Trump's threat to Hamas today was genuine.

“I’m glad he’s putting those statements out,” Rubio said on Fox News. “He doesn’t say these things and not mean it. As folks are finding out around the world, if he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it.”

Trump said on Truth Social that he would have Hamas leaders and Gazans killed if hostages in the Gaza Strip were not immediately released.

"I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say," Trump wrote. "I have just met with your former Hostages whose lives you have destroyed. This is your last warning!"

Hunter Biden asked a federal judge today to dismiss his lawsuit against an ex-Trump aide that centers on the publication of contents of a laptop attributed to the former president’s son, saying his dwindling financial resources have made it difficult to proceed with litigation.

In documents filed in federal court in California, Biden’s attorneys urged U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit filed against Garrett Ziegler. They said Biden “has suffered a significant downturn in his income and has significant debt in the millions of dollars range.”

His financial troubles were made worse, Biden’s attorneys said, after the wildfires in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles “upended” his life by making his rental home “unlivable for an extended period of time.”

Biden “has had difficulty in finding a new permanent place to live as well as finding it difficult to earn a living,” they wrote, adding that he needs to direct his time and available resources to dealing with his relocation, the damage to his rental house and his family’s living expenses, “as opposed to this litigation.”

Read the full story here.

House Republicans cannot meet their own budget target that is necessary to pass Trump’s legislative agenda without making significant cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, the official budget scorekeeper confirmed today.

House Republicans adopted a budget blueprint last week that opens the door to pass Trump’s policy priorities on immigration, energy and taxes. It instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending under its jurisdiction by $880 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan in-house think tank that referees the process, said that when Medicare is set aside, the total funding in the committee’s jurisdiction is $8.8 trillion over 10 years. Medicaid accounts for $8.2 trillion of that, or 93%.

When Medicare and Medicaid are excluded, the committee oversees a total of $581 billion in spending — much less than the $880 billion target — the CBO said. The letter outlining the figures was in response to a query by Reps. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Brendan Boyle, D-Pa. the ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Read the full story here.

Speaking to reporters after tonight's meeting with House Republicans, Musk said artificial intelligence is playing a small role in his efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.

“Right now, we’re not using much AI, honestly,” Musk said in response to a question from NBC News.

NBC News has reported that responses to the Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they had accomplished in the past week were expected to be uploaded into an AI system to determine whether those jobs are necessary.

Hayden Haynes, the chief of staff to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and one of the most powerful aides on Capitol Hill, was arrested after Trump’s joint address to Congress on suspicion of drunken driving after his car struck a Capitol vehicle, two law enforcement sources told NBC News. Johnson’s office confirmed the incident.

One of the sources told NBC News that a police report indicated that Haynes hit a Capitol vehicle around midnight and that he was arrested and released with a citation to appear in court. The arrest came after Trump’s speech last night, when Johnson presided over the House floor and sat just behind Trump’s left shoulder.

“A driver backed into a parked vehicle last night around 11:40 p.m.,” U.S. Capitol Police said in a statement. “We responded and arrested them for DUI.”

Haynes is a trusted and longtime aide to Johnson. He has been chief of staff in the speaker’s office since Johnson won the top job in the House in October 2023. Before that, Haynes was chief of staff to Johnson in his personal office from 2017 to 2023. He also had worked in various roles for former Sen. David Vitter, another Louisiana Republican, from 2009 to 2016.

Read the full story here.

House Republicans today teed up a vote to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, for disrupting Trump’s address last night.

The House voted along party lines, 209-211, to defeat a Democratic motion to table the censure resolution introduced by Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash. After the resolution cleared that procedural hurdle, the final vote on whether to censure Green is expected tomorrow.

Green defended his actions at the outset of Trump’s speech last night, which included standing in the aisle of the House chamber and waving his cane at Trump.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., warned Green to sit down or face removal from the chamber, and when Green continued his protest, Johnson ordered the House sergeant at arms to escort him from the chamber.

Read the full story here.

Senate Democrats failed to pass six resolutions that would have affirmed U.S. support for Ukraine amid its war with Russia and condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for "the ongoing violence" and "systematic human rights abuses" carried out by Russian armed forces.

The two Republicans who blocked a majority of the resolutions were Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker, of Mississippi, and Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch, of Idaho, both vocal supporters of aiding Ukraine.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., filed a resolution calling on Putin to immediately withdraw forces from Ukraine. While supported the idea, Risch said the resolution would be meaningless.

"This is going to have absolutely zero effect of any kind," he said. "You’re delusional if you think it’s going to have any effect of any kind on Vladimir Putin."

A federal appeals court said today that Trump can fire a top government watchdog in the latest round of a legal fight over the authority to dismiss federal officials.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., put on hold on a lower court’s ruling that found Hampton Dellinger’s termination at the Office of Special Counsel was “unlawful.” The court said it would expedite its review of that ruling, but in the meantime Dellinger can be removed from his post.

The White House and Dellinger did not immediately respond to requests for comment tonight.

The ruling is a temporary win for Trump as his administration seeks to carry out mass firings of federal workers, including nearly two dozen government watchdog officials.

Read the full story here.

In the closing weeks of last year’s presidential campaign, House Speaker Mike Johnson quickly walked back remarks he made while standing alongside a vulnerable Republican member in New York.

Johnson, R-La., had pledged to repeal the CHIPS and Science Act if Trump became president — a position he quickly realized was not popular in battleground districts and one that could hurt his members’ re-election bids.

“The CHIPS Act is not on the agenda for repeal,” Johnson said in a statement that soon followed his October comments.

Fast-forward to last night, and Trump, now president, made a request of Johnson on camera during a nationally televised speech before a joint session of Congress: Repeal the CHIPS Act.

Read the full story here.

Trump said today that he told Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to clean up "unsightly" homeless encampments in the city, particularly those near the White House and the State Department.

"If she is not capable of doing so, we will be forced to do it for her! Washington, D.C. must become CLEAN and SAFE! We want to be proud of our Great Capital again," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump has said the federal government should take over governing Washington.

Bowser, a Democrat, announced plans yesterday to rename Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House and paint over the mural on a city street after a Republican lawmaker introduced legislation that would withhold federal funding from the city absent the removal of the plaza's name.

The firings of over 5,000 probationary employees at the Agriculture Department may have been unlawful, and the workers should be reinstated for at least the next 45 days, a federal civil service board ruled today.

U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board Chair Cathy Harris issued the order after the Office of Special Counsel alleged that the Agriculture Department had “engaged in prohibited personnel practices” to carry out the mass firings.

The ruling affects only Agriculture Department workers, but numerous government agencies have carried out similar mass firings of probationary employees, meaning Wednesday’s action could prove damaging to Trump’s efforts to slash the federal workforce.

Read the full story here.

Hundreds of officials the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development have signed on to a dissent memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing their profound opposition to the dismantling of USAID, according to three people familiar with the document.

The foreign service officers and civil servants wrote that freezing foreign aid undermines U.S. global leadership, puts American lives at risk and cedes critical influence to China and Russia.

“The United States has long been a beacon of hope and a defender of democratic values,” the memo said, according to a copy seen by NBC News. It was not immediately clear whether the cable was in its final draft.

“By abdicating our commitment to foreign assistance, we abandon vulnerable populations to the whims of authoritarian regimes. The world is watching, and our credibility as a force for good is at stake,” it said.

Roughly 36.6 million people watched Trump's address to a joint session of Congress last night, according to Nielsen.

Viewership peaked about halfway through the speech, with nearly 38 million people tuning in from 9:45 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. It was the longest presidential address to Congress in U.S. history.

President Joe Biden's final State of the Union address drew an audience of about 32.2 million — about 13% below Trump's figures last night.

Trump, however, failed to match his first-term viewership peaks. In 2019, nearly 47 million people tuned into his State of the Union address, and nearly 48 million watched his 2017 speech to Congress.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins shared a four-minute video posted today on X confirming the agency's plans to reduce its workforce by 15%. Collins in the video attributes the cuts to "President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative."

Collins said the Veterans Affairs Department plans to cut its workforce from about 470,000 employees to roughly 398,000 employees, which he said would match the agency's 2019 employment numbers and represent a 15% cut.

“Now, we regret anyone who loses their job, and it’s extraordinarily difficult for me, especially as a VA leader and your secretary, to make these types of decisions,” Collins said in the video. “But the federal government does not exist to employ people. It exists to serve people.”

Collins said he would aim to be transparent about the process but ended the video with a warning: “We’ll be making major changes, so get used to it.”

After he wrapped up his joint address to Congress last night, Trump made his way down to where the Supreme Court justices were sitting.

As he got to retired Justice Anthony Kennedy first. Trump thanked him and said, “See you soon,” to which Kennedy appeared to respond, “You’re teaching young people to love America.”

Trump told Kennedy that he is "trying to.” 

Trump also shook the hands of Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh told him, “Best to your family,” as Trump shook his hand and patted it.  

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told reporters upon leaving a White House meeting with Trump this afternoon that they believe the president holds the power “as the chief executive to spend what he thinks is appropriate” on behalf of taxpayers despite Congress’ constitutional power to decide how public funds are spent through the appropriations process. 

After he noted that the caucus supports Trump’s request for a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded at its current levels through the end of the fiscal year, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said: “Congress appropriates, which means we put a ceiling. The president can’t spend over that number, but the president can use impoundment, use the power of the executive branch, as the chief executive to spend what he thinks is appropriate from behalf of the taxpayer.

“We support that power. We support Russ Vought using that power. So we want to make sure that we’re giving him room to do what the American people ask him to do,” Roy said. 

U.S. District Judge Mary Kelley in Massachusetts issued a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the National Institutes of Health’s research funding, according to an order filed with the court. 

“Considering the irreparable harm likely to befall similarly situated nonparties, the chaos that would result both for institutions and NIH from a patchwork of injunctions, the diffuse nature of the Plaintiffs, and the nature of the suit, a nationwide preliminary injunction is the appropriate and reasonable remedy,” Kelley said. 

Several attorneys general, who represent medical schools and universities, sued in February, arguing that the cuts would have an “immediate and devastating” impact.

Elon Musk met with Senate Republicans this afternoon and a new push for a rescission package, a tool Congress can use to codify the spending cuts made by DOGE, emerged from the nearly two-hour meeting.

The package would not be subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate and would come as a request from the White House, which Congress would then have to act on and pass within 45 days.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., first raised the possibility of a rescission package, according to multiple senators in the room. After the Supreme Court ruled this morning to reject the Trump administration’s request to freeze billions in foreign aid, Paul said his message to Elon was to “get over the impoundment idea” and work with Congress to make DOGE’s spending cuts permanent.

Paul said he believed "a realization is going to set in that Congress has to be a part of that."

Trump adviser and tech mogul Elon Musk suggested Wednesday that the U.S. government should privatize “as much as possible” and named Amtrak and the U.S. Postal Service as two services ripe for privatization, according to a source in the room.

During a virtual appearance at a Morgan Stanley technology conference, Musk told attendees about his experiences riding bullet trains abroad and said, “And we come back to America, like, Amtrak is a sad situation.”

“If you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It can leave you with a very bad impression of America,” Musk added. “So, I just, I think we should prioritize anything that can be privatized.”

House Oversight Chair James Comer got into a shouting match with Rep. Ayanna Pressley at the hearing on sanctuary cities when she tried to read the headline of an article she was entering into the record.

Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, had asked to enter, "as a survivor of sexual violence myself," an article from Quartz, which Comer, a Kentucky Republican, agreed to do before getting agitated that she wanted to read the title of the article into the record.

The headline of the article was "Data from Texas shows U.S.-born Americans commit more rape and murder than immigrants," which Pressley read.

Trump continued to send mixed signals about his tariffs plan Wednesday, granting U.S. automakers a one-month reprieve on new 25% duties imposed on Canada and Mexico, while continuing to deem Canada’s efforts to tackle drug and migrant flows insufficient.

In posts on his Truth Social platform, the president said that after speaking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he had decided that the improvements Trudeau mentioned toward halting fentanyl and undocumented persons from entering the U.S. were “not good enough” to lift the duties.

Shortly thereafter, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had spoken with the “Big 3” American automakers — Ford, GM and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) — and granted them a one-month exemption on paying the 25% duties on autos produced in their Canadian or Mexican facilities.

The president is set to speak with Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum tomorrow.

Read the full story.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was grilled by fellow Democrats at a House hearing on sanctuary cities today about the circumstances of the Trump Justice Department recommending that criminal charges against him be dropped.

"Are you selling out New Yorkers to save yourself from prosecution?" Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., asked Adams, referring to DOJ's position that Adams would be better able to help with immigration enforcement actions if the charges against him were dropped.

"There’s no deal, no quid pro quo, and I did nothing wrong," Adams responded, saying he didn't want to say more out of deference to the judge who's weighing whether to dismiss the case.

The Trump administration is engaging in direct talks with Hamas over the release of U.S. hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed this afternoon.

Trump believes the dialog is part of a “good-faith effort to do what’s right for the American people,” Leavitt said at a White House news briefing.

“There are American lives at stake,” Leavitt added, noting that Israel had been consulted.

The development comes after the six-week ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ended Saturday with no extension of peace negotiations in sight. It marks the first time the U.S. has held direct talks with the group, which it has designated a terrorist organization.

Read the full story.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in the briefing room that Trump spoke to the "Big 3" automakers and granted a one-month exemption "on any autos coming through" Canada and Mexico.

"Reciprocal tariffs will still go into effect on April 2, but at the request of the companies associated with USMCA, the president is giving them an exemption for one month so they are not at an economic disadvantage."

In a SAQ store in Quebec, a shelf is now empty of U.S. products in response to Trump's tariffs. The sign reads "États-Unis," which means "United States" in French, and has no products under its display.

SAQ released a statement today saying it is removing U.S. products from all of its stores by order of the Quebec government.

"We are removing all U.S. products from our store shelves and from the SAQ.COM website starting today, and we will stop supplying agencies, grocery stores, bars and restaurants. We will also cease importing all American products intended for the Quebec market."

In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that he spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today about the tariffs that went into effect on goods from Canada and Mexico this week.

Trump described the call as ending in a "'somewhat' friendly manner."

"Good luck Justin!" the president added at the end of his post, after opining about the status of Canada's elections.

Following through on his party’s promise to censure any Democrats who interrupted Trump’s joint address last night, Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse introduced a resolution to censure Democratic Rep. Al Green on the House floor this morning. 

The resolution follows Green’s early removal from Trump’s joint address last night after he stood and shouted while shaking his cane at the president in what Green said was meant to protest the administration’s proposed cuts to Medicaid spending. 

Newhouse in his censure resolution called Green’s behavior a “sheer disregard” for the decorum expected of members of the House, saying that “a Member’s refusal to adhere to the Speaker’s direction to cease such behavior, regardless of their party, has and will continue to be reprimanded in the people’s House.” 

After the Supreme Court this morning endorsed a federal judge's power to order the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to USAID contractors, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to file a status report by 11 a.m. tomorrow.

The report must include a schedule detailing how the administration plans to come into compliance with Ali's previous order, where he ordered the government to unfreeze funds that President Donald Trump put on hold with an executive order.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., appeared to jokingly accuse a witness of being on ketamine during a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee today about antisemitism in America.

"I think that you need to stop dipping into your ketamine stash," Kennedy told witness Kevin Rachlin, a fellow at the Alliance for Peacebuilding, after engaging with Rachlin on a series of questions about antisemitism on college campuses like Columbia University.

"Into what? Excuse me," Rachlin answered.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “was not aware” that several of its offices would be targeted for sale on an extensive list that was published — and then unpublished — by the General Services Administration, according to an email obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.

The GSA list, published Tuesday, identified 443 buildings owned by the federal government as “non-core assets” that could be sold. It included major office spaces in cities across the country as well as a number of agency headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“As you may be aware, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued a press release yesterday which included a list of buildings identified as 'non-core assets,' targeted for disposition (sale),” the email, shared by a current employee at the Department of Health and Human Services, began. “The list included several CMS buildings, including our headquarters campus in Woodlawn, MD, the Humphrey Building in D.C., and several regional offices.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to cut as many as 80,000 employees by August in what the department’s chief of staff called an effort to "resize and tailor the workforce to the mission" in a memo released this week. 

The mass layoffs will be aimed at returning the department's workforce to 2019 levels, or to just under 400,000 employees. The move would gut most of the additional staff hired under the Biden administration, which added more than 60,000 employees following the passage of legislation in 2022 that expanded benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances, including burn pits and Agent Orange. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, called the move an "all-out assault undermining" the legislation and an attack on "the VA workforce and the veterans it serves."

Blumenthal accused the administration of "starving VA’s ability to meet increased demand in order to justify privatizing VA."

The Justice Department has moved to dismiss U.S. v. Idaho, a case centering on emergency abortions. The move had been widely expected, as the initial lawsuit was filed by the Biden administration.

The Supreme Court last year dismissed an appeal of a case about whether Idaho's abortion law conflicted with federal laws requiring stabilizing care for emergency room patients.

The American Civil Liberties Union and National Education Association are filing a lawsuit in a federal court in New Hampshire today challenging a Department of Education letter warning schools and colleges they could lose federal funding if they continue to pursue diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The complaint said the guidance outlined in the Feb. 14 letter "radically resets" the department's "longstanding positions on civil rights laws that guarantee equality and inclusion and impermissibly infringes on the authority of states and school districts over public education as well as the First Amendment rights of educators and students."

The letter said the department "will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions."

"The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent," the letter said.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the state Senate is filing a resolution to change the name of a cut of steak long called New York strip to Texas strip.

“We ask restaurants to change the name of this strip of meat the next time they reprint their menus, and grocery stores to do the same. We want this to catch on across the country and around the globe,” Patrick said in a post on X.

The cut of beef became known as New York strip after it was popularized at a New York City steakhouse called Delmonico's back in the 1800s.

Elon Musk will attend the closed-door Senate GOP lunch today, a source familiar with the meeting told NBC News.

The Wednesday lunch is run by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who serves as the chairman of the Republican Steering Committee.

Scott has invited Trump administration members to his lunch to take questions from Republicans. Last week’s lunch featured Susie Wiles.

Musk will meet with House Republicans tonight to discuss the Department of Government Efficiency.

U.S. embassies and consulates have stopped monitoring air quality abroad, ending a program that had provided essential public health data for more than a decade.

The State Department said its collection of air pollution data at more than 60 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world had been suspended as of Tuesday due to “budget constraints.”

“The current budget climate requires us to make difficult cuts,” a spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, we cannot continue to publish this data.”

The announcement follows the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers offering environment-related services last week.

Read the full story.

Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, died last night, according to two Democratic lawmakers who were informed about his death.

At a whip’s meeting, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., announced that he died last night and that his family has been notified. It appeared he had a medical emergency in the Cannon tunnel yesterday afternoon.

Turner was elected to Congress in November and was formerly a mayor of Houston.

The Democratic congresswoman, a vocal advocate for increased gun measures who won a high-profile congressional bid in 2018 after her son was killed in 2012, filed paperwork with the state today to explore a bid for governor.

Paperwork filed with Georgia's ethics and campaign finance commission show the creation of an exploratory committee for a gubernatorial bid in 2026. McBath confirmed the filing in a statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying “Georgians deserve a governor who understands what’s at stake, because they’ve lived it."

Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, is term-limited, and the race to replace him could be crowded on both sides of the aisle.

Several recently fired federal workers expressed disappointment and frustration with Trump's speech to Congress last night during a roundtable appearance on MSNBC.

"I think the demonization of immigrants in this speech today was as disappointing as it was frightening and the thing that bothered me is it’s a multifaceted approach that we need to attack the immigration problem, and it’s been an issue over multiple presidents," said Nagela Nukuna, who worked for the U.S. Digital Service, which was transformed into DOGE.

The House Freedom Caucus, the most conservative voting bloc in the chamber, plans to introduce a censure resolution against Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who interrupted Trump's joint address to Congress last night.

The group of conservative Republican members announced its plans in a post on X. The caucus had previously warned that anyone who disrupted the speech would be censured.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in an interview on Fox Business today that the Trump administration had paused both “military and intelligence” assistance to Ukraine but he expected it to be a temporary suspension that would lay the ground for future peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

"I think [the pause] will go away and I think we’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine as we have to push back on the aggression that’s there," he said.

LONDON — Trump is used to shocking critics with his approach to foreign policy. But his hard-line Ukraine tactics have this week unnerved some of his political allies on the far right, too.

Dutch anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders — often referred to as the “Dutch Trump” because of his flamboyant blond hair and anti-immigration politics — said Saturday that he stood by Ukraine “with conviction.” He reacted to Trump’s Oval Office clash with Zelenskyy by posting on X that it was “fascinating TV, but not necessarily the best way to end the war, gentlemen.”

Read the full story here.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today backed a federal judge’s power to order the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors but did not require immediate payment.

In doing so, the court on a 5-4 vote rejected an emergency application filed by the Justice Department after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a series of rulings demanding the government unfreeze funds that Trump put on hold with an executive order.

The court delayed acting on the case for a week. In the meantime, the contractors have not been paid.

Read the full story here.

A Hong Kong-based conglomerate has agreed to sell its stake in two Panama Canal ports to U.S. and Swiss investors amid pressure from the Trump administration over the ports’ ties to China.

CK Hutchison, a conglomerate founded by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, has agreed in principle to sell its controlling stake in a unit that operates the two ports to a consortium that includes the U.S. asset manager BlackRock, the companies said yesterday.

Trump had argued that the Chinese-backed ports, one each at the canal’s Pacific and Atlantic entrances, posed a national security threat because they gave the Chinese military potential control of the strategically vital canal.

Though CK Hutchison said the proposed sale was unrelated to politics, Trump touted it as a victory in his address last night to a joint session of Congress.

Read the full story.

Trump delivered his first speech to Congress of his second term last night, celebrating the big spending cuts, crackdown on migration and economic vision from the opening weeks of his administration.

In his remarks, Trump bent the facts on issues including Social Security, immigration, fentanyl and the Russia-Ukraine war.

Here’s what Trump got right — and wrong — during his 100-minute address.

Read the full story.

Lawyers working on a case against the Department of Government Efficiency found new ammunition late last night in the form of Trump’s own words during his joint address to Congress.

“I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight,” Trump said during his speech.

The quote was quickly picked up by Kelly B. McClanahan, a lawyer in a case that centers on the legality of DOGE. McClanahan, who represents parties suing DOGE, entered a new court filing shortly after the president’s remark highlighting the quote as “new evidence,” emphasizing that Trump had affirmed Musk was heading DOGE.

Read the full story.

Trump made his first joint address to Congress since taking office after winning a second term, touting his agenda, taking aim at his political rivals and leaning in on culture war issues, including diversity and transgender rights. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports and Hallie Jackson and "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker provide analysis for "TODAY."

Trump’s plan to use the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay to detain 30,000 immigrants has been hitting major legal, logistical and financial hurdles ever since he surprised many in his own administration by announcing it. Now, as agencies spar over responsibility for operations there, and over blame for what has gone wrong, there is a growing recognition within the administration that this was a political decision that is just not working. 

Among the major issues, especially as the Trump administration works to slash spending throughout the government, is the cost. Bringing detained immigrants to Guantánamo means flying them there, and the administration has sometimes chosen to use military planes that are expensive to operate in order to do so. 

Read the full story.

A go-to move for presidents who’ve just delivered a prime-time speech before a joint session of Congress is to quickly leave town.

Whether they fly to the heartland or a swing state, the idea is to head outside the Beltway and start selling the glut of proposals they’ve laid out before the biggest televised audience they might attract all year.

Trump did just that as a new president eight years ago but, this time, he appears to be staying put. Coming off his address last night, the president had no post-speech travel in the offing, a senior administration official said. Instead, he is scheduled to remain at the White House today, where he’ll meet with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus to discuss government funding.

His vice president, JD Vance, will be the one boarding a plane: Vance is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, to talk about security, a spokesperson told NBC News.

Read the full story.

China warned the U.S. it will “fight till the end” amid escalating trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington said late last night in a post on X.

The comments echoed those the Chinese Foreign Ministry made earlier in the day after Beijing announced new tariffs of up to 15% on some U.S. goods in response to the Trump administration doubling its 10% tariff on Chinese imports to 20%.

China, which has been working with the U.S. to stem the international flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, has accused the U.S. of using its deadly opioid crisis as an excuse to start a trade war.

“If the U.S. truly wants to solve the fentanyl issue, then the right thing to do is to consult with China by treating each other as equals,” the embassy said.

President Donald Trump assessed his presidency as a ringing success yesterday in his first address to a joint session of Congress since he reclaimed the White House in January.

“America is back,” an ebullient Trump said. “We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.”

The address, a mix of culture war red meat, grievance settling, name calling and outright falsehoods, was the first time the full complement of lawmakers heard directly from Trump since he embarked on a mission to expand the powers of his office at the expense of congressional prerogatives.

Read the full story.