
Trump praises Mayor Adams' re-election bid — and threatens Zohran Mamdani with arrest if he interferes with ICE
Trump, speaking at the so-called 'Alligator Alcatraz' migrant detention center in Florida, called the increasingly MAGA-aligned Adams a 'very good person.'
'I helped him out a little bit,' Trump said, alluding to the Department of Justice's controversial move to dismiss Adams' federal corruption case. 'He had a problem, and he was unfairly hurt over this question.
'That was a Biden indictment. I said, 'Don't feel bad. I got indicted five times.''
Adams faced corruption and bribery charges in what both the mayor and Trump have argued was political retribution for speaking out against former President Joe Biden's border policies.
The probe leading to the historic indictment began before Adams' criticism.
Trump also continued his recent attacks on Mamdani, saying the socialist firebrand risked jail if he bucked an ongoing immigration crackdown.
'We'll have to arrest' Mamdani if that happens, Trump said.
The president also weighed in on the mayoral race, implicitly giving Adams – a Democrat running as an independent – his support.
'You would think that a Republican would be able to win, or you have a good independent running for mayor,' Trump said.

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Forbes
25 minutes ago
- Forbes
Amid Health Care Turmoil, Dr. Oz Calms Major CMS Conference, House GOP
CMS administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks to the agency's 2025 Quality Conference in Baltimore With the skill of a veteran heart surgeon reassuring patients facing a life-changing procedure, Dr. Mehmet Oz projected calm continuity to the nearly 10,000 in-person and online individuals registered for a major conference by the agency he heads, promising to take care of 'the vulnerable among us' in concert with the 'incredible' staff at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. That same day and just hours apart, Oz managed to persuade nervous House Republicans that the Medicaid cuts in President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, which Oz had called 'the most ambitious health reform bill in history,' would not severely impact their constituents and thereby threaten the continuity of their jobs. Two days later, the bill squeaked by the House and went to the president for his signature. The purposeful absence of politics at a moment of intense political turmoil often gave the 2025 CMS Quality Conference, whose record attendance reflected widespread uncertainty about a new administration, the feeling of being cut off from the real world. Still, Oz did allude to 'a lot of things that happened before I was administrator' – presumably the disruptive reductions in the workforce orchestrated by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency – before asserting that CMS was 'moving into growth mode. We want to take chances. We have a wonderful team.' (Later that day, a federal judge ruled that the layoffs of an estimated 10,000 staffers at HHS were likely illegal and granted a request to block them.) Energizing the Agency in Tough Times One way Oz has sought to energize that team is by regular walk-throughs at the agency's Baltimore headquarters, where workers often ask the charismatic former TV star for selfies. 'Sometimes, he'll even hold the camera,' one mid-level employee told me. Absent selfies, but still cool and charismatic, Oz commanded the stage at this conference to re-emphasize his goals of empowering patients, rooting out fraud and abuse and embracing digital technology such as artificial intelligence in order to improve the cost-effectiveness and quality of U.S. health care. There was, of course, also a promise to help Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. steer the health care system away from its sickness-care emphasis towards a greater focus on prevention and wellness. Moreover, given warnings that the Medicare trust fund could run out within eight years, the urgency of cost control was also prominent. Interestingly, and appropriately for an agency that controls a staggering $1.5 trillion in health care expenditures and affects the care of one in two Americans, Oz said he planned to utilize a management approach popular in corporate America. That approach is known as 'OKRs,' or 'objectives and key results.' Still, difficult times could lie ahead. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget office estimated that the reconciliation bill just passed into law would cut Medicaid by 15%, or $1 trillion over 10 years, and cause almost 12 million Americans to lose their health insurance. According to STAT News, the legislation would also require 'significant administrative work by CMS and states on issues like work requirements and enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans.' Those burdens come at a time when HHS has closed half its regional offices, many experienced employees have left CMS and the agency is struggling with severe budget constraints. Highlighting Patients Although I didn't hear anyone from CMS utter the word 'equity,' Oz began his remarks by pointedly citing the words of Hubert H. Humphrey that are engraved on a lobby wall in the HHS headquarters building that bears Humphrey's name: 'We are judged all of us by how we take care of those who are struggling, the vulnerable among us.' Said Oz, 'That's the resounding theme of my first few months of my tenure at CMS.' The four-person panel Oz moderated reinforced the digital health and patient empowerment themes. Epic Systems president Sumit Rana, who leads the dominant electronic health record company, was joined by Dr. Brian Anderson, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), which is developing best practice guidelines for AI use I in health care. The two other panelists were both moms who'd spent years fighting for safe, high-quality care for a child with serious health issues. Both had strong policy backgrounds and were also entrepreneurial. Both also utilized digital resources to protect their child. Susan Sheridan's son Cal was left with brain damage caused by jaundice as a result of a diagnostic error at birth. That devastating experience, and a separate medical error that ended with the death of her husband, Pat, led Sheridan to both serve in government and advocate outside government for law and policy changes. Most recently she was a co-founder of Patients for Patient Safety US. (Disclosure: I'm an active member of the group.) On both a personal and professional level, I was thrilled to see Sue on the panel. I admired how she recently used ChatGPT and OpenEvidence to prevent a medication error that threatened Cal, while also wincing at how hard she's had to work to keep him safe. When she declared that paying for bad care is 'fraud,' and that 'we [patients] have to have the same access to information that the doctors have,' I inwardly applauded. Meanwhile, Amy Gleason's daughter, Morgan, was diagnosed as a child with juvenile dermatomyositis, a rare immune disease. Amy has also been entrepreneurial in the public and private sector, including founding a company called CareSync to enable patients with complicated conditions to access all their medical information in one place. I vividly remember Morgan Gleason speaking at a meeting some years back about having to manage information from nearly two dozen different patient portals while trying to live a normal 22-year-old's life. At a separate meeting, Amy presented powerfully about CareSync. (Unfortunately, the company did not succeed.) On this CMS panel, Amy Gleason described loading Morgan's medical record into an AI chatbot after her daughter was ruled ineligible for a promising clinical trial. The AI found a small diagnostic mistake in the record that, when corrected, made Morgan eligible and won her a coveted spot. Gleason may be more well-known, however, for her return to public service as acting administrator of DOGE. At this conference, she was also listed as a 'strategic advisor' to the CMS Administrator. Like Sheridan, Gleason, too, urged giving patients both more and more usable access to their data, through apps and agentic AI. Deeds, Not Words The phrase, 'Deeds, not words,' was a favorite saying of George Washington. At this conference, there were many thought-provoking and even inspiring words about improving care quality, safety and patient-centeredness. Oz himself has previously promised to 'empower' the American people to 'better manage their health and to hold providers 'accountable for health outcomes.' Whether the deeds done in the city named in our first president's honor match the words, however, remains to be seen.


The Intercept
27 minutes ago
- The Intercept
Supreme Court Lets Trump Banish Immigrants to South Sudan
The Supreme Court on Thursday granted a request by the Trump administration to send eight men who have spent more than a month imprisoned on a U.S. military base in Djibouti to war-ravaged South Sudan. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. By a 7-2 vote, the justices lifted an order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that had blocked the men's expulsion to South Sudan. Murphy intervened despite a Supreme Court ruling last month that put a hold on a prior nationwide injunction he issued requiring the administration to give deportees advance notice of their destination and a 'meaningful' chance to object if they believed they'd be in danger of harm. The Trump administration accused Murphy of defying the Supreme Court, and the Justice Department asked the justices for a 'clarification' that would allow the administration to expel the men. 'It will only embolden the government to further violate court orders that go against the government.' 'The United States may not deport noncitizens to a country where they are likely to be tortured or killed. International and domestic law guarantee that basic human right,' wrote Sotomayor in a bitter dissent. 'In this case, the Government seeks to nullify it by deporting noncitizens to potentially dangerous countries without notice or the opportunity to assert a fear of torture.' Neither the United States nor South Sudan has said what will happen to the men – who hail from Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar; just one is from South Sudan – on their arrival. For weeks, both governments have ignored requests for comment by The Intercept. 'The Supreme Court's ruling rewards the government's lawlessness by violating the injunction and delaying implementation of the due process protections that district court ordered as a remedy for those violations,' said Trina Realmuto, the executive director of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance and an attorney for the men. 'It will only embolden the government to further violate court orders that go against the government.' A source in South Sudan with high-level government connections worried that the men might be used as political pawns or abused in the country's notorious prison system. He spoke on the condition of anonymity due the risk of government retribution. This spring, the U.N. began warning about the potential for full-scale civil war to erupt in South Sudan. The State Department issued a 'Level 4: Do Not Travel' advisory for the East African nation in March and 'ordered departure of non-emergency U.S. government personnel due to continued security threats in South Sudan,' warning Americans: 'Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.' Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could resume expelling immigrants to countries other than their own without any chance to object on the grounds that they might be tortured. The court's recent decisions have been a boon to the administration, which has been employing strong-arm tactics with dozens of smaller, weaker, and economically dependent nations to expand its global gulag for expelled immigrants. The administration has explored deals with a quarter of the world's nations to accept so-called third-country nationals — deported persons who are not their citizens. The deals are being conducted in secret, and neither the State Department nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will discuss them. With the green light from the Supreme Court, thousands of immigrants are in danger of being disappeared into this network of deportee dumping grounds. 'Fire up the deportation planes,' a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said after the court's ruling on third-country deportations last month. The eight men, who have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States have, in many cases, served lengthy prison sentences. They have been detained at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti for weeks. They are kept under constant guard and are, according to their lawyers, shackled at the feet, except for when they shower, which is once every two days, or use the bathroom. 'What the Government wants to do, concretely, is send the eight noncitizens it illegally removed from the United States from Djibouti to South Sudan, where they will be turned over to the local authorities without regard for the likelihood that they will face torture or death,' wrote Sotomayor. 'Today's order clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial.'


The Hill
28 minutes ago
- The Hill
Massive Medicaid cuts to fuel midterm fights
The Big Story With the GOP successfully passing the largest Medicaid cuts in history through President Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' the federal health program is all but certain to be a core issue for voters in the upcoming midterm elections. © The Hill, Greg Nash The law is set to require Medicaid beneficiaries to prove for the first time they are working or in school at least 80 hours per month, equal to part-time, to keep their health insurance, and it also requires more frequent eligibility checks and Medicaid recipients living above the poverty line to pay out-of-pocket copays for most services, including doctor visits and lab tests. About 17 million people will become uninsured by 2034 because of the health provisions in the bill, as well as the expiration of ObamaCare subsidies, which the bill did not extend. But a good chunk of the electorate isn't fully aware of the provisions included in the nearly 1,000-page reconciliation package, and campaign strategists know it's a matter of who can reach voters first. 'The key here for Republicans going into the midterms is to clearly go on offense and define the debate around Medicaid in particular today, not tomorrow, not next month, not in the fall, not next year. They need to do it in a unified and aggressive way today,' Kristin Davison, partner at the GOP consulting firm Axiom, told The Hill. Several of the measures don't go into effect immediately, and the challenge for Democrats will be to keep the changes at top of mind for voters, even if they aren't experiencing them yet. 'There's an argument to be made here that if voters believe, and it is true that the unpopular bill is really bad for them, it doesn't matter if it's going to be bad for them tomorrow or next year,' a Democratic strategist told The Hill. 'If they believe it is bad for them, they will act on that opinion.' Welcome to The Hill's Health Care newsletter, we're Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health. Programming note: We will not publish tomorrow for the July 4 holiday. See you Monday! Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. Essential Reads How policy will be impacting the health care sector this week and beyond: GOP megabill extends and expands compensation for nuclear weapons radiation victims The Republican megabill passed by Congress on Thursday contains an extension and expansion of a program to compensate Americans who developed cancer from radiation exposure linked to the U.S. nuclear weapons program. The megabill revives a compensation program for victims who were exposed to this radiation that lapsed last year. 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