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A group of about a dozen protesters have gathered outside of the closed-door House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing for Trump appointee Pete Marocco.
Marocco is the the appointee behind the sweeping changes in US foreign assistance and at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The protesters are chanting that “Marocco has blood on his hands, unfreeze aid now” and “Marocco has got to go” and holding signs saying “Marocco lies, people with AIDS die” and “Marocco has blood on his hands.”
Police arrested and removed the protesters.
The press was pushed back by a Capitol Police officer who said he didn’t “want a show.”
Remember: Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, serving as acting administrator of USAID, delegated authority to Marocco, who served at USAID in the president’s first term and has been accused by aid groups and officials of intentionally dismantling the organization.
This post has been updated with additional details.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is holding a hearing with mayors from four sanctuary cities right now.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — who are all Democrats — will field questions from the committee about their jurisdictions.
The term “sanctuary city” is a broad term applied to jurisdictions that have policies in place designed to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions. Cities, counties and some states have a range of informal policies as well as actual laws that qualify as “sanctuary” positions.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Wednesday that her country could pursue other trade partners “if necessary” in the wake of the United States’ decision to slap a 25% tariff on all Mexican imports.
“What I can tell you is that it is a very definitive moment for Mexico,” she told reporters in Mexico City. “There will be no submission (from Mexico),” she added.
Remember: Sheinbaum said Tuesday that she planned to announce retaliatory tariffs on American imports, as well as non-tariff measures, Sunday.
Sheinbaum also said she planned to have a phone call with Donald Trump Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, Trump is expected to speak with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this morning, a person familiar with the call said.
A senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told CNN that many federal employees who received a notice of reinstatement — that were primarily connected to work on flu and respiratory diseases — have said they will not return because of the “unstable” environment at the agency.
“It’s a relatively small portion of the number who were terminated who were asked back,” the senior official said.
One federal employee who was fired and rehired said it appears to be dozens of employees.
The senior official said some of those who were asked back were working on the recent measles outbreak and cases of H5N1.
It’s not clear how many have refused to report back to work.
Asked if the employees will receive back pay, the source said employees were on administrative leave until mid-March and were still getting paid. A federal employee who was among those fired on February 15 and reinstated on Tuesday said they had been getting paid the whole time.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called President Donald Trump’s tariff plans “an outrageous policy” and compared it to Trump’s address Tuesday evening, describing it as “unthought out.”
“The No. 1 issue that the American people want us to work on is costs, rising costs of food and of housing and of gas and of cars and everything else. Tariffs will raise the costs. The kind of tariffs the president proposed on Canada, Mexico, China will raise the cost for the average American family by $2,000,” he said Wednesday on “CNN News Central.”
Schumer said, “So this is an outrageous policy that hurts the American people. And you ask, the American people are asking, ‘Why is he doing this?’ Well, I’ll tell you why he’s doing it. They want to give tax breaks to their billionaire buddies, and they’re trying to find ways to pay for it. One way is by cutting Medicaid. That’s very unpopular. Another way is calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. That’s very unpopular.”
The Senate minority leader said he thinks the tariffs are something Americans will “vehemently oppose” and that there will be a lot of Republican senators, who have “been grumbling under their breath,” that will have to come out against the plan.
In response to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s apparent walkback on tariffs, Schumer said it was “unthought out” and “typical of all of Trump’s speech.”
A call is set to take place between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump Wednesday, but more details of a trade compromise need to be worked out before the leaders speak, Canadian industry and government sources tell CNN.
Among the issues that need to be worked out: Enhanced border security provisions and exemptions on tariffs for everything that is compliant the the free-trade USMCA treaty. As per the trade agreement negotiated by Trump and leaders of Mexico and Canada, that requires cars to have at least 75% of their parts made in North America to avoid tariffs when finished products move across the border.
On Wednesday, in an interview with Bloomberg, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that Trump is “thinking about a plan” to compromise on tariffs that he’ll decide and announce later this afternoon. That could keep tariffs at 25% on Mexico and Canada but may include certain product exemptions, including autos.
The push to exempt autos from the tariffs came specifically from the auto industry, with executives lobbying the president and the commerce secretary on both sides of the border, sources and Lutnick said.
A divided Supreme Court Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s administration request keep billions in foreign aid approved by Congress frozen.
However, the court did not immediately say when the money must be released, allowing the White House to continue to dispute the issue in lower courts.
The ruling was 5-4.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Wednesday that the US has paused intelligence support and weapons shipments to Ukraine following the clash in the Oval Office between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump last Friday.
“Trump had a real question about whether President Zelensky was committed to the peace process, and he said let’s pause,” Ratcliffe told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview on Wednesday.
“I want to give a chance to think about that and you saw the response that President Zelensky put out,” Ratcliffe added, “So I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, I think will go away.”
Ratcliffe expressed hope that the pause will soon be lifted and emphasized his commitment to working with Ukraine toward achieving peace, following a letter from the Ukrainian president to Trump.
“And I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine as we have to push back on the aggression that’s there, put the world in a better place for these peace negotiations to move forward,” the CIA director added.
A senior US military official said the US has already curtailed some intelligence sharing, including carrying out fewer intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights that could impact both offensive and defensive operations including air defense, since Ukraine depends on US intelligence for overwatch.
In the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, Ratcliffe and the Trump transition team were told of the value of intelligence sharing with Ukraine by US officials who stressed that it was a hallmark of their achievements on the battlefield, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
CNN reported Tuesday that both Ukrainian and US military officials were evaluating the potential impact of suspending military aid.
With all the talk of tariffs at the moment, we thought it’d be useful to have a refresher on what they actually are, and who pays them.
The definition of a tariff is fairly straightforward — it’s a tax on goods coming from another country.
A tariff is typically structured as a percentage of the value of the import and can vary based on where the goods are coming from and what the products are.
Who pays it? Domestic businesses that import products into the country pay the tariffs up front, contrary to President Donald Trump’s claims that exporting nations foot the bill.
The actual transaction occurs at the 328 points of entry into the US designated by Customs and Border Protection to take in imports, including airports, railways, roads and ports.
At those ports of entry, CBP agents collect tariff revenue from the domestic businesses importing the products, which is calculated based on how the merchandise is classified and where it came from, said Ted Murphy, a lawyer at Sidley Austin who specializes in advising businesses on customs compliance issues.
Many importers use the government’s electronic payment system, which automatically deducts tariff from a designated bank account. It’s also possible to pay it all at once on a monthly basis rather than having it automatically deducted each time.
But Trump isn’t entirely wrong in saying that other nations pay for tariffs levied on them, Murphy said. That’s because when businesses know they’ll have to spend more to import goods from one country versus another, they may decide it makes more financial sense to find a new supplier elsewhere or, in Trump’s ideal world, shift their production to the US.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Europe had “spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far.” Whether that is true depends on the timeframe, which the president did not specify.
Looking at the period since the war started on February 24, 2022, that is correct. According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a think tank, Moscow has earned more than $250 billion exporting fossil fuels to European Union nations since January 1, 2022. That compares with $145 billion the EU says it has spent on military, humanitarian and financial aid for Ukraine since the start of the war.
However, it wasn’t until December 2022 that EU sanctions banning oil imports from Russia started to take effect. In 2022, many European countries also raced to reduce their dependence on Russian natural gas: Russia raked in more than $190 billion exporting energy to Europe that first year, with only around $60 earned since.
And the trajectory is key.
“While Europe’s support to Ukraine is going further up, payments for Russian fossil fuels are going down,” Simone Tagliapietra at European think tank Bruegel told CNN.
It’s also worth noting that the value of EU energy imports from Russia would be lower still were it not for the fact that the war has driven up prices.
If you don’t like President Donald Trump’s tariff policy, wait a minute.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Tuesday evening made a stunning statement: Canada and Mexico had been blowing up his phone all day, and he believes Trump is “probably” ready to announce Wednesday that he’ll meet America’s neighboring nations halfway on tariffs.
“I think he’s going to work something out with them,” Lutnick said on Fox Business Tuesday. “It’s not going to be a pause, none of that pause stuff, but I think he’s going to figure out, you do more, and I’ll meet you in the middle some way.”
Lutnick had left the door open to a walkback on tariffs for days. Even as Trump insisted that tariffs would go into effect in full force on Mexico and Canada Tuesday, Lutnick had suggested on cable network interviews that maybe some tariffs would go into effect, or perhaps the percentage would be lower to start.
Nope. Trump at midnight Tuesday morning enacted massive 25% across-the-board tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada (save Canadian energy, which got a lower tariff). He also added 10% to the existing tariffs on Chinese goods.
Wall Street was seriously unhappy — the Dow fell 1,300 points in two days. Business leaders, a contingent that has largely supported Trump, spent hours griping in press releases and on CNBC.
But we’ve all been here before. Read more about Trump’s return to his familiar tariff playbook here.
In his first address to Congress since taking back the White House, President Donald Trump said he was “working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine” and that he “appreciated” a letter sent by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after their public spat in the Oval Office last Friday.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was asked Wednesday how he views the statement from Zelensky that he’s willing to negotiate a peace deal, to which he responded: “Positively. The question — is to sit down with whom? At the moment, there is still a legal ban for the Ukrainian president to negotiate with the Russian side. Therefore, the overall approach is positive, but the nuances have not changed yet.”
Meanwhile, Zelensky’s chief of staff has insisted that if Russia wants to end the war, it needs to stop shelling Ukraine every day.
“Russia must stop its daily shelling of Ukraine and do so immediately if it really wants an end to the war,” Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said in a social media post.
More strikes on Ukraine: Russian strikes across Ukraine killed at least two people, wounded eight others and damaged civilian infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday morning.
In its daily update on aerial attacks, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched more than 180 drone strikes overnight, as well as attacks with three Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles and an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile.
A presidential historian says President Donald Trump seemed “relaxed,” while the Democrats lacked unity at last night’s congressional address.
Watch historian and author Douglas Brinkley’s analysis of how the speech played out:
The Republican-heavy audience that tuned in to hear President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday greeted it with tempered positivity, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
Speech-watchers broadly said Trump’s policies would take the country in the right direction, with majorities saying the same across five issue areas that were the focus of the president’s speech. But fewer expressed strong confidence in Trump to help people like them, use his presidential power responsibly or provide the nation with real leadership.
Roughly 7 in 10 speech-watchers said they had at least a somewhat positive reaction to Trump’s speech tonight, with a smaller 44% offering a very positive response. That’s lower than the 57% of viewers who rated Trump’s initial address to Congress very positively eight years ago, or the 51% who said the same of President Joe Biden’s initial address in 2021. It also comes just below the 48% “very positive” rating Trump saw for his 2018 State of the Union.
Good marks from speech-watchers are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, which tend to attract generally friendly audiences that disproportionately hail from presidents’ own parties. In CNN’s speech reaction polls, which have been conducted most years dating back to the Clinton era, audience reactions have always been positive.
The pool of people who watched Trump speak on Tuesday was about 14 percentage points more Republican than the general public.
Disapproval of disruption: The Trump-friendly audience reacted negatively to a protest effort from a Democratic member of Congress. Eight in 10 Americans who watched the speech said they saw Rep. Al Green’s interruption of Trump’s speech as inappropriate, with just 20% saying the representative from Texas acted appropriately. Green was ejected from the House chamber after continuing to protest following a warning from House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Keep reading for more on the poll about Trump’s address to Congress here.
President Donald Trump is expected to speak with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this morning, a person familiar with the call said, a day after the two North American leaders engaged in an extraordinary back-and-forth over a brewing trade war.
President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress since returning to power was both a victory lap following a consequential first 43 days in office and an attempt to justify what he’s done to an American public that may still be digesting his rapid-pace changes.
The president entered the chamber with a lot to say. His speech broke the record for longest annual presidential address to Congress in modern history, at just under one hour and 40 minutes. It was also one of the most partisan.
These are some takeaways:
A partisan affair: Trump’s speeches almost always fall into two categories: the raucous rally remarks that can’t be contained on a teleprompter and more staid policy addresses that usually lack the energy of his wilder events.
This time, the dramatics began in the audience, when Democratic Rep. Al Green interrupted the president repeatedly before House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the House sergeant-at-arms to eject the Texas congressman.
He pointed to Democrats when referring to “radical left-wing lunatics” and cast them as obstructionists. He even used his derogatory “Pocahontas” nickname for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Rapid pace of change: The executive actions reshaping the federal government have come fast and furious in Trump’s first month-and-a-half; his team is far more experienced this time around, and the president himself is impatient to fulfill his campaign promises.
Yet for many Americans, the flurry of changes has been confusing. Polls show skepticism seeping in about Trump’s priorities. Tuesday’s speech was an opportunity to present a cogent argument.
Issue number 1: The hours ahead of Trump’s speech were hardly the economic backdrop he may have hoped for. Stock markets tumbled as the broad tariffs he announced on Mexico, Canada and China reverberated among investors. Almost as soon as markets closed, his commerce secretary suggested there may be a pull-back on the new duties on Wednesday.
Nonetheless, Trump — who has advocated for tariffs since the 1970s, and once called “tariff” his favorite word — was not backing away from the strategy during his biggest speech of the year.
Read more takeaways from his address here and watch CNN’s Kaitlan Collins break down one of the notable moments of the speech:
@cnnCNN’s Kaitlan Collins points out one of the most notable moments in President Donald Trump’s address to Congress. #CNN #News
