What to know today
- A federal appeals court is allowing Trump’s tariffs to stay in place, issuing a stay of a U.S. court ruling yesterday that blocked several of the tariffs from going into effect. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled yesterday that he had exceeded his authority in imposing the tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
- Israel has accepted a U.S. ceasefire proposal to end the conflict in Gaza, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a daily news briefing this afternoon. The proposal is under discussion with Hamas, Leavitt said.
- A second federal court blocked the Trump administration from collecting tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, ruling that it doesn’t allow Trump to collect them. The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, which the judge had paused for two weeks to allow for appeals.
- Elon Musk said on X last night that he is leaving the administration, capping his tenure targeting wasteful federal government spending under the Department of Government Efficiency.
10 times Trump has threatened, then backtracked on, tariffs as ‘TACO trade’ jab gains traction
Tariffs were a defining promise of Trump’s campaign, and they have been a defining feature of his second term in office. But just over five months in, many of his tariff proclamations haven’t turned into reality.
While Trump has imposed a number of sweeping tariffs that have been driving up costs for American businesses and consumers buying goods from overseas, he has threatened far more tariffs than he has carried through on.
That has created a climate of uncertainty that has caused some businesses to lay off workers and delay investments, as well as led to volatility in the stock market. Some financial analysts have taken to calling Trump’s on-again, off-again moves TACO trade or the TACO theory — an acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” (Asked by a reporter about the phrase, Trump called the question “nasty” and said, “It’s called negotiation.”)
Top House Judiciary Democrat asks Trump for crypto dinner guest list
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called on Trump to release a list of guests invited to attend his gala dinner last week for crypto investors.
In a letter dated Wednesday, Raskin asked Trump for a full list of the dinner's mostly anonymous attendees and for details "about the source of the money they each used to buy $TRUMP coins, so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments from being pocketed without congressional consent."
"Publication of this list will also let the American people know who is putting tens of millions of dollars into our President’s pocket so we can start to figure out what—beyond virtually worthless memecoins—they are getting in exchange for all this money," Raskin added.
NBC News previously reported that crypto investors who were top holders of the $TRUMP coin attended the event at Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia.
Trump administration unveils 'merit hiring plan' for federal government
The White House Domestic Policy Council and the Office of Personnel Management said today they would implement a "merit hiring plan," following up on one of Trump's executive orders from the first day of his second term.
The executive order was one of many that Trump signed to gut diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the federal government at the beginning of his administration.
In a news release, the Domestic Policy Council and OPM said the plan's key reforms "include decreasing time-to-hire to under 80 days, leveraging data analytics to track trends and compliance, and involving agency leadership in implementation."
It also calls for monthly progress reports to OPM and the Office of Management and Budget on recruitment, time-to-hire and the elimination of what they call "discriminatory practices."
Elon Musk’s top deputy at DOGE departs
Steve Davis, president of Musk’s Boring Company and Musk's top deputy at DOGE, has left the DOGE team, a White House official confirmed to NBC News.
Davis reportedly handled most of the day-to-day operations, agency deployments and hirings and firings within DOGE. For example, in a court declaration, Tiffany Flick, former acting chief of staff for the then-acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, detailed how Davis demanded that the SSA give a young DOGE software engineer access to sensitive SSA data, a request she called “unprecedented.”
Katie Miller, who was an adviser and spokeswoman for DOGE — and is the wife of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller — is also leaving her role as a special government employee, according to a White House official.
State Department reorganization would affect 45% of domestic offices, mean cuts of around 3,500 personnel
The State Department hopes to eliminate or merge more than 300 bureaus and offices by July 1 as part of a large-scale overhaul of the agency, according to documents submitted to Congress today and obtained by NBC News.
The restructuring proposal includes eliminating 3,500 personnel from the civil service and foreign service domestic workforce, according to the proposal, including up to 1,575 who previously volunteered to depart.
In total, the massive reorganization would affeact 45% of domestic agencies in the department. No reductions in personnel are planned for locally employed staff member or direct-hire personnel posted overseas, according to the documents. The State Department has more than 270 missions overseas.
"The plan submitted to Congress was the result of thoughtful and deliberative work by senior department leadership,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement today, adding that the feedback of lawmakers, bureaus and long-serving employees was also taken into account. “The reorganization plan will result in a more agile Department, better equipped to promote America’s interests and keep Americans safe across the world.”
The bulk of personnel cuts come from the office of management, but more than 500 people are also being eliminated from offices focused on humanitarian assistance and justice. That is in part because of the hacking of the office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, which will be “reorganized into a leaner subject-matter model,” according to one document. which “will ground the Department’s values-based diplomacy in traditional Western conceptions of core freedoms.” That new office will be led by a senior official with a new title — deputy assistant secretary for democracy and Western values.
“Many functional bureaus and offices under the U/S for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy (J) will become redundant,” the State Department notification to Congress said. “These offices, which have proven themselves prone to ideological capture and radicalism, will be either eliminated, with their statutory functions realigned elsewhere in the Department, or restructured to better reflect their appropriate scope and the Administration’s foreign policy priorities.”
The proposal would also merge the office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts — or CARE — under the Afghanistan Affairs office. Established in 2021 after the U.S. withdrawal, the office was created specifically to help Afghan citizens who were eligible to come to the United States as refugees for their role in aiding the U.S. military during the 20-year war.
Since its inception, the office has helped relocate 76,000 people, but there are still an estimated 212,000 people somewhere in the visa process inside Afghanistan and tens of thousands more stranded across 75 countries, according to AfghanEvac, a coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups.
“This is not streamlining. This is deliberate dismantling,” Shawn VanDiver, the president of #AfghanEvac, said in a statement today. “The CARE Office was established to fix the failures of the U.S. withdrawal. Eliminating it — without public explanation, transition planning, or reaffirmation of mission — is a profound betrayal of American values and promises."
House Oversight Committee in communication with former Biden aides as part of probe
Former aides and staffers to then-President Joe Biden have made contact with the House Oversight Committee and are negotiating transcribed interviews with the committee, a committee aide confirmed to NBC News.
Attorneys for Neera Tanden, Anthony Bernal, Annie Tomasini and Ashley Williams, as well as former White House physician Kevin O’Connor, have contacted the Oversight Committee after they received a letter from Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., about the committee’s investigation into Biden’s fitness for office.
NBC News reported last week a focal point of that investigation will be Biden’s use of an autopen for official business.
“There was more activity in the last 100 days of the Biden administration than in the first 3½ years,” Comer said during an interview on Fox News last night. “Many of the far-reaching executive orders were signed in the last 100 days, and they were signed by the autopen. We don’t believe that you can sign a legal document with an autopen.”
A Justice Department office of legal counsel memo on the topic in 2005 concluded that the practice was legal. A federal appeals court ruled as recently as last year that “the absence of a writing does not equate to proof that a commutation did not occur” when it relates to the use of a presidential autopen.
Comer said he plans to be aggressive in his questioning of the aides.
“Now , the four staffers that we’ve asked to come in for transcribed interviews, they have all lawyered up, they are taking this seriously, and this is going to be a battle to get to the truth,” he said.
The committee aide also said Comer is prepared to issue subpoenas if necessary to compel the former White House staffers’ testimony.
Appeals court pauses ruling halting Trump tariffs
A federal appeals court this afternoon paused rulings by a panel of judges that halted several of Trump's tariffs on international trading partners.
The "request for an immediate administrative stay is granted to the extent that the judgments and the permanent injunctions entered by the Court of International Trade in these cases are temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers" whether the rulings should be paused for a longer period, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said in a brief ruling.
The decision pauses the lower court's decision until at least June 9, when both sides will have submitted legal arguments about whether the case should be paused while the appeals courts weigh the issues in the case.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Jeffrey Schwab of the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement that the ruling is "merely a procedural step as the court considers the government’s request for a longer stay pending appeal."
"We are confident the Federal Circuit will ultimately deny the government’s motion," Schwab said.
In their judgment yesterday, the U.S. Court of International Trade judges found that the decades-old International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law that Trump cited in many of his executive orders, did not “delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President.”
Whitmer jokes about the criticism she's received for her outreach to Trump
In a speech at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., appeared unfazed by the criticism from fellow Democrats that she's too cozy with Trump.
“I want to talk about Selfridge,” Whitmer said, referring to her work with Trump to bring a new series of fighter jets to Selfridge Air National Guard Base.
Whitmer displayed on a screen two pictures of herself with soldiers at the air base and joked, “We didn’t put a picture of me and my new bestie up there, did we?”
As the crowd laughed, she covered her face with her paper speech, an apparent reference to the viral photo of her covering her face with a binder in the White House.
Another court rules against Trump tariffs
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., today found a number of Trump tariffs "unlawful" — the second such ruling in the last 24 hours.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras' decision, however, affects only a pair of educational toy makers who'd filed suit alleging that Trump's shifting tariffs were threatening to sink their small businesses — and that he didn't have the authority to impose the sanctions in the first place.
Contreras said the main question in the case is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) "enables the President to unilaterally impose, revoke, pause, reinstate, and adjust tariffs to reorder the global economy. The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that it does not."
He noted that no other president has ever used the IEEPA to impose tariffs and said allowing Trump to do so would mean congressional limitations on his powers "would be eviscerated if the President could invoke a virtually unrestricted tariffing power."
Contreras' ruling noted a similar finding yesterday by the U.S. Court of International Trade. The administration is appealing that ruling, and Contreras said he was staying his order for two weeks to give the administration time to appeal his decision. It filed a notice of appeal this afternoon.
Leavitt downplays MAHA report inaccuracies as 'formatting issues'
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this afternoon that the White House remains confident in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after a news outlet found several inaccuracies in a report released by Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" commission.
NOTUS, a product of the Allbritton Journalism Institute, was the first to highlight inaccuracies in the 72-page report, including its reliance on several sources that don't appear to exist. Asked about the reporting at the daily White House news briefing, Leavitt generalized the inaccuracies as "formatting issues."
"I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed, and the report will be updated, but it does not negate the substance of the report," she said, defending the report as "backed on good science."
Leavitt referred additional questions about the research and development of the report, including whether artificial intelligence was involved, to the Department of Health and Human Services.
White House press secretary says Israel has accepted a proposed ceasefire in Gaza
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the news briefing that Israel has accepted a ceasefire proposal in Gaza.
"Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas. I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home, and that's been a priority from this administration from the beginning. I won't comment further, as we are in the midst of this right now," she said.
Leavitt said she didn't believe Hamas had made a decision about the proposal yet.
Trump commutes sentence of Chicago gang founder after lobbying by Ye
Many Americans may not know Larry Hoover Sr. beyond a passing reference to him in Rick Ross’ 2010 hit single “B.M.F (Blowin’ Money Fast),” in which Ross sings, “I think I’m Big Meech (Woo), Larry Hoover ...”
But yesterday, Trump commuted the six life sentences that Hoover, a Chicago gang founder, was serving for a 1997 conviction in federal court.
Trump commuted the sentences after a campaign by hip-hop artist Ye, aka Kanye West, now Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband, who has lobbied Trump in the Oval Office to consider releasing Hoover.
Court ruling against Trump tariffs helps lift stocks — but uncertainty still reigns
A federal court ruling striking down some of the Trump administration’s tariffs has injected a fresh bout of uncertainty into the markets, with U.S. stocks barely edging higher as trading opened this morning.
The S&P 500 gained as much as 0.72%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.12% or 52 points. Tech-heavy Nasdaq futures gained 1.3%. Bond yields fell.
Democrats launch digital ad targeting Michigan independent gubernatorial candidate
The Democratic Governors Association Victory Fund announced today that they are launching a digital ad targeting Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who is running an independent campaign for governor.
The ad accuses Duggan, who serves as a Democratic mayor, of corruption, highlighting a 2022 incident in which Duggan was linked to the outing of an FBI informant and alerted the target of an ongoing investigation.
"As Mayor, Mike Duggan put himself and his corrupt insiders first, including apparently trying to undermine a federal investigation into one of his closest political allies who went to prison for accepting bribes,” DGA Communications Director Sam Newton said in a statement, adding, "Michiganders don’t need a corrupt mayor to be their next governor.”
Michigan, a battleground state in federal and statewide elections, is preparing for a competitive race for governor next year, as incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, is term-limited and cannot run for re-election.
With primaries shaping up on both sides of the aisle, Duggan is hoping to find a path to victory by drawing support from Republicans and Democrats. And the digital ad, Democrats' first paid attack against Duggan, could be a sign that the party is worried that Duggan could pull from their voter base in next year's election.
Michigan's statewide elections are known to be decided by razor-thin margins, with Whitmer winning the statewide vote in 2022 but Trump winning the statewide vote in 2024 by just over 80,000 votes.
In a statement to NBC News, a Duggan campaign spokesperson criticized the DGA ads as "toxic rhetoric."
“The Democrats are nothing if not predicable. Mike Duggan said in his keynote address at the Mackinac Policy Conference that year-round political attack ads would become the norm in Michigan, and these ads prove that point," the spokesperson said. "Unfortunately, this is the kind of toxic rhetoric between the two parties that we have come to expect, at least now they’re getting more interesting by going after a third party.”
Border czar Tom Homan says he's 'not satisfied' with arrest numbers
Border czar Tom Homan said during an interview at the White House that he is "not satisfied with the numbers," referring to the current number of ICE arrests.
"Kristi Noem, Steve Miller, myself, we all want more numbers, so we’ve increased the teams. A lot," Homan said, referring to the DHS secretary and the White House deputy chief of staff. "We’ve increased targeting a lot, so we expect a fast increase in the number of arrests every day."
Homan's comments come after a shake-up of ICE leadership today. Robert Hammer, the acting director of Homeland Security Investigations, was reassigned, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Kenneth Genalo, the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, is also announcing his retirement, according to three sources. He was given the option of retiring or resigning, two of the sources said.
Supreme Court endorses narrow environmental reviews in challenge to Utah railroad project
In a win for business interests that chafe at burdensome environmental studies, the Supreme Court gave a boost today to a planned 88-mile railroad project that would transport crude oil in Utah.
The court ruled in favor of an alliance of local counties that support the project, called the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, concluding that the federal environmental review process did not have to consider potential broader, indirect impacts.
Chinese official calls revocation of student visas 'unjustified'
Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Affairs Ministry, hit back on Rubio's threat to "aggressively" revoke visas of Chinese nationals studying in the U.S.
Lin said that the decision was "fully unjustified," adding that "the move seriously hurts the lawful rights and interests of international students from China and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries."
"This politically motivated and discriminatory move exposes the hypocrisy behind the U.S.’ claims of freedom and openness," he said. "It will further damage the image and reputation of the U.S. itself."
Head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office forced to retire
As Trump adviser Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem put more pressure on ICE to ramp up deportations, Kenneth Genalo, the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, is announcing his retirement, effective this afternoon, according to three sources familiar with the decision.
Genalo was given the choice to retire or resign and chose to retire, two of the sources said.
Trump could inflict pain on Putin in the absence of peace progress. Here’s how.
Trump set a two-week deadline yesterday for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to make progress on ceasefire negotiations over Ukraine, adding thinly veiled threats about the consequences for Moscow if he isn’t satisfied.
The two leaders have long shared a public rapport, but tensions have mounted in recent weeks, with Trump increasingly frustrated by the Kremlin demanding what essentially amounts to a surrender by Kyiv in the three-year war.
Trump administration asks U.S. trade court to pause tariffs ruling
The Trump administration is trying multiple ways to avoid having to wind down tariffs in a matter of days.
In addition to filing an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overnight, the administration has asked the U.S. Court of International Trade to pause its own decision while the appeals process is underway.
"It is critical, for the country’s national security and the President’s conduct of ongoing, delicate diplomatic efforts, that the Court stay its judgment," administration attorneys wrote. "The harm to the conduct of foreign affairs from the relief ordered by the Court could not be greater."
Wall Street futures jumped overnight in the hours after a court blocked Trump's April 2 tariffs. The court said in its judgment yesterday that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give Trump "an unbounded tariff authority."
Medicaid cuts in Republican bill emerge as an early flash point for the 2026 elections
Early battle lines are forming over a centerpiece of the sprawling domestic policy bill that House Republicans narrowly passed, with Medicaid spending cuts emerging as a flash point that could define the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrats are fine-tuning their message as they blast the legislation, which now heads to the GOP-led Senate, as a tax cut for the wealthy that would be funded by cutting health care, after Republicans broadly promised they wouldn’t cut Medicaid.
Stocks and U.S. dollar rally as Trump tariffs hit court roadblock
Reporting from Sydney
Asian shares and Wall Street futures jumped in Asia today after a U.S. federal court blocked Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs from going into effect, sending the dollar up on safe haven currencies.
The little-known Manhattan-based Court of International Trade ruled that Trump overstepped his authority by imposing his April 2 across-the-board duties on imports from U.S. trade partners.
Democratic pediatrician launches bid to take on Lindsey Graham
Annie Andrews, a Democratic pediatrician who ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2022, is launching a Senate bid in the hopes of toppling GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, a mainstay of South Carolina’s GOP who has served in elected office in the state for more than 30 years.
Andrews played up her background in a launch video, and in a conversation with NBC News on Monday before her launch where she said Democrats “need to meet people where they are [and] talk like regular people to regular people, which is why we need regular people like me, a mom and a pediatrician, to run.”
Andrews was deeply critical of Graham’s record, and his growing fondness for Trump after spending much of his 2016 presidential campaign warning against Trump’s influence on the GOP. Asked if there was a risk to framing her campaign as directly opposed to the Trump administration in a state he’s won every time he’s been on the ballot there, Andrews told NBC that “Voters understand this isn’t just politics as usual.”
“What I’m focusing on is the way in which this administration’s policies are negatively impacting South Carolina,” she said. “It’s affecting the medical research institutions in our state, it’s directly impacting the economy.”
Abigail Spanberger launches her first TV ad in Virginia governor’s race
Democratic former Rep. Abigail Spanberger is launching her first TV ad of the 2025 Virginia governor’s race, detailing her background as she ramps up her campaign in one of the most closely watched elections of the year.
“Too many politicians talk when they should listen and divide instead of unite. Enough is enough,” Spanberger says in the 60-second spot, shared first with NBC News. She also highlights her experience in the CIA and her time in Congress, stressing her work with both parties.
Federal trade court rules against several Trump tariffs
A federal three-judge panel ruled yesterday against several of Trump’s tariffs on international trading partners, saying he had exceeded his authority.
The Trump administration quickly moved to appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In its judgment, the U.S. Court of International Trade panel said that Trump’s tariffs lacked “any identifiable limits,” and found that the decades-old International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a federal law that Trump cited in many of his executive orders, did not “delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President.”
Elon Musk officially leaves the White House
Elon Musk’s days working at the White House are over.
Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO whom Trump enlisted to cut waste in the federal government, started offboarding from his role yesterday, a White House official told NBC News, a day after he criticized a Republican bill to fund much of Trump’s agenda.
Two sources later confirmed to NBC News that Musk’s more than 114-day long tenure as a special government employee officially concluded last evening.