The Latest: Rubio testifies before Congress for the first time since the start of the Iran war
(AP)– Secretary of State Marco Rubio faces a litany of questions Tuesday about the Trump administration’s fragile or stalling diplomatic efforts around the world when he appears for back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill for the first time since the Iran war began.
Senate Republicans are meeting Tuesday to discuss next steps after the Justice Department said it would comply with a court order pausing the implementation of a $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate President Donald Trump’s political allies.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is also set to return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee. The hearing was scheduled for discussion of the Justice Department’s budget, but lawmakers will almost certainly focus their questioning on the settlement fund.
The Latest:
Rubio set to testify as Senate committee hearing begins
James E. Risch, the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, kicked off Tuesday’s hearing, the first for the U.S. secretary of state since the Iran war began.
Risch has praised Rubio’s efforts to reduce illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
Rubio to be defiant on status of US foreign policy in first congressional testimony since Iran war
The former Republican senator is set to defend the Trump administration’s bulldozing of American soft power in his opening statement to senators Tuesday as part of an annual budget request hearing.
“The U.S. government is not a charity. We are not here to play social worker,” Rubio’s prepared remarks say.
The written remarks focus mostly on the Western Hemisphere, with no mention of the ongoing, sprawling U.S. operations in the Middle East.
They call the capturing of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro “one of the most extraordinary feats of lethal precision in military history.”
“We have made it clear to every government in this hemisphere that America can either be their greatest friend or their most feared enemy — the choice is theirs,” he added.
Rubio enters Senate briefing room to chants from protesters
Rubio faced chants from protesters who urged him to “stop killing Cubans” when he entered a Senate briefing room Tuesday.
The protesters were quickly pulled from the room. Their chants also included “Let Cuba live!” as well as, “Repent Marco Rubio. God will forgive you for your sins. Stop killing Cubans.”
Rubio is sitting at a table staring into the lenses of media photographers.
Protesters arrested outside Rubio hearing
A small number of protesters who were lined up outside a Senate briefing room where Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to testify before Congress have been arrested.
The group chanted “Rubio lies. People with AIDS die” as well as “One child dies every 30 mins.”
A small number of other protesters, who were not arrested, have found seats in the back of the room where Rubio is to provide testimony at 10 a.m.
Judges and grand juries have rebuffed Pulte’s accusations against Trump rivals
Pulte has used his perch as FHFA director to make a succession of criminal referrals against political opponents of Trump related to allegations of mortgage fraud.
One such referral centered on New York Attorney Letitia James, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing. A prosecution against her was dismissed in November after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was was illegally appointed. Prosecutors have tried several times since to bring a new case but have been rebuffed by grand juries.
Other referrals made by Pulte, including against Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, have not yielded any criminal charges. Lawyers for both have denied any claims of wrongdoing.
Pulte has raised his profile by attacking Trump’s rivals
Pulte has mainly trained his sights on Trump’s domestic rivals. He targeted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the central bank’s benchmark interest rates as aggressively as the president wanted, and led a protracted campaign against New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who angered Trump by prosecuting him in court.
It’s unclear what national security expertise Pulte has, but the attention-seeking and hyper-online millennial has become a major player in the Trump administration, and a frequent guest on Air Force One as Trump has traveled to Mar-a-Lago, his home and club in Florida.
Pulte is a loyal Trump aide who lacks intelligence agency experience
The position, which involves overseeing and coordinating the country’s 18 intelligence agencies, is one that requires Senate confirmation.
With the appointment, Trump, who has long the nation’s intelligence agencies with suspicion, is foregoing a director with experience in sensitive intelligence and national security matters and is instead selecting a loyal aide who made a career in the homebuilding industry and cultivated a combative social media presence.
Gabbard was seen as an unconventional pick, but she was a former congresswoman who had served in the military.
Trump taps federal housing finance director Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence
Trump made the surprise announcement on Truth Social on Tuesday regarding Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chair of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago,” he wrote.
Trump said Pulte would keep his other positions even as he fills in for Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned last month after revealing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.
If formally nominated, Pulte would need to be confirmed by the Senate to hold the position full time.
Pulte’s current role involves ensuring the soundness of the mortgage market, but he morphed into a megaphone who went after Trump’s perceived political foes.
EU strikes Trump-like deal for more deportations and detention centers abroad
A vast overhaul of the European Union’s migration policy aims to speed deportations using detention centers outside the 27-nation bloc. Critics compare the regulations agreed-to Monday night to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies.
“The new regulation will speed up the return process and increase returns of persons who have no legal right to stay in the EU,” said Nicholas Ioannides, deputy migration minister for Cyprus, which holds the rotating EU presidency.
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Greece are already in talks with third countries, mostly in Africa, to host the “return hubs.” Critics compare them to the secretive Trump administration agreements to deport thousands of people to countries that are not their own.
“The legalization of return hubs outside the European Union, the green light for the detention of minors, home visits inspired by ICE practices: the legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete,” said Mélissa Camara, a French Green party lawmaker.
Jill Biden surprised at Kamala Harris’ critiques of Joe Biden’s 2024 decision
The former first lady said Tuesday she was surprised that the former vice president wrote in her own memo that Joe Biden’s ego and ambition effectively damaged Democrats’ hopes in the 2024 presidential election.
“I was a little surprised she wrote that,” Jill Biden said on MSNOW’s “Morning Joe,” adding that “Joe and Kamala, me, Doug (Emhoff), I thought we were a great team.”
She added that “when Joe got out, he handed over the reins to Kamala” and “had full confidence in her.”
The interview comes as part of Jill Biden’s media tour touting her new memoir of the Bidens’ White House years.
The former first lady said her husband and Harris remain on good terms and that Harris “just called two days ago” to check on how he’s doing.
Former first lady says of Joe Biden’s cancer has been tough
Jill Biden said her 83-year-old husband “gets tired a little more often” since his prostate cancer diagnosis.
“Cancer takes its toll,” she said in an MSNOW interview.
But she noted the former president is “still giving speeches” and “still on Amtrak a couple of times a month, keeping a schedule.”
Biden’s son, Beau Biden, died of an aggressive brain cancer in 2015, when his father was still vice president.
“I know every family in America has been touched by cancer,” Jill Biden said. “So I think people can relate when I say … it’s been, it’s been tough.”
Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, appeals court panel rules
A Pentagon policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeals court judges ruled on Monday in another legal setback for President Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda.
The majority opinion — by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit — held that the Trump administration’s policy was designed to exclude people from the military based on their gender identity.
The ban remains in effect. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Pentagon to start enforcing it last year, as litigation continues to play out.
The panel’s new ruling would keep the military from kicking out current service members named in the lawsuit, but wouldn’t allow new transgender recruits to join. The judges put their decision on hold, though, to let the administration seek further review.
What to watch in Tuesday’s primaries as Democrats try to defend California and make inroads in Iowa
For a state that’s home to Hollywood, there isn’t much star power in California’s gubernatorial race. It’s a somewhat different story in Los Angeles, where a reality television personality is running for mayor as the city prepares to host the Olympics.
More primaries are being held on Tuesday as well. Democrats are banking on a rare chance to regain ground in Iowa, a rural state that has repeatedly eluded them in recent years. Republicans, meanwhile, are grappling with a New Jersey congressman whose unexplained absence could put their already slim majority at risk.
▶ Read more about what to watch as voters in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota cast ballots
Pentagon bars journalists from its press office, saying it has become a ‘classified space’
In another of a series of moves restricting media access at the Pentagon, the Defense Department has declared that its press office is now a classified space inaccessible to journalists.
On X, acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez confirmed the move, saying there was “nothing controversial” about it and that it came because speechwriters, who use classified material, were now occupying the space.
“The Pentagon Press Office has been redesignated as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility due to speechwriters from the Office of the Secretary of War sharing the facility,” Valdez wrote.
“These speechwriters routinely handle classified material … as a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space. There’s nothing controversial about that.”
The latest move, first reported by The Washington Post, took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between the U.S. media and the second Trump administration, which has played out both in the public arena and at times in the courts.
Republican senators want more answers on $1.8 billion settlement fund as Trump considers its future
Senate Republicans will meet Tuesday to discuss next steps after the Justice Department said it would comply with a court order pausing the implementation of a $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s political allies.
GOP senators who revolted against the settlement before leaving for a Memorial Day recess two weeks ago say they want more information from the administration about the future of the fund, which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Meanwhile, Trump is reconsidering whether to move forward with it at all, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
Caught in the middle is legislation that would fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies for three years. Republicans abruptly left town without passing it after Democrats said they would offer amendments to scrap or scale back the judgment fund, forcing Republicans to go on the record for or against it and endangering the money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
By Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking and Seung Min Kim
Rubio will testify before Congress for the first time since the start of the Iran war
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to face a litany of questions Tuesday about the Trump administration’s fragile or stalling diplomatic efforts around the world when he appears for back-to-back hearings on Capitol Hill for the first time since the Iran war began.
The Republican former senator will sit before House and Senate committees to make the State Department’s annual budget request. But the focus is likely to shift quickly to the already unsteady ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, which has been further tested in recent days by back-and-forth attacks.
Cabinet members, including Rubio, have defended Trump’s decision to launch the conflict despite promises over the years not to engage in “forever wars” in the Middle East. That work has been made more difficult by Trump’s shifting goals for the conflict.
In the two months since the war began, a small but growing faction of Republicans have joined Democrats in questioning the astronomical price tag and overall economic consequences of the conflict as they head into midterm elections in the fall.
