James' World 2

What We’re Covering Today

• Funding Standoff: Senate Democrats blocked a measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security as lawmakers remained locked in a standoff that could shut down the agency this weekend. The bill contained none of the restrictions on immigration enforcement that Democrats have demanded to fund the department. The vote came after a heated, four-hour Senate hearing with top immigration officials in which Todd Lyons, the acting chief of ICE, acknowledged that two citizens killed by agents in Minnesota, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, did not appear to be domestic terrorists. Read more ›

• Minnesota ICE Drawdown: Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said the Trump administration was ending the fiercely criticized surge of immigration agents in Minnesota. State and local officials greeted the announcement with cautious optimism as they celebrated Minnesotans for challenging the conduct of federal agents and protecting immigrants.

• Military Video: A federal judge temporarily blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from punishing Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy pilot, for participating in a video that reminded active-duty service members not to follow illegal orders. The judge said it would infringe on his First Amendment rights.

A homeland security shutdown draws nearer as Democrats block funding.

Members of Congress were departed Washington on Thursday without funding the Department of Homeland Security, putting it on a near-certain path to a shutdown this weekend amid a deep partisan divide over Democrats’ demands to place new restrictions on federal immigration agents.

Senate Democrats blocked a spending bill that would have funded the department past a Friday night shutdown deadline without adding any new curbs on immigration enforcement, an expected outcome after bipartisan talks on limiting President Trump’s crackdown deadlocked.

Speaker Mike Johnson has canceled a House congressional delegation to the Munich Security Conference this weekend in light of the expected shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security on Saturday, according to five congressional aides with knowledge of the trip.

Dozens of House members were expected to be at the gathering of world leaders, with the heads of the conference touting the U.S. delegation as the largest ever to attend. Now those members, including the top Republicans and Democrats on the foreign affairs and armed services committees, will be absent. Some senators are still planning to travel to Germany to participate.

Senate Democrats just blocked a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, after Republicans tried to advance a spending measure that they had already rejected. The measure fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster, with all but one Democrat voting to block it in a 52-47 vote.

The Senate is voting on funding the Department of Homeland Security after it lapses at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, but Democrats are blocking it over a lack of restrictions on immigration agents, putting the agency on the verge of a shutdown. A second vote is expected this afternoon on stop-gap funding, but it is also expected to fail.

The hearing has concluded after about four hours of testimony.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said that a shutdown of the Homeland Security Department “would impact personnel actions” like hiring and recruitment.

But when asked further by Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, he acknowledged that a shutdown was unlikely to heavily affect immigration enforcement operations because of the $75 billion fund that Republicans allocated to ICE last year as part of their major tax and policy bill.

The Minnesota surge led to thousands of arrests, tense protests and three shootings.

The Trump administration said on Thursday that it was ending its deployment of immigration agents to Minnesota, unwinding an aggressive operation that has stretched for more than two months despite loud opposition from residents and local officials.

For many Minnesotans who had watched the federal government exert its will on their state — wielding law enforcement power and physical force at a scale that had no modern American precedent — the announcement signaled a welcome shift. Still, some expressed skepticism about whether the administration would follow through.

Lawyers for the family of Renee Good, who was killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis, said they were “cautiously optimistic about the drawdown of federal agents from Minnesota.” They added that the “agents’ departure from Minnesota does not dismiss the absolute need for accountability for their actions.”

Minnesota leaders praise residents for standing up to ‘bullies’ during Trump crackdown.

Minnesota officials said the nearly six-week surge of immigration enforcement in the state would leave deep economic and psychological scars that last long after the drawdown of federal agents, which President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, announced on Thursday.

Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the announcement and would now turn his attention to the state’s economic recovery. “They left us with deep damage, generational trauma,” he said. “They left us with economic ruin, in some cases.”

On the same day, the White House announced that it was ending its immigration operation in Minnesota, Kaohly Her, the mayor of St. Paul., Minn., signed an ordinance requiring that all law enforcement officials operating in the city display their names or badge numbers on the outer layer of their uniforms. “Federal law enforcement officers have too often used generic ‘police’ uniforms to obscure their identities and avoid being clearly identified by the agencies they represent,” the mayor said in a statement. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said the expected drawdown of federal agents in his state does not mean that Democrats in Congress should change the way they negotiate on a funding package for the Department of Homeland Security. “Hold the line until you get the minimum reforms necessary in this rogue agency,” he said. Democrats in Congress have suggested new rules for immigration officers as a condition for funding the department. Republicans have so far rejected them.

Tom Homan’s announcement of a drawdown in Minnesota signaled a shift in strategy and messaging for the Trump administration when it comes to immigration enforcement. When the administration wound down its aggressive operations in Los Angeles and Chicago last year, the administration made no formal announcement that agents were leaving town, leaving local and state officials in the dark about their intentions.

Intelligence dispute centers on Kushner reference in intercepted communication.

It was a discussion last year between two foreign nationals about Iran, not an unusual topic for American spies to study. But an intercept of that communication, collected by a foreign spy service and given to the United States, has now become a flashpoint within the intelligence community and between the administration and Congress. The reason is a single name that came up in the discussion: Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law.

The previously unreported mention of Mr. Kushner in the discussion came after members of Congress were briefed last week about a classified report filed by a whistle-blower regarding the intercept, according to people familiar with the material. The whistle-blower has accused Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, of limiting who could see the report and of blocking wider distribution among the nation’s spy agencies, people familiar with the complaint said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he planned to appeal the ruling by a federal judge that blocked the Pentagon from seeking to punish Senator Mark Kelly for taking part in a video that reminded active-duty service members not to follow illegal orders.

“This will be immediately appealed,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post. “Sedition is sedition, ‘captain.’”

A judge ordered the government to help return Venezuelans detained in El Salvador.

A federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to help bring back any of the nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who want to return to the United States from the international limbo they have been living in since March, when officials deported them to El Salvador.

The ruling by the judge, James E. Boasberg, was one of the most robust steps taken so far to force the administration to give due process to the Venezuelan immigrants deported under the authority of an 18th century wartime law.

President Trump said Thursday that he had no knowledge that Howard Lutnick, his secretary of commerce, had ever visited the private island of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I wasn’t aware of it, no,” Trump told reporters, adding, “I actually haven’t spoken to him about it.” Trump then explained: “But from what I hear, he was there with his wife and children.” The president then said that he, personally, “was never there.”

The White House has publicly rallied behind Lutnick in recent days, even after learning his ties to Epstein were deeper than the secretary initially suggested.

“It’s a ruling we wanted and hoped for and we’ll see what happens next,” Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, said of the decision by a federal judge who blocked the Pentagon from downgrading his military retirement rank and pay.

Trump Administration Erases the Government’s Power to Fight Climate Change

President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane, and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather.

President Trump and Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, are expected to make a major announcement at the White House related to climate change.

They are set to announce the repeal of the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change. That 2009 determination, known as the endangerment finding, gave the E.P.A. the power to set climate regulations for cars, power plants, and other sources of planet-warming pollution.

Judge Temporarily Blocks Hegseth from Punishing Kelly for Video

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from punishing Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, for participating in a video that warned active-duty service members not to follow illegal orders.

Judge Richard J. Leon of the District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in a 29-page opinion that the Defense Department’s move to discipline Mr. Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut, ran roughshod over his freedom of speech. Judge Leon barred Mr. Hegseth and the Pentagon from taking any steps to reduce the senator’s retirement rank and pay, or using the findings against Mr. Kelly in a criminal proceeding.

A federal judge in Washington blocked an attempt by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to penalize Senator Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, for participating in a video that warned active-duty service members not to follow illegal orders.

In a curt 29-page opinion, Judge Richard J. Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote the efforts to punish Kelly were a clear violation of his First Amendment rights as a military retiree.

Today’s Senate hearing with the heads of three federal immigration agencies has again highlighted the partisan divide over immigration enforcement efforts, one that has increased the likelihood of a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats have criticized the practices of federal immigration agents as abusive, aggressive, and out of line with policing standards that govern the use of force and de-escalation tactics. Republicans have argued that policies in Democratic-run cities and states are hampering ICE from deporting undocumented immigrants, some of whom are accused of violent crimes.

Though members of both parties have argued for independent investigations of the shootings in Minnesota, both sides have insisted that a bill to fund the Homeland Security Department addresses their separate concerns.

Republicans are pointing to the announcement by Homan to end the surge of agents to Minneapolis, along with a White House counterproposal to Democrats’ demands as signs that they are operating in good faith in their negotiations to fund the Homeland Security Department.

But on Thursday morning, many Democrats said they still haven’t seen the White House offer, and others said the actions were insufficient. “Abuses cannot be solved merely through executive fiat alone,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said. “Without legislation, what Tom Homan says today could be reversed tomorrow on a whim from Donald Donald Trump.”

Republicans’ advantage on immigration has shrunk, according to a new poll.

The Republican Party’s advantage on immigration appears to be shrinking, according to a new poll from The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Republicans now hold a narrow, 4 percentage point edge over Democrats on which party Americans trust to handle immigration, down from a 13 percentage point advantage in October.

Senator John Thune, the majority leader, said that a counterproposal from the White House to keep funding flowing to the Homeland Security Department had moved negotiations closer to an “agreement zone,” and he urged Democrats to remain at the table to reach a deal.

He did conceded that “maybe there’s some more ground the White House could give on a couple of fronts” to secure a deal and avoid a partial government shutdown or keep it brief. Thune refused to disclose details of the White House proposal but indicated that any requirement for the department’s officers to have a judicial warrant before entering private property would be a nonstarter.

“The issue of warrants is going to be very hard for the White House or for Republicans,” he told reporters. “But I think there are a lot of other areas where there has been give and progress.”

The Justice Department’s antitrust chief is leaving her post after months of mounting tension.

Gail Slater said on Thursday that she was leaving the top antitrust post at the Justice Department, ending a short tenure for the veteran tech and media lawyer who had faced tensions over her handling of corporate mergers.

Ms. Slater, 54, who was the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, said in a social media post that she was leaving her role on Thursday with “great sadness and abiding hope.” She was in the job for roughly a year, after her confirmation in March.

Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday denounced the Trump administration’s failed attempt to criminally prosecute six lawmakers for posting a video warning active-duty service members that they are not obligated to follow illegal orders.

The video posted in November sparked anger from President Trump. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” he wrote in a post on his social media site.

The Latest on the Trump Administration

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• El Paso: The abrupt, and ultimately short-lived, closure of the city’s airspace was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

• U.S. Attorney Fired:  Federal judges in upstate New York appointed a new U.S. attorney after the Trump administration’s nominee was found to be serving unlawfully, only to see him abruptly fired by the White House.

• Trump Tax Cuts: The tax law passed in Congress, which revived a slew of expensive tax breaks for both business and individuals, is hitting state revenues and prompting some states to proactively exclude the new federal tax cuts from their tax codes.

• Lost Factory Jobs: Ford Motor shut down a battery factory and laid off 1,600 workers after President Trump and Republicans gutted government support for electric vehicles. Yet few people in Hardin County, where Trump won 64 percent of the vote in 2024, place much blame on Republicans.

• Foreign Military Chiefs: Dozens of military chiefs from the Western Hemisphere gathered in Washington for the first time to discuss a wide range of security issues that the Trump administration says are paramount to safeguarding the United States.

• Kennedy Changes Course: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, is making a calculated election-year pivot away from vaccines, using high profile events to promote his “Eat Real Food” agenda.

• Nuclear Waste: After years of missed deadlines, New Mexico is demanding that the Energy Department expedite the cleanup of so-called legacy nuclear and hazardous waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the birthplace of the atomic bomb.