What to know today
- President Donald Trump cautioned patience from the public and blamed former President Joe Biden for the volatile stock market after data released this morning showed the U.S. economy contracted this year for the first time since 2022.
- The White House said it signed an economic partnership with Ukraine that includes an agreement on the ownership and extraction of natural resources from the war-torn nation.
- A bipartisan measure that sought to undo the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on most countries this month failed in the Senate. The vote ended in a 49-49 tie.
- Former Vice President Kamala Harris returns to the national spotlight this evening with a speech in San Francisco, where she is expected to criticize Trump's policies and highlight people who have stood up against them.
Trump says companies, like Americans, will experience 'transition period' due to tariffs
Trump said private companies will experience a "transition period" as his tariff policies take effect, framing it as a necessary pain to spur U.S. manufacturing.
He maintained he is "flexible," however, pointing to his decision this week to amend the tariffs he placed on car manufacturers as an example.
"Now with the cars, I’m getting a 25% tariff for the people. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars, but they’re hurt because they can’t switch over 100% of the content of the car within a very short period of time," Trump said during a NewsNation town hall. "So I gave them a short period, two years, where they have to be switched over 100%, where every single part in the car is made in the USA."
"And if I didn’t do that, it would be very tough for these companies and these companies — it’s a transition period," he said later.
Trump used the same phrasing in an interview with ABC News yesterday when he was asked about Americans' potentially facing economic hardship due to the tariffs.
Map: New voter turnout data from the 2024 presidential election
Voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election dipped from 2020, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows.
Some takeaways:
- Turnout among the voting-eligible population declined 1.5 percentage points, to 65.3% from 2020’s 66.8%.
- By race and ethnicity, turnout declined most among Hispanic voters (down 3.1 percentage points), followed by Black voters (3.0 percentage points), then Asian American voters (2.6 percentage points). Turnout declined among white voters, too (1.5 percentage points), the least among the racial groups for which data is available.
- Regionally, turnout declined the most in the South (down 2.8 percent points) and the Northeast (2.5 percentage points) and the least in the Midwest (0.6 percentage points).
And from state trends in voting turnout:
- Minnesota once again had the highest presidential election turnout in the United States, with 75.9% of citizens voting.
- Turnout surged 5 percentage points or more in Kansas, Michigan and Nevada.
- Turnout plummeted 10 percentage points in Arizona and 6 percentage points in Texas.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confirms she's 'weighing' second bid for top committee spot
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, told NBC News that she is "weighing" a decision to run for the top Democratic spot on the House Oversight Committee.
“We need to have a conversation as a caucus and as a team,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “As we know, we’ve seen this movie before, and the party has its views known on seniority."
Ocasio-Cortez ran for the position ahead of the start of this session of Congress, but she was defeated by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who announced that he plans to retire from Congress at the end of this term and will step back from his leadership role on the Oversight Committee.
The secret-ballot vote among Democratic caucus members when Ocasio-Cortez was defeated was 131 to 84, according to a lawmaker in the room.
Republicans hit early snags as they start crafting a massive bill for Trump’s agenda
Republicans are already hitting some snags as they begin the work of crafting a bill for Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda. And they haven’t even made some of their hardest decisions yet.
Fresh off a two-week recess, House committees have begun marking up their respective pieces of the package, which aims to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, boost funding for immigration enforcement and the military, and increase the debt ceiling. In their hunt for steep savings to pay for it all, Republicans are starting with some of the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to spending cuts.
But that process has already sparked some skirmishes among Republican lawmakers, offering a preview of the bigger intraparty fights — such as whether to slash funding for anti-poverty programs like Medicaid — that are still to come.
A bipartisan measure to undo Trump’s global tariffs fails in the Senate
A bipartisan measure that sought to undo the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on most countries this month failed in the GOP-led Senate today.
The vote ended in a tie, 49-49, with three Republicans — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joining all Democrats present in support of the resolution, which was designed to terminate the national emergency Trump declared to implement his global tariffs.
Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who voiced support for the measure, were not present for the vote. It needed a simple majority to pass.
U.S. and Ukraine sign economic deal that includes terms for natural resources in the war-torn country
The White House announced today that it signed an economic partnership with Ukraine that includes an agreement on the ownership and extraction of natural resources from the war-torn nation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agreement, established as the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, will allow the United States to “invest alongside Ukraine” to unlock its growth assets and ultimately accelerate its economic recovery.
“As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said in a statement. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.
“And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he added.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says 'impeachment exists for a reason'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters today that Congress “should never take impeachment off the table” when it comes to possible lawbreaking by the president.
Asked whether Democrats should pursue impeachment if they take back the House next year, she said, “I don’t think that we should be, you know, promising anything the way that Trump tries to promise certain, you know, locking up his political armies.”
“But I do believe that our legal processes exist for a reason. Impeachment exists for a reason, and it should absolutely be on the table, should be on the table for every president,” she said, noting that she voted to impeach Trump during his first term in office.
As for such proceedings in his current term, she said, "I think we, I, believe that there is plenty of law-breaking that should be examined and looked at."
"There must be grounds and there very well may be, especially in the next year or two," she said.
Sen. John Ossoff, D-Ga., told attendees at a town hall last week that Trump's conduct to date “has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment.”
NBC News’ Christine Romans joins "TODAY" to help break down the confusion around Trump’s tariffs and when larger impacts may be felt and how consumers are responding to them. “We’re in the beginning of all of those effects coming to the forefront,” she says.
After her defeat, Kamala Harris re-emerges to weigh in on Trump
When Kamala Harris delivers her first major public address today after her bitter defeat to Trump, she will step into the political spotlight in a way she has not yet done since November.
Harris has mostly stayed out of the public eye since she left office as vice president in January, and she has opted not to weigh in on Trump and his policies in the way other prominent Democrats have.
That will change today. She is to deliver the keynote address at the Emerge 20th Anniversary Gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, honoring the group’s role in electing more Democratic women in California politics. She is expected to call out Trump over his policies and how she believes they are failing Americans.
Trump continues to blame Biden for GDP contraction
Trump continues to blame his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, after a Commerce Department report said the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter. It was the first market contraction since 2022, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
At an "Investing in America" event at the White House this afternoon, Trump said that Biden oversaw the "worst trade deficit ever" and that the decrease in real gross domestic product was a result of "the Biden economy."
"We took over on Jan. 20, and I think you have to get us a little bit of time to get moving, but this is the Biden economy," Trump said.
Even so, Trump still took credit for certain aspects of the economy outlined in today's GDP report, including "strong private sector growth."
Data suggests that the first 100 days of Trump’s second term have been the worst for the stock market since Richard Nixon's administration. Trump similarly shifted blame to Biden, writing on Truth Social this morning, "This is Biden's stock market."
Right-wing influencer Dom Lucre, once banned from X, attends White House briefing
Dom Lucre, who is known for sharing misleading information and was once banned from X for sharing child sexual abuse material, was at the White House today.
Lucre said on X that he was among the invited guests for a briefing dedicated to "members of the new media" by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. On X, he shared videos of himself on a White House driveway and in a briefing room.
Video showed Lucre asking Leavitt whether it was possible for the Trump administration to investigate former President Barack Obama or former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over alleged violations of election laws.
Leavitt called the question “refreshing.” She initially did not answer about Obama or Clinton but, pressed by another attendee, said she would ask Trump about prosecuting Clinton.
In 2023, X owner Elon Musk said Lucre had been suspended from the service for "posting child exploitation pictures associated with the criminal conviction of an Australian man in the Philippines." X reinstated his account the same day, leading to outrage, including from Australian lawmakers, because X had claimed to have a zero-tolerance policy for child exploitation.
Now, Lucre has 1.5 million followers on X, where he also offers paid subscriptions, according to his profile. He has shared misleading information about subjects such as alleged cannibalism in Haiti.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its decision to invite Lucre. Lucre also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump claims he ‘could’ have Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. His administration has said otherwise.
Trump said in an interview with ABC News yesterday that he “could” have Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States with one phone call, even though the administration has argued in court that the government has no ability to get him back.
“If he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But he is not,” Trump told ABC News’ Terry Moran when he was asked whether he couldn’t simply call Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and ask for his return. Trump and his allies have contended that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang in justifying his deportation — which Abrego Garcia’s lawyers deny.
“I’m not the one making this decision,” Trump added. “We have lawyers that don’t want to do this.”
At a Cabinet meeting today, Trump said he had not spoken to Bukele about sending Abrego Garcia back.
“I really leave that to the lawyers,” he said, adding, “They know the laws, and we follow the laws exactly.”
A federal judge, an appeals court and the Supreme Court have all ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return after he was deported to a prison in El Salvador on March 15.
Vance: Next 100 days will be about things 'that don’t change as quickly'
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview that "the next 100 days are going to be a lot of things that don’t change as quickly" as the issues Trump targeted in his next 100 days in office.
Vance said one of the priorities for the next 100 days is the budget reconciliation bill facing House Republicans, which, he said, "we think will lead to permanent tax relief for Americans" but could also "juice the economy a little bit."
Vance also named achieving a peace deal in Ukraine as a top foreign policy priority for the next few months.
Trump "would like to bring the Russia–Ukraine conflict to a durable solution where you don’t have 5,000 people dying every single week on both sides of that conflict," he said.
He added that Russia and Ukraine have expressed willingness to make a peace deal but acknowledged that "there’s a very big gulf between what the Russians want and what the Ukrainians want.”
Federal Election Commission lacks quorum with commissioner's resignation
Federal Election Commissioner Allen Dickerson, a Republican, announced that he told Trump he would resign today, leaving the body without a quorum.
While his current term expires today, agency rules would have allowed him to stay on until a replacement was confirmed (and many commissioners over the years have stayed long past their terms for this very reason). But his decision leaves the FEC with just three members, one below the quorum required to conduct major business.
Dickerson is the third commissioner who has left the FEC since the beginning of 2025 — Sean Cooksey, who Trump appointed during his first term, resigned in January, and Trump fired Democratic member Ellen Weintraub in February, although she's contested the firing was illegal.
It's up to Trump to nominate and the Senate to confirm new commissioners. This isn't the first time the FEC has operated without a quorum, and the office laid out the situation when it lost a quorum in 2019, noting that while federal election laws remain in effect (including donation disclosure schedules), the commission can't "make decisions in many areas, including regulations, advisory opinions, audit matters and enforcement."
Trump administration reveals how it targeted thousands of international students on visas
After thousands of international students abruptly lost their legal statuses in the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security offered some insight Tuesday into how some of the terminations were decided.
At a court hearing in Washington about the recent targeting of many international students across the country, the department said it used 10 to 20 employees to run the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students through the National Crime Information Center, an FBI-run computerized index that includes criminal history information.
The process populated the 6,400 “hits.” And from there, many students experienced terminations of their records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which maintains information about nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors.
In the hearing, the federal government detailed its initiative to screen foreign students entitled the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative.” Andre Watson, assistant director of DHS said that the employees served in “various roles as analysts” and that the entire process, overseen by DHS acting Executive Director Robert Hammer, took two to three weeks.
Names were sent to the State Department, Watson said, and roughly 3,000 students had their visas revoked. The State Department then instructed DHS to terminate the students’ SEVIS records.
Attorneys slam DHS for releasing deported moms' names and 'needlessly exposing them to danger'
Attorneys for the two families whose U.S. citizen children were removed to Honduras along with their deported mothers blasted the Department of Homeland Security in a news release today for publicly revealing the mothers’ names, saying they were “needlessly exposing them to further danger.”
They also said DHS is "doubling down on a false and dangerous narrative about parental consent and the rights of U.S. citizens.”
One mother was deported to Honduras along with her 2-year-old daughter identified as V.M.L. in court documents. The second mother was deported along with her 4-year-old child who has cancer and with her 7-year-old. All three children were born in the U.S.
Mich P. González, co-founder of Sanctuary of the South and attorney for one of the mothers, told NBC News that the mothers, who haven’t spoken publicly, “are scared and gravely worried about their safety” and said naming them was “cruel and reckless.”
DHS issued a “fact check” yesterday saying “the media and Democrat politicians are force-feeding the public false information that US citizen children are being deported.” The DHS news release stated the mothers, which they identified by name, had outstanding deportation orders and chose to deport with their children.
Attorneys for the families have stated the mothers were not given the option to leave their children in the U.S. with designated guardians and had not named the mothers.
The case of the deported mothers and their U.S. citizen children comes amid legal battles over Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The joint news release was issued by the groups National Immigration Project, Justice in Motion, Ware Immigration, Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants, Sanctuary of the South and the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition.
FBI agents' group presses judge to order list of employees who worked Jan. 6 cases destroyed
Reporting from Washington
Lawyers representing the FBI Agents Association and a group of anonymous agents were in federal district court in D.C. on Wednesday asking a federal judge to order the government to destroy a list of thousands of FBI employees involved in Jan. 6 cases that was compiled in the early days of the Trump administration.
Former acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll initially resisted an order from then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove to turn over a list of names of FBI employees who worked on the cases, instead sending a list of identification numbers. After an additional order, Driscoll turned over the list of names through a classified system. The government said in a recent filing that the Justice Department “has neither accessed the unclassified list of names that prior acting FBI leadership claimed to have sent to the Department via classified email nor reviewed documents or conducted interviews,” but that it plans to conduct a review of Jan. 6 prosecutions that could result in demotions, suspensions or terminations.
Chief Judge James Boasberg allowed the agents to be anonymous, in part citing the threats that they faced, and noted the conviction of a Jan. 6 rioter in a plot to murder the FBI employees who investigated him. The case was then assigned to U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, who conducted the hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday.
Margaret Donovan, arguing on behalf of the FBIAA and the anonymous employees, asked Cobb to order the government to destroy the list as well as not to disclose its contents to the public or to the White House. Donovan said that the need for any further immediate action would fade away with an order along those lines, and said that the government could go on conducting a review of the handling of Jan. 6 cases through normal means rather than create the chilling effect of placing anyone who touched a Jan. 6 case on a list up front. The Justice Department was not open to that route.
“I don’t suppose you’d agree to destroy these lists and we could all go home?” Cobb asked one of the government’s attorneys.
“No,” replied Assistant U.S. Attorney Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel.
“Okay,” Cobb said. “Just thought I’d ask.”
Donovan argued that the government has come up with an “after-the-fact justification” for the compilation of a list of names of agents involved in Jan. 6 cases, and that the Trump administration’s moves to “acquiesce” to the demands of Jan. 6 rioters showed their true intentions. On social media, she noted, some pardoned of Jan. 6 charges have been calling for lists of names of Jan. 6 agents, and a government employee who owned a social media company — Elon Musk — had used social media to target individuals before. She noted that Trump has called FBI agents “Gestapo” and “thugs” in connection with the bureau’s handling of Jan. 6 cases as well as the raid on Mar-a-Lago.
“The lives of over 5,000 FBI agents are at risk,” Donovan said, saying that a number of “little red flags” created a “big red flag” about the risk to agents if their names were publicly released.
Donovan said that there was no legitimate purpose for compiling the list and that the compilation of a list before any concrete allegation of wrongdoing is the exact type of weaponization that the Trump administration purports to be against. “Our problem with the process is that there was no process,” Donovan said.
If the government wants to conduct a review of the handling of Jan. 6 cases, Donovan says, they can “have at it,” but FBI agents should not feel as though they are being targeted for retribution when there’s nothing substantive, saying that being on the list has created a “palpable chill and fear” within the bureau.
Questioning Georgiev-Remmel, Cobb pressed on whether the government was simply creating a pretext for targeting agents over the cases they handled, asking what went wrong with the cases that worked their way through the court system.
“I thought I knew a lot about Jan. 6 cases because I had so many of them, but apparently there was corruption,” Cobb said.
Georgiev-Remmel said the internal review was supposed to unveil that evidence, and Cobb questioned whether the government had reached a conclusion ahead of time. Georgiev-Remmel said the government was acting in response to Trump’s executive order on weaponization.
“There’s nothing inappropriate about that,” he said, saying that the creation of a list would be to initiate a review process.
Cobb asked if FBI special agents who were on the list would need to disclose if they were under investigation if they were called to testify in a case, and Georgiev-Remmel replied that they would need to consult with their bosses and seek clarification on how they should respond. Cobb pressed Georgiev-Remmel on whether that would be an injury and whether being on the list would lead to missed job opportunities.
Cobb did not indicate when she would issue any orders.
Noem says the U.S. will 'immediately deport' Abrego Garcia if he is returned to the United States
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration would “immediately deport” Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he were returned to the United States from El Salvador as the Supreme Court ordered.
“He is an El Salvador citizen. He is home there in his country. If he were to be brought back to the United States of America, we would immediately deport him again,” Noem told CBS News in an interview this morning.
Noem’s comments reaffirm the administration’s repeated argument that it does not have the authority to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a mega prison in El Salvador in March.
Trump administration officials say only El Salvador can initiate his return to the U.S., but Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has said he does not have the power to do so either.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis initially ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, and the Supreme Court affirmed the order, but the administration has made no public plans to do so.
Republican on Senate Judiciary Committee says he is concerned about Ed Martin's views on Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he has “serious questions” for Ed Martin, Trump’s pick to serve as the top U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.
Martin, a long-time Trump ally, became a known “Stop the Steal” advocate after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and represented Jan. 6 defendants who faced criminal charges for their actions that day. He has fired over a dozen federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases in his time serving as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
“He has some serious quesions he’s got to answer about January 6,” Tillis told NBC News today. “You know, I’ve made it very clear, I went to the Senate floor and said, I disagree with President Trump on pardoning these people, so I just need a fulsome answer.”
Tillis holds a key Republican vote on the Senate committee that is responsible for favorably advancing Martin’s nomination to the full chamber for a confirmation vote. Should Tillis vote no, Martin would not advance out of committee.
"I’m talking about somebody who wants to be the AG in the jurisdiction where that event and future events could possibly occur," Tillis said. "‘m going to have to get some pretty fulsome responses for me to feel comfortable with his nomination.”
A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R- Iowa, said the committee will not be holding a confirmation hearing for Martin, citing “longtime committee precedent.”
Once all of Martin’s confirmation materials are in, the committee will move to list him on the agenda for a vote, a process that can take weeks with controversial nominees.
Asked if he will support Martin, Tillis said he’s “got to do the due diligence,” adding “I’m not going to say I’m a no now, I’m going to say, I’m concerned with some of his public comments, and particularly on January 6th.”
Trump suggests tariffs could mean kids have fewer toys
Trump downplayed warnings from retailers of product shortages and higher prices as the result of his massive tariffs on Chinese imports, saying it would be OK if, as a result, children have fewer toys.
"Somebody said, 'Oh, the shelves are going to be bare.' Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30, you know?" Trump said during a meeting with his Cabinet. "And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally."
Trump said China has "ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which, not all of it, but much of which we don't need."
The United States imports as much as 75% of the toy products it sells from China, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, making it one of the industries most reliant on that country’s supply chain. As a result, toy industry officials have been warning U.S. consumers to expect higher prices and fewer choices this year, including for the holidays, as a result of Trump’s tariffs.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also downplayed the need for Chinese imports, saying last month that the “American dream is not contingent on cheap baubles from China, it is more than that.”
Trump says it will still be Biden's fault if U.S. economy shrinks in second quarter of the year
Trump doubled down on blaming the Biden administration for the unfavorable performance of the U.S. economy during his first 100 days in office, adding that poor performance in the second quarter will also be Biden’s fault.
“We came in on Jan. 20,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting today. “So this is Biden, and you can even say the next quarter is sort of Biden, because it doesn’t just happen on a daily or hourly basis, but we’re turning it around.”
Biden will have been out of office for six months by the time the Commerce Department releases second quarter measurements of U.S. gross domestic product.
Trump slammed Biden’s handling of the economy on Truth Social this morning after the department released data showing the U.S. GDP contracted by 0.3% over the first three months of Trump’s presidency, causing the stock market to slip in reaction.
Rubio says he will 'never tell' a judge if the Trump administration has requested Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he “would never tell” when asked by a reporter if the administration has requested that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, be returned to the United States.
“I would never tell you that,” Rubio said. “And you know who else I’ll never tell? A judge. The conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.”
The comments came after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States earlier this month. Trump administration officials have thus far announced no plans to work with the Salvadoran government on Abrego Garcia’s return.
“We will conduct foreign policy, but I never discuss it and no one will ever make us discuss it,” Rubio said. “That’s how foreign policy works.”
Treasury Secretary Bessent says 'our side is ready to sign' Ukraine minerals deal
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that U.S. officials are "ready to sign" a rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine.
"We are ready to sign this afternoon," Bessent added after denying that there have been last-minute changes requested by Ukraine.
During a TV appearance today in Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the nation's first deputy prime minister "is on her way to Washington."
"We are finalizing the last details with our American colleagues," Shmyhal added, later saying, "As soon as all the final details are worked out in the near future, I hope within the day, the agreement will be signed, and accordingly, we will take the first step."
Rubio: 'We are actively searching for other countries' to take undocumented immigrants
During a Cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the Trump administration is "actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries."
"Not just El Salvador," Rubio added, referring to the administration's agreement with El Salvador to send undocumented immigrants from the U.S. there, regardless of the immigrants' home country.
"We are working with other countries to say, we want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries," Rubio said, later adding, "farther away from America the better, so they can't come back across the border. I'm not apologetic about it."
Kennedy promotes plan to remove fluoride from drinking water
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revived his plan to promote the removal of fluoride from community water systems.
Kennedy told Trump that he is working "to change the federal fluoride regulations, to change the recommendations, and we're looking at the science now."
Since the start of the Trump administration, Utah has banned fluoride in public water and Florida is set to do the same.
Gulf of America hats at a Cabinet meeting at the White House
Trump thanks Musk for DOGE work and says he wants to get back to his cars
Trump thanked Elon Musk for overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency and its efforts to drastically downsize the federal government during the first 100 days of his administration.
“We all want to thank you,” Trump said. “You really have sacrificed. You have been treated unfairly, but the vast majority of people in this country really respect and appreciate you.”
Musk joked that he has sacrificed “his cars.” The stock market performance of Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla has plummeted in recent months, with sales dropping amid Musk’s involvement with the administration. Tesla cars and dealerships have also been the target of vandalism on multiple occasions.
Recent polls surveying Trump’s first 100 days have found Musk's work with DOGE to be broadly unpopular. An NBC News Stay Tuned survey found that 59% of adults had unfavorable views of Musk, while 41% viewed him favorably. Voters have raised concerns over the billionaire’s approach to addressing government inefficiency, which has led to mass layoffs and funding cuts across a number of government agencies.
Musk indicated last week he would soon take a step back from DOGE.
“At some point, I guess he wants to get back home to his cars,” Trump said in the meeting.
Education secretary jokes she's working hard 'to fire myself'
Education Secretary Linda McMahon joked at today's White House Cabinet meeting, "I don't think I have ever worked so hard to try to fire myself."
The president has sought to gut the Education Department, signing an executive order last month that ordered McMahon to start dismantling it, although doing away with the department would require congressional action.
At the time, Trump joked about McMahon that “hopefully she will be our last secretary of education.”
Trump pins stock market struggles on Biden — weeks after taking credit for it
Trump’s first 100 days in office have been the worst for the stock market since Richard Nixon’s administration, with significant drops following his tariff announcements.
But according to Trump, it’s all Joe Biden’s fault.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” he posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. “I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers.”
Ukraine says it hopes to sign U.S. minerals deal within 24 hours
Ukraine is ready to sign an agreement that would give the U.S. access to its valuable rare minerals in the hopes of ensuring continued American support for Kyiv in its grinding war with Russia, senior Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.
Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, was headed to Washington on Wednesday to help finalize the deal, the country’s prime minister said live on air during a national telethon.
Vance says America's past presidents have been 'placeholders'
Vice President JD Vance said the American presidents who came before Trump have just been “placeholders” during a Cabinet meeting at the White House today.
Vance, praising Trump for the array of executive orders he has signed on trade and immigration during his first 100 days in office, many of which have been challenged in court, said past administrations have failed to deliver on their policy promises.
“What has happened in 100 days is that we’ve started to reverse every single one of those negative trends,” Vance said, pointing to U.S.-China trade relations, defense recruitment levels and immigration policy.
"I think what it shows to me is that the presidents, and you sit in the Oval Office and you see these portraits of presidents past, let’s be honest, most of them have been placeholders."
"They’ve been people who have allowed their staff to sign executive orders with an auto pen instead of men of action," Vance added.
Agriculture secretary signals she will work on food stamps with Health Secretary Kennedy
During a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told the president that "a big part of USDA is food stamps," adding that, "It is perhaps one of the largest — if not the largest — welfare program."
Rollins added that she has been working "very closely" on the program with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., though she didn't offer specifics on how she and Kennedy are looking to overhaul the program.
"Secretary Kennedy and I have been working very closely," Rollins said, adding later, "You can't make America healthy again without your farmers and your ranchers as your partner, so [we're] ensuring that our food stamp program and those at the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder really have access to nutritious foods as we're facing an obesity crisis and a chronic disease crisis."
Trump cites 'judge problems' with his deportation agenda
At the beginning of his Cabinet meeting, Trump spoke about his mass deportation policy and the various federal judges who have halted some of the administration's efforts to deport people who it claims are gang members.
"We’re expelling these monsters from our country rapidly and working with the Department of Justice," Trump said about alleged gang members.
The president then told Attorney General Pam Bondi, "Pam, you’re doing fantastic. Your people are amazing. We’re having some judge problems, and everybody’s reading some judges that don’t like, you know, killers, murderers being thrown out of the country."
The president added, in reference to the judges, "I don’t know what their problem is, but we have little difficulty."
The Trump administration has specifically drawn the ire of one judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the administration has said was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Last week, Xinis called out the government for slow-walking the discovery process in the case.
She called the government's process a “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations,” and called some of its answers to questions from the defense “vague, evasive, and incomplete.”
Trump calls de minimis trade exemption, which boosts Chinese retailers Shein and Temu, a 'scam'
During a Cabinet meeting, Trump called the de minimis trade exemption, which allows shipments worth less than $800 to enter the U.S. duty free, a "scam."
"It's very important, de minimis," the president said. "It's a very, it's a big deal. It's a big scam going on against our country, against really small businesses. And we've ended, we put an end to it."
Earlier this month, the president signed an executive order that closes the de minimis trade loophole next month.
The move came during Trump's ongoing trade war with China. The de minimis exemption boosted Chinese retailers such as Shein and Temu, who sold ultra-low-cost goods free of tariffs directly to Americans.
Trump jokes Hegseth is his 'least controversial' Cabinet member
In a meeting with his Cabinet at the White House, Trump joked about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth being his "least controversial person."
"People around the table are making statements about how they’re doing and what’s happening," Trump said. "I could start with Pete on the left, because he’s my least controversial person."
Laughter echoed throughout the room at the president's comment.
Hegseth has faced scrutiny over his ability to lead the Department of Defense amid a series of missteps, including his sharing of sensitive military plans on the messaging app Signal on two different occasions and reports of infighting at the Pentagon.
Trump repeatedly blames Biden for GDP decline
At Trump's Cabinet meeting, he blamed his predecessor for a new report this morning that showed the U.S. economy contracted slightly in the first quarter of this year.
“I have to start off by saying, that’s [former President Joe] Biden, that’s not Trump," the president said. "Because we came in in January, these are quarterly numbers, and we came in, and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy, destroying our country in so many ways, not only at the border, the border was more obvious, but we took over his mess in so many different ways.”
The remarks echoed what Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social this morning, in which he said, "This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th."
In a statement, one of Biden's former aides said in a statement that "Joe Biden handed Donald Trump the best-performing economy in the world."
"Now we’re plummeting toward a Trumpcession. Joe Biden publicly warned Trump against raising the prices he promised to lower with tariffs, which are now the biggest middle class tax increase in modern history," former Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates said.
"Donald Trump is the only president to have sent a strengthening economy into a nosedive in 100 days, and the only president to have bankrupted a casino," Bates added. "If the Trump Crime Family weren’t bilking wealthy supporters for exemptions from his tariffs, he’d probably be broke himself."
Noem reiterates support for Secret Service after purse theft
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem today said she had "full faith and trust" in the Secret Service, days after a second suspect was arrested in connection with the theft of her purse and personal belongings.
"We have Sean Curran, who's the new director of Secret Service, who I have full faith and trust in," Noem told reporters at a press conference.
She added that the experience of having her purse stolen from a D.C. restaurant on Easter Sunday "was just a little bit of what the American people have been living with for years."
"The American people have been living in communities where they've been victimized by illegal criminal aliens," she added, using the moment to promote the Trump administration's mass deportation policy.
"It gives me new motivation, and the president new motivation every day, to continue to do the work that we’re doing, and that is cleaning up America and making sure that we’re getting it safe again for the families who live here," Noem said.
U.S. pork processor says tariffs have made China market unviable
Top U.S. pork processor Smithfield Foods said China’s retaliatory tariffs have made it unfeasible to sell to the world’s second-biggest economy.
"With China no longer essentially being available, we’ve really had to pivot our business," Smithfield President and CEO Shane Smith said yesterday on a quarterly earnings call. The U.S.-based pork producer is a subsidiary of the Chinese multinational WH Group, which acquired the company in 2013.
China, the world’s largest consumer of pork, accounts for about 3% of the company’s revenue, Smith said.
China raised tariffs on U.S. imports to 125% this month in response to U.S. tariffs that are now at 145%, though both countries appear to be making some exemptions.
Musk will attend Trump's Cabinet meeting today
Elon Musk will attend a meeting with Trump’s Cabinet at the White House today, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.
News of Musk’s attendance comes as Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles told the New York Post yesterday the billionaire adviser is no longer working in person at the White House.
“Instead of meeting with him in person, I’m talking to him on the phone, but it’s the same net effect,” Wiles said.
Trump cautions 'BE PATIENT!!!' in reaction to negative economic news
Trump asked people to be patient after news came out this morning that the U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of this year.
"This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers."
"Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden 'Overhang,'” he continued. "This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!"
The Commerce Department report marked the first negative economic reading since the pandemic, affected by an influx of imports ahead of Trump's tariffs going into effect. In addition, consumer spending rose only 1.8%, the lowest since mid-2023.
Peter Navarro, a senior adviser to Trump on trade and manufacturing, also blamed former President Joe Biden for the current economic situation while speaking to reporters this morning, saying that the inflation problem “hasn’t been fully cured” and Biden "didn’t leave us with a very good hand.”
GDP declines 0.3% as imports surged ahead of Trump’s tariffs
The U.S. economy contracted 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, the first negative reading since the Covid pandemic, according to an initial measurement by the Commerce Department.
The decline was fueled by a massive surge in imports. Consumer spending, meanwhile, climbed 1.8%, the weakest pace since mid-2023.
Canada was poised to elect its own ‘Maple MAGA’ movement. Then Trump happened.
Before this week’s federal election in Canada, Derek Ouellette and his wife, Yecenia Ouellette, could never have imagined voting for anyone but a Conservative.
“We were both raised Conservative and we both kind of thought, Conservative is just what you do,” Derek Ouellette, a 46-year-old insurance broker from Belle River, near Windsor, Ontario, said in a phone interview late Tuesday.
But Ouellette said he was proud to have done the once unthinkable, voting for Liberal leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney, who is projected to have secured a minority victory in this week’s poll.
Across social media, a number of once-dedicated Conservatives said that they would be casting their ballots for the Liberal Party this week for the first time in their lives. Many described their vote as a rejection of “Canada’s Trump” — Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre — and his aggressive campaign, which experts say appeared to pull from the playbook of Trump.
Trump says supporters ‘did sign up for’ higher costs
Trump touted his trade agenda during a rally in Michigan while marking his first 100 days of his second term. Meanwhile, the president said in a new interview that his supporters “did sign up for” higher prices, despite his having repeatedly vowed to lower costs. “I said all these things during my campaign. I said, you’re going to have a transition period,” Trump said. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports for "TODAY."
Supreme Court considers endorsing country’s first religious public charter school
Reporting from Washington
A case that could weaken the separation of church and state goes before the Supreme Court today as the justices consider whether Oklahoma can approve the first religious public charter school.
Although the oral argument concerns only St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would operate online throughout the state with a remit to promote the Catholic faith, the case could have broad ramifications.
The dispute, which pits Republicans in Oklahoma against one another, highlights tensions within the Constitution’s First Amendment. While the establishment clause prohibits state endorsement of religion or preference for one religion over another, the free exercise clause outlaws religious discrimination.
Trump marks 100th day at Michigan rally, doubles down on border and trade agenda
On the 100th day of his second term, Trump held a rally in Michigan in which he defended his economic and immigration policies, doubling down on tariffs against China and Canada, and vowing to expand deportation efforts.
Harris to deliver speech in San Francisco tonight
Former Vice President Kamala Harris is set to return to the national stage tonight with a speech in San Francisco.
Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, will be speaking at a gala for Emerge America, an organization that recruits female Democratic candidates.
“We are so excited to have former Vice President @kamalaharris giving the keynote to celebrate 20 years of Emerge and address the first 100 days of the Trump administration,” the organization said in a post on X.
The speech marks the organization’s 20th anniversary. Tickets range from $25 for virtual attendees and up to $50,000 for gala sponsors.
Trump’s economy at 100 days: Unprecedented uncertainty reigns
Voters returned Trump to the White House in November believing he would be better for the economy than his opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Yet, 100 days into Trump’s second presidential term, voters now face an economic landscape rife with uncertainty.
Among its attributes: recession odds of as high as 60%, inflation rates that have barely budged and a stock market that, until recently, was beset by volatility. At issue is Trump’s tariffs strategy.