Trump Advised Zelensky to Take the Fight to Russia, Senior Ukrainian Official Says
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday offered a different account of the call between the two leaders on July 4. Asked about it, Leavitt said Trump 'was merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing.' She said he was 'working tirelessly' to stop the war.
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USA Today
25 minutes ago
- USA Today
Pentagon pulls 2,000 National Guard members from Los Angeles in immigration rollback
WASHINGTON ― The Trump administration is pulling half of the California National Guard members it deployed to Los Angeles in a major rollback of President Donald Trump's militarized response to protests in Southern California over immigration arrests and raids. 'Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding," Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a July 15 statement. "As such, the Secretary has ordered the release of 2,000 California National Guardsmen (79th IBCT) from the federal protection mission." Trump deployed 4,000 California National Guardsmen on June 7 to respond to protests that racked the southern part of the state after he stepped up immigration raids and arrests, targeting farms, restaurants, and hardware stores across the Los Angeles area. He also ordered 700 Marines to the city that were tasked with guarding federal property. The deployment was decried by the state's Democratic lawmakers, who have called an overreach of presidential authority and accused Trump of inciting violence. Trump has claimed that the "Los Angeles would be burning right now" if not for the military presence. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who sued the Trump administration over the guard's deployment, called for Trump to release the remaining National Guard members from Los Angeles now that half have been pulled. 'While nearly 2,000 of them are starting to demobilize, the remaining guards members continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities,' Newsom said in a statement Tuesday. We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass claimed victory after Trump's withdrawal of guardsmen. 'This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong," Bass said in a statement. "We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court ‒ all of this led to today's retreat." Bass added: "We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.' One National Guard brigade is being withdrawn from Los Angeles, according to a Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly. About one brigade, with several thousand soldiers, remains. An appeals court ruled in June that Trump could keep control over the National Guard troops. Trump, upon his return Tuesday night to the White House after traveling to Pittsburgh, did not respond to a shouted question from a reporter about his decision to pull the guardsmen from Los Angeles.
New York Times
28 minutes ago
- New York Times
Senate Advances Trump Clawback of Foreign Aid and Public Broadcast Funds
The Senate on Tuesday voted to take up legislation to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting, signaling that the Republican-led Congress is poised to acquiesce to President Trump in a simmering battle with the White House over spending powers. The 51-to-50 vote came after Republican leaders agreed to a handful of concessions to win the votes of holdouts who were uneasy with the proposed rescissions. G.O.P. leaders said on Tuesday they would strip out a $400 million cut that Mr. Trump requested to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, a move that the White House signaled it would not contest. Even then, some Republican senators refused to support a move that they said would relinquish their constitutional power over federal spending, forcing their leaders to summon Vice President JD Vance to the Capitol to break a tie and ram the legislation through a pair of procedural votes. 'We're lawmakers; we should be legislating,' Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday night announcing her opposition to the package. 'What we're getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, 'This is the priority. We want you to execute on it. We'll be back with you with another round.' I don't accept that.' She was joined by two other Republicans in siding with Democrats in opposition to advancing the measure: Senators Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Senate Republicans are hoping to approve the package as early as Wednesday. That would send it back to the House, which passed the bill last month but would still need to give it final approval by Friday for the cuts to be enacted. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Hill
40 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump announces agreement to end House floor revolt over crypto bills
President Trump said late Tuesday that he has reached a deal with most of the House Republicans who derailed a procedural vote earlier in the day, putting a trio of cryptocurrency bills on a path to consideration in the lower chamber. The announcement — made on Truth Social — came after Trump said he met with 11 out of 12 of the House Republicans who torpedoed the procedural vote Tuesday afternoon, which brought the floor to a screeching halt. 'I am in the Oval Office with 11 of the 12 Congressmen/women necessary to pass the GENIUS Act and, after a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the Rule,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was at the meeting via telephone, and looks forward to taking the Vote as early as possible,' he added. 'I want to thank the Congressmen/women for their quick and positive response. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!' It remains unclear what assurances the dozen Republicans received to win over their support for the procedural rule. The Hill reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) office for comment. The agreement, if it holds, nonetheless, will allow the House to adopt a procedural rule and move forward with consideration of the three cryptocurrency bills and a measure to fund the Pentagon for fiscal year 2026 as early as Wednesday, putting the chamber back on track after Tuesday's hiccup. The chief concern among the hard-line contingent was the lack of a provision in the GENIUS Act that would block the creation of a central bank digital currency. The bill, which aims to create a regulatory framework for dollar-backed digital tokens known as stablecoins, is the most likely to become law after clearing the Senate last month. While the House is also set to consider the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency, the measure seems unlikely to gain traction in the Senate. Trump, who has become a key ally of the crypto industry in his second term, has urged the House to quickly pass a 'clean' stablecoin bill, frustrating efforts by lawmakers to tweak the legislation or tie it to another measure, like the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would divide oversight of the broader crypto market between two financial regulators, is also up for consideration by the House this week. However, the Senate appears poised to propose its own market structure legislation. Votes on rules — which govern debate on measures — are typically mundane, party-line efforts where members of the majority party vote in favor and those in the minority party vote in opposition. In recent years, however, some Republicans have used the procedural votes to express their displeasure with legislation or leadership.
