WASHINGTON: With a shove from President Donald Trump, House Republicans were working to hoist their budget framework to approval late Wednesday, trying to flip conservative GOP holdouts who had raised grave misgivings over allowing trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.
Speaker Mike Johnson almost dared the Republican hard-liners to defy Trump and risk upending what the president calls the “big, beautiful bill,” which is central to his agenda of tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government. The GOP speaker cannot afford many defections from his slim majority, when faced with unified Democratic opposition.
“Stop grandstanding!” Trump had admonished Republicans during a black-tie fundraising dinner at the National Building Museum Tuesday night.
Trump told them, “Close your eyes and get there.”
But by Wednesday afternoon, the conservative Republicans stood firmly against the plan, throwing the schedule in flux. Several of them met privately with Senate GOP leaders to insist on deeper cuts. Johnson later pulled a group of Republicans into a private meeting room off the House chamber.
“The intention is to have the vote by this evening, and we’ll see when that time is,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. “Very positive, productive discussions. Everybody is moving forward.”
Pushing the budget framework forward would be a milestone for Johnson, who had set a deadline of the congressional spring break recess Thursday for advancing the resolution. But a failed vote, particularly as the economy is convulsing over Trump’s trade wars, would prove a major setback for the embattled speaker and the Republican agenda in Washington.
It’s coming as Trump’s tariff onslaught has left lawmakers on edge. Hours before the House was ready to vote, Trump paused much of his ambitious tariffs scheme, giving financial markets a bounce after days of turmoil and warnings of a US recession.
“We are at a critical inflection point, with a generational opportunity,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chair of the House Budget Committee, at a rules meeting ahead of voting.
But House GOP conservatives, including several of those who met personally with Trump at the White House this week, remain concerned that the Senate GOP’s blueprint, approved last weekend, does not slash spending to the level they believe is necessary to help prevent soaring deficits.
“The Math Does Not Add Up,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted on social media. He said he would not support it.
In an unusual move, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., the chair of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, and others walked across the Capitol to met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and other Senate GOP leaders.
Sen. John Barrasso, the GOP whip, exited a short time later calling it a very positive meeting. “The House and the Senate Republicans are all on the same page, and we’re all committed to serious and significant savings for the American taxpayers,” Barrasso said.
Wednesday’s vote would be another step in a weeks, if not months, long process. The House and Senate must resolve their differences with more votes ahead on the final product later this spring or summer.
Democrats, in the minority, do not have enough votes to stop the package, but have warned against it.
Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the budget committee, said whether the House or Senate version, the proposed GOP budget cuts would deeply harm Medicaid, the health care program used by tens of millions of Americans.
“This will have a devasting impact on my district, my state — and all 435 congressional districts throughout our land,” Boyle said.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the Republicans’ budget plan is reckless and callous as it proposes slashing budgets to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“We’re here to make it clear,” Jeffries said. “Hands off everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet.”
The budget framework starts the process of the Republican effort to preserve the tax breaks approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term, while potentially adding the new ones he promised on the campaign trail. That includes no taxes on tipped wages, Social Security income and others, ballooning the price tag to some $7 trillion over the decade.
The package also allows for budget increases with some $175 billion to pay for Trump’s mass deportation operation and as much for the Defense Department to bolster military spending.
It all would be partly paid for with steep cuts to domestic programs, including health care, as part of the $2 trillion in reductions outlined in the House GOP version of the package, though several GOP senators have signaled they are not willing to go that far.
To clip costs, the Senate is using an unusual accounting method that does not count the costs of preserving the 2017 tax cuts, some $4.5 trillion, as new spending, another factor that is enraging the House conservatives.
Two Republican senators voted against their package during an overnight weekend session — Maine Sen. Susan Collins objected to steep cuts to Medicaid in the House’s framework, while Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued the whole package relied on “fishy” math that would add to the debt.
The package would also boost the nation’s debt limit to allow more borrowing to pay the bills. Trump had wanted lawmakers to take the politically difficult issue off the table. With debt now at $36 trillion, the Treasury Department has said it will run out of funds by August.
But the House and Senate need to resolve their differences on the debt limit, as well. The House GOP raises the debt limit by $4 trillion, but the Senate GOP boosted it to $5 trillion so the Congress would not have to revisit the issue again until after the fall 2026 midterm election.
With Trump’s trade wars hovering over the debate, House Republicans tucked a provision into a procedural vote that would prevent House action – as the Senate has taken – to disapprove of Trump’s tariffs.
Some House Republicans threaten Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget and tax cut bill ahead of floor vote
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Some House Republicans threaten Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget and tax cut bill ahead of floor vote
- Trump admonish Republican holdouts to "stop grandstanding" amid opposition to his budget plant allowing trillions of dollars in tax breaks
- The rebellion from Trump's conservative Republican base comes as the US economy is convulsing over his trade wars
Brazil’s Lula to visit China ahead of regional summit
- Beijing is Brazil’s biggest trading partner. Its exports to China reached more than $94 billion last year
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s state visit comes at the invitation of counterpart President Xi Jinping and will last until Wednesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
Since returning to power in early 2023, Lula has sought to improve ties with both China and the United States.
Beijing is Brazil’s biggest trading partner. Its exports to China reached more than $94 billion last year, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database.
The South American agricultural power sends mainly soybeans and other primary commodities to China, while the Asian giant sells semiconductors, telephones, vehicles and medicines to Brazil.
The two presidents are expected to attend next week’s summit between China and the 33-member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
China is seeking to replace the United States as the main political and economic external influence in Latin America, where leaders have urged a united front against President Donald Trump’s global tariff blitz.
Two-thirds of Latin American countries have joined Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure program, and China has surpassed the United States as the biggest trading partner of Brazil, Peru and Chile, among others.
South Korean conservative party moves to switch presidential candidates as election turmoil deepens
- The replacement still requires confirmation through an all-party vote Saturday and approval by the party’s national committee Sunday
- Han and Kim have lagged well behind Lee in recent opinion polls. Lee, who spearheaded the Democrats’ efforts to oust Yoon
SEOUL, South Korea: South Korea’s embattled conservative party has taken the unprecedented step of nullifying its primary and replacing presidential candidate Kim Moon Soo with former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo just one week after Kim’s selection, deepening internal turmoil ahead of the June 3 presidential by-election.
Saturday’s move by the People Power Party’s leadership, which Kim denounced as an “overnight political coup,” underscores the desperation and disarray within the party following the ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law in December.
Kim, a staunch conservative and former labor minister under Yoon, was named the PPP’s presidential candidate on May 3 after winning 56.3 percent of the primary vote, defeating a reformist rival who had criticized Yoon’s martial law. But the PPP’s leadership, dominated by Yoon loyalists, has spent the past week pressuring Kim to step aside and back Han, whom they believe stands a stronger chance against liberal Democratic Party frontrunner Lee Jae-myung.
Han served as acting president after Yoon was impeached by the legislature in December and officially removed by the Constitutional Court in April. He resigned from office May 2 to pursue a presidential bid, arguing his long public service career qualifies him to lead the country amid growing geopolitical uncertainty and trade challenges intensified by the policies of US President Donald Trump.
After failed talks between Han and Kim to unify their candidacies, the PPP’s emergency committee canceled Kim’s nomination in the early hours of Saturday and officially registered Han as a party member and its new presidential candidate.
The replacement still requires confirmation through an all-party vote Saturday and approval by the party’s national committee Sunday, which is the deadline for candidates to register with the election authorities.
Han in a message issued through the party claimed “if we unite, we can surely win.”
Speaking at a news conference, Kim lamented “democracy in our party died” and vowed to take unspecified legal and political steps, but it remained unclear whether any realistic path existed to restore his candidacy without the party’s cooperation.
Kim had opposed the legislature’s impeachment of Yoon on Dec. 14, though he said he disagreed with Yoon’s decision to declare martial law on Dec. 3. Kim had gained popularity among hard-line PPP supporters after he solely defied a Dec. 11 demand by an opposition lawmaker that all Cabinet members stand and bow in a gesture of apology for Yoon’s martial law enactment at the Assembly.
Han and Kim have lagged well behind Lee in recent opinion polls. Lee, who spearheaded the Democrats’ efforts to oust Yoon, ridiculed the PPP efforts to switch candidacies, telling reporters Thursday, “I have heard of forced marriages but never heard of forced unity.”
Lee has long cultivated an image as an anti-establishment figure capable of tackling South Korea’s entrenched inequality and corruption. However, critics view him as a populist who fuels division and vilifies opponents, warning that his leadership could further polarize the country.
He currently faces five trials for corruption and other criminal charges. If he becomes president, those trials likely will stop because of special presidential immunity from most criminal charges.
Judge pauses much of Trump administration’s massive downsizing of federal agencies
- The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people
SAN FRANCISCO: The Republican administration must halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce, a California judge ordered Friday.
Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco issued the emergency order in a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities last week, one of multiple legal challenges to Republican President Donald Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of a federal government he calls bloated and expensive.
The temporary restraining order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president’s workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Personnel Management.
The order, which expires in 14 days, does not require departments to rehire people. Plaintiffs asked that the effective date of any agency action be postponed and that departments stop implementing or enforcing the executive order, including taking any further action.
They limited their request to departments where dismantlement is already underway or poised to be underway, including at the the US Department of Health and Human Services, which announced in March it will lay off 10,000 workers and centralize divisions.
Illston, who was nominated to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, said at a hearing Friday the president has authority to seek changes in the executive branch departments and agencies created by Congress.
“But he must do so in lawful ways,” she said. “He must do so with the cooperation of Congress, the Constitution is structured that way.”
Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE.
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, left their jobs via deferred resignation programs or have been placed on leave as a result of Trump’s government-shrinking efforts. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.
Lawyers for the government argued Friday that the executive order and memo calling for large-scale personnel reductions and reorganization plans provided only general principles that agencies should follow in exercising their own decision-making process.
“It expressly invites comments and proposals for legislative engagement as part of policies that those agencies wish to implement,” Eric Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general, said of the memo. “It is setting out guidance.”
But Danielle Leonard, an attorney for plaintiffs, said it was clear that the president, DOGE and OPM were making decisions outside of their authority and not inviting dialogue from agencies.
“They are not waiting for these planning documents” to go through long processes, she said. “They’re not asking for approval, and they’re not waiting for it.”
The temporary restraining order applies to departments including the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Interior, State, Treasury and Veteran Affairs.
It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.
Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups are also plaintiffs in another lawsuit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the US Supreme Court later blocked his order.
Plaintiffs include the cities of San Francisco, Chicago and Baltimore; labor group American Federation of Government Employees; and nonprofit groups Alliance for Retired Americans, Center for Taxpayer Rights and Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
Columbia suspends over 65 students following pro-Palestinian protest in library
- Roughly 80 people were arrested in connection with the Wednesday evening demonstration at the university’s Butler Library
- State Department reviewing visa status of library takeover participants for possible deportation, says Secretary Rubio
NEW YORK: Columbia University has suspended dozens of students and barred alums and others who participated in a pro-Palestinian demonstration inside the school’s main library earlier this week, a school spokesperson said Friday.
The Ivy League institution in Manhattan placed more than 65 students on interim suspension and barred 33 others, including those from affiliated institutions such as Barnard College, from setting foot on campus.
Interim suspension generally means that a student cannot come to campus, attend classes or participate in other university activities, according to Columbia’s website. The university declined to say how long the disciplinary measures would be in place, saying only that the decisions are pending further investigation.
An undisclosed number of alums who also participated in the protest are also now prevented from entering school grounds, according to Columbia.
Roughly 80 people were arrested in connection with the Wednesday evening demonstration at the university’s Butler Library. Most face trespassing charges, though some may also face disorderly conduct, police have said.
The mask-clad protesters pushed their way past campus security officers, raced into the building and hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves. Some protesters also scrawled phrases on library furniture and picture frames, including “Columbia will burn.”
New York City police in helmets and other protection broke up the demonstration at the request of university officials, who denounced the protests as an “outrageous” disruption for students studying and preparing for final exams.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said his office will be reviewing the visa status of those who participated in the library takeover for possible deportation.
The Trump administration has already pulled federal funding and detained international students at Columbia and other prestigious American universities over their handling of student protests against the war in Gaza.
Turkish Tufts University student released from Louisiana immigration detention center
- The Ph.D. student claimed she was illegally detained over an op-ed she co-wrote last year against Israel’s war in Gaza
- Judge said the government had offered no evidence about why Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed
A Tufts University student from Turkiye was released from a Louisiana immigration detention center Friday, more than six weeks after she was arrested walking on the street of a Boston suburb.
US District Judge William Sessions in Burlington ordered the release of Rumeysa Ozturk pending a final decision on her claim that she’s been illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. A photo provided by her legal team showed her outside, smiling with her attorneys in Louisiana, where the immigration proceedings will continue.
“Despite an 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rumeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction,” attorney Mahsa Khanbabai said.
Even before her release, Ozturk’s supporters cheered the decision, punctuating an earlier news conference held by her attorneys with chants of “She is free!”
“What we heard from the court today is what we have been saying for weeks, and what courts have continued to repeat up and down through the litigation of this case thus far,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, told reporters. “There’s absolutely no evidence that justifies detaining Ozturk for a single day, let alone the six and a half weeks that she has been detained, because she wrote a single op-ed in her student newspaper exercising her First Amendment right to express an opinion.”
Appearing by video for her bail hearing, Ozturk, 30, detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate degree focusing on children and social media while appearing remotely at her bail hearing from the Louisiana center. She and her lawyer hugged after hearing the judge’s decision.
“Completing my Ph.D. is very important to me,” she testified. She had been on track to finish her work in December when she was arrested.
Ozturk was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to consider any specific conditions by ICE in consultation with her lawyers.
Sessions said the government had offered no evidence about why Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed.
“This is a woman who is just totally committed to her academic career,” Sessions said. “This is someone who probably doesn’t have a whole lot of other things going on other than reaching out to other members of the community in a caring and compassionate way.”
A message seeking comment was emailed Friday afternoon to the US Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Sessions told Acting US Attorney Michael Drescher he wants to know immediately when she is released.
Sessions said Ozturk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment and due process rights, as well as her health. She testified Friday that she has had 12 asthma attacks since her detention, starting with a severe one at the Atlanta airport.
“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.
Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts on March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said.
Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Ozturk said Friday that if she is released, Tufts would offer her housing and her lawyers and friends would drive her to future court hearings. She is expected to return to New England on Saturday at the earliest.
“I will follow all the rules,” she said.
A State Department memo said Ozturk’s visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ”‘may undermine US foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.
“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?” Khanbabai asked. “I am thankful that the courts have been ruling in favor of detained political prisoners, like Rumeysa.”
