National Politics

CNN By Oren Liebermann, CNN (CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to prepare plans to make drastic budget cuts over the next five years, with an exception for border security, according to a new memo obtained by CNN. The memo, dated Tuesday, calls for military leaders to provide a proposal for

By Oren Liebermann, CNN (CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the military to prepare plans to make drastic budget cuts over the next five years, with an exception for border security, according to a new memo obtained by CNN. The memo, dated Tuesday, calls for military leaders to provide a proposal for eight

By Sarah Ferris and Lauren Fox, CNN Washington (CNN) — Senate Republicans announced Wednesday they are muscling ahead with their preferred legislative strategy to jumpstart Donald Trump’s agenda — just hours after the president himself backed a much different approach. That power move by Senate Majority Leader John Thune is setting up a dramatic clash

By John Fritze, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump’s executive order grasping far greater control over independent federal agencies embraces a constitutionally questionable theory that presidents dating back to Ronald Reagan have considered – and ultimately rejected. In a far-reaching executive order Tuesday, Trump demanded that the White House review regulations at the Securities and

By Daniel Dale, CNN Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump is on a lying spree about Ukraine. In remarks to reporters on Tuesday and in a social media post on Wednesday, Trump made numerous false claims about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Russian war on Ukraine – some of which echoed inaccurate talking points

By Natasha Bertrand and Haley Britzky, CNN (CNN) — Some defense officials responsible for drafting lists of civilian Pentagon employees to be terminated as soon as this week are raising concerns with their superiors that the summary firings could break the law and potentially harm US military readiness, a senior defense official told CNN. Title

By Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell, CNN New York (CNN) — Wednesday’s much anticipated hearing on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams has ended without an immediate ruling from Judge Dale Ho. Ho said he was not going to “shoot from the hip” on the

By Jeremy Herb, Kevin Liptak and Alayna Treene, CNN (CNN) — When Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts by a jury last May, there was one person in his courtroom entourage who wasn’t one of his lawyers, aides or family members: Steve Witkoff. While a parade of Trump allies came in and out

By Casey Tolan, CNN (CNN) — Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency disclosed for the first time this week a snapshot of some of the government contracts it has canceled, claiming to have saved taxpayers about $55 billion. But the list of contracts, published to a DOGE website Monday night, raises questions about the accuracy

By Sunlen Serfaty, CNN (CNN) — As federal workers get fired by the thousands, the news has sometimes come in unceremonious, callous ways. “Read this immediately,” – went the subject line of a termination email received by one worker. For another, it was the prepaid UPS label that showed up without warning—along with instructions for

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN Washington (CNN) — The Trump administration is expected to issue a public health order as soon as this week labeling migrants at the US southern border as risks for spreading diseases, marking an escalation in the president’s effort to severely restrict immigration, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. The

By Daniel Dale, CNN Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump’s false declaration Tuesday that Ukraine “started” the Russian war on Ukraine generated the most attention. But Trump also made another wildly inaccurate assertion about Ukraine during those remarks to the media at Mar-a-Lago: a claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has a 4% approval rating.

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst (CNN) — President Donald Trump has expounded an extraordinary vision of his authority over the past month, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision last year granting him immunity from criminal prosecution as a blank check in his broader drive for power. Trump’s personal lawyers and his Justice Department

By Kit Maher and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, CNN (CNN) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday to develop policy recommendations to expand access to and affordability of in vitro fertilization. The executive order states that within 90 days, the assistant to the president for domestic policy should submit a list of “policy recommendations

By Priscilla Alvarez and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration ordered legal service providers working with unaccompanied migrant children to stop their work, according to a memo obtained by CNN. The move is the latest in a string of actions stripping key resources from immigrants in the United States – this time,

By Associated Press Washington (AP) — Louis DeJoy, the head of the US Postal Service, intends to step down, the federal agency said Tuesday, after a nearly five-year tenure marked by the coronavirus pandemic, surges in mail-in election ballots and efforts to stem losses through cost and service cuts. In a Monday letter, Postmaster General

By Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, CNN (CNN) — The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was briefly closed due to the “sudden dismissal of federal employees,” the library’s foundation said in a statement to CNN. “As the Foundation that supports the JFK Library, we are devastated by this news and will continue to

By Devan Cole, CNN (CNN) — A federal judge considering whether to indefinitely block President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender service members described it on Tuesday as having “unadulterated animus” toward transgender Americans. “We’re dealing with unadulterated animus,” US District Judge Ana Reyes said during a hearing Tuesday in a case challenging the ban,

By Devan Cole and Tierney Sneed, CNN (CNN) — A federal judge declined on Tuesday to temporarily block Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency from accessing federal data systems at a slew of executive branch agencies. The decision by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan is an early blow to efforts by a group