Democrats call for insider trading investigation over Trump’s abrupt tariff pause – US politics live

Profits at major US banks beat forecasts in the first quarter as stock trading jumped, but executives on Friday warned of economic turbulence as sweeping tariffs could fuel risks and weigh on economic growth. Reuters has this report: Equity traders at JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley brought in record revenue as markets boomed early in the year, while Wells Fargo earned more fees from clients. But industry executives said consumers and corporations were becoming more cautious about US president Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which have roiled markets and could spur inflation and tip the economy into recession. “The first quarter was a pretty good start to the year in terms of trading and even business activity, but what happens in the second quarter is still unknown, including the impact on markets, mergers and acquisitions,” said Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management. “It is going to be a tale of two different quarters.” While it is too early to understand the full implications of the tariffs, households and businesses were starting to respond to the import levies, executives at the biggest US lenders said. In the global fallout from Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement, it appears nowhere is safe. Crashing share prices, a sell-off in bonds and currency chaos erasing trillions of dollars of wealth in a matter of days. On Friday the dollar fell by more than 1% relative to a basket of other currencies to reach its lowest level in three years, compounding an almost 10% slide since the start of the year. In the space of a week, it has lost about 3 cents against the pound and 4 cents against the euro. Even after the president’s partial U-turn – freezing tariffs at 10% on all US imports except those from China for 90 days – markets swung from relief rally to fresh rout, as investors questioned the once unthinkable: could the US dollar be losing its unassailable safe haven status? “The damage has been done,” said George Saravelos, the head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank. “The market is re-assessing the structural attractiveness of the dollar as the world’s global reserve currency and is undergoing a process of rapid de-dollarisation.” For the full story, click here: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Friday that Democrats are “totally united” in response to Donald Trump’s tarrifs. Speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Schumer said: “We are totally united, that you don’t see any divisions in the Democrats the way you do with the Republicans.” He went on to add: “For instance, when we had our first vote on the budget reconciliation, we had 27 amendments. Every Democrat supported every one of those amendments. We had no defections. They’re beginning to show cracks and defecting because they know embracing Trump is not what the American people want. And we Democrats are showing them that every day.” Pentagon to end $5.1bn in contracts with companies including Accenture and Deloitte citing ‘Doge findings’ Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the termination of several information technology services contracts valued at $5.1bn, including companies such as Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton and Deloitte, Reuters reports citing a Pentagon memo. The contracts “represent non-essential spending on third party consultants” for services Pentagon employees can perform, Hegseth said in the memo released late on Thursday. “These terminations represent $5.1bn in wasteful spending,” Hegseth said, adding that their termination would result in “nearly $4bn in estimated savings.” During morning trading in New York shares of Booz Allen Hamilton were down 2.4% to $106.30 and Accenture shares were down 2% to $279.52. Representatives for Accenture, Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. The contracts appeared to be wide-ranging cuts to consulting services for the Navy, the Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Health Agency. In a video posted on X, Hegseth said the contracts were for “ancillary things like consulting and other non-essential services.” He said the services would be brought in-house. In the memo Hegseth said he was directing the Pentagon’s chief information officer to work over the next 30 days with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called and unofficial “department of government efficiency” to prepare a plan to cut and in-source the Defense Department’s information technology consulting and management services. Additionally, the memo said the Pentagon would negotiate the “most favorable rates” for cloud computing services. Nearly two dozen US law firms have quietly scrubbed references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from their website and revised descriptions of pro-bono work to more closely align with Donald Trump’s priorities, a Guardian review has found, underscoring the Trump administration’s successful campaign of intimidation against the legal profession. The changes, which have occurred at some of the nation’s most prestigious firms, include eliminating mention of pro-bono immigration work from firm websites and deleting sections entirely related to DEI. In some cases, firms appear to have dropped the word “diversity” from descriptions of their work. In at least one case, a change included revising a quote from firm partners to eliminate mention of diversity and inclusion. The Guardian contacted all of the firms mentioned in this story. None responded to a request for comment. Many of the steps taken by law firms to capitulate to Trump are being tracked in a speradsheet by the Coalition for Justice, an alliance of progressive student organizations at Georgetown law school in Washington DC. About a dozen students are keeping a spreadsheet of how hundreds of firms are responding. Mari Latibashvili, a second-year law student who is a leader of Coalition for Justice and has been helping with the tracker, said: The administration’s attacks are so blatantly illegal and unconstitutional that the law firms choosing to comply in advance is really a slap in the face for the legal profession. It’s them saying that they’re not willing to stand up for these very basic fundamental constitutional rights – the rule of law, legal ethics and just freedom of speech and expression – I think are just fundamental things that we all learn about first year of law school. The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey says she has launched an investigation into Democratic governor Phil Murphy and state attorney general Matt Platkin over the state’s directive to local law enforcement not to cooperate with federal agent conducting immigration enforcement. Alina Habba, appointed last month by Donald Trump as the interim US attorney for the state, announced the investigation as “a warning for everybody” on Thursday evening on Fox News. I want it to be a warning for everybody that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Governor Murphy, to open an investigation into Attorney General Platkin. Both Murphy’s office and Platkin’s office declined to comment. A partner in a small New Jersey law firm near Trump’s Bedminster golf course, Habba served as a senior adviser for Trump’s political action committee, defended him in court in several civil lawsuits and acted as a spokesperson last year as he volleyed between courtrooms and the campaign trail. The Associated Press reports that Murphy’s administration has been largely supportive of immigration. Under his tenure, Platkin’s predecessor issued a guideline limiting cooperation between local New Jersey police and immigration officials. A bill that would make the directive state law is pending in the legislature, but hasn’t advanced. The policy and the pending bill have gotten renewed attention since Trump’s second administration began and immigration officials arrested people in Newark soon after the inauguration. The arrests led immigrant rights advocates to call out “Where’s Governor Murphy?” during a news conference held by Newark’s mayor to deride the immigration enforcement. Donald Trump has claimed his tariff policy is “doing really well”, calling it “very exciting” for the US and the rest of the world. He posted on his Truth Social platform: We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly. DJT Meanwhile, as of the last few minutes Wall Street is open and amid the escalating trade war US stock are down at the start of trading. Across the main indexes, the S&P 500 is down 6 points or -0.1% at 5,262 points, the Dow is down 64 points or -0.16% at 39,529 points, while the Nasdaq is down 9 points or -0.06% at 16,377 points. The US dollar also suffered a further blow as a result of Beijing’s retaliatory 125% tariff announcement earlier, falling to a three-year low. Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, minority leader Chuck Schumer and colleagues have sent a letter to the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to determine whether Donald Trump, any members of his cabinet, or other donors, insiders, and administration officials engaged in insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations. Trump’s dramatic about-face on his trade war shocked investors and led to big rises in stock markets around the world, igniting accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Warren wrote on X: Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @SenSchumer and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings. The letter reads: We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the President’s announcement. It goes on to highlight that the US president posted it was “a great time to buy” on social media just hours before abruptly pausing his tariff impositions for most countries. The timing of his posts and subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation. Before pausing the tariffs that threw markets into disarray, President Trump appears to have previewed his plans to do so on Truth Social: at 9:37 am, he announced, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His official announcement of the tariff pause came roughly 4 hours later at 1:18 pm. (In my colleague Lauren Almeida’s story from yesterday, she noted: “Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.”) The senators’ letter also asked how Trump administration cuts to the SEC might impact the agency’s ability to respond to large-scale market events and pursue enforcement actions. They have requested answers by 25 April. Yesterday I reported that Democratic senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego (who are also signatories to this letter) are demanding that the Office of Government Ethics investigate potential conflicts of interest and insider trading of White House and executive branch officials who may have been privy to Trump’s 90-day pause on steep tariffs. You can follow all the latest from the markets on our business blog: China raises US tariffs to 125% as Xi invites EU to team up against Trump ‘bullying’ China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”. Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners. The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff rises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”. “If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come. Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”. Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week. Chinese officials have been canvassing other trading partners about how to deal with the US tariffs, after the country was excluded from Donald Trump’s 90-day pause of the steepest global tariffs. Instead the US president made consecutive increases to duties on Chinese imports, which are now 145%. California’s $59bn agriculture industry reels under Trump’s wavering tariffs California’s $59bn agricultural industry is bracing for disruption as Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to spike tensions and trigger economic turmoil with China – one of the state’s biggest buyers. California is the country’s breadbasket, supplying roughly one-third of US vegetables and 75% of its fruits and nuts. But it also exports much of its produce – close to $24bn worth in 2022. This means farmers in the state could lose out significantly as China imposes retaliatory tariffs on American goods. The threat of another prolonged trade war has contributed to growing uncertainty in an industry where decisions often have to be made long before harvests or sales. It’s difficult for producers to decide to cull or keep dairy cows from their herds, rip plants tended to for years from the soil or pluck trellises of grapevines from their pastures. Already grappling with extreme weather events that have damaged or destroyed crops and water restrictions that added challenges, a spate of Trump policies – including attacks on agricultural research, a funding freeze of billions from the US Department of Agriculture, and crackdowns on migrant workers – have left farmers reeling. Zachary Williams, sales director for Stewart & Jasper Orchards in Newman, California, said: The uncertainty is probably more of a problem than the tariff itself. Uncertainty about whether there will be, or won’t be, is a little harder to plan around. Advocates for academic freedom are bracing for what they expect to be the next phase of the government’s effort to reshape higher education: an overhaul of the system accrediting institutions of higher learning. Donald Trump has made no secret of such plans. During the campaign, he boasted that accreditation would be his “secret weapon” against colleges and universities the right has long viewed as too progressive. “I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” Trump said last summer. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once for all.” In recent weeks, the government has taken aggressive actions against US universities in the form of funding cuts, a ban on diversity initiatives, and the targeting of international students. Dismantling the accreditation system would be a powerful tool to further erode the separation between the government’s political ideology and what US students are taught. While it’s unlikely that Trump can delist currently recognized accreditation agencies, which are controlled by a bipartisan body enshrined in federal law, there are several ways in which the administration could weaken their authority to enforce schools’ compliance with a series of standards. Project 2025 and efforts to curtail accreditors’ power in some conservative states offer a blueprint for what several education professionals who spoke to the Guardian, along with officials at the department of education, fear may be an impending executive action on the issue. Targeting accreditation – the peer-review system guaranteeing quality assurance on learning institutions – is part the right’s broader strategy to undermine higher education as a whole, advocates warn. Because accreditation by a recognized agency is required for students to be eligible for federal financial aid, the government has massive financial sway over how the system works. The Mississippi library commission, which offers services such as specialized research assistance to libraries in the state, has ordered the deletion of two research collections: the race relations database and the gender studies database. The collections were stored in what’s called the Magnolia database, which is used by publicly funded schools, libraries, universities and state agencies in Mississippi. The commission’s executive director, Hulen Bivins, confirmed the deletion to the Guardian, and said: We may lose a lot of materials. All of the states, we are in dire shape. We have had a reconsideration of everything with regard to what Doge [is doing].” The so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), which has sent shock waves through federal agencies and departments since its creation when the second Trump administration began, all but axed the Institute of Library and Museum Services (IMLS) in March by putting nearly all of its employees on administrative leave. The independent federal agency provides resources and support to libraries, archives and museums in all 50 states and territories. Earlier that month, Trump signed an executive order that called for the IMLS to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” within seven days. The head of the US military base in Greenland, a Danish territory coveted by Donald Trump, has been fired for criticising Washington’s agenda for the island. Col Susannah Meyers, who had served as commander of the Pituffik space base since July, was removed amid reports she had distanced herself and the base from JD Vance’s criticism of Denmark and its oversight of the territory during the US vice-president’s visit to the base two weeks ago. The US Space Force said in a statement on Thursday night: Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.” The statement did not expand further, but the US website military.com said Meyers sent an email to all personnel at Pituffik on 31 March “seemingly aimed at generating unity among the airmen and guardians, as well as the Canadians, Danes and Greenlanders who work there, following Vance’s appearance”. During his 28 March visit to the base, Vance told a press conference: Our message to Denmark is very simple: you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass.” In her email, relayed to military.com, Meyers wrote: I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by vice-president Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik space base.” The Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on X: Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense.” Pirelli has put on hold plans to invest further in the United States as it tries to smooth out tensions linked to having Chinese state-owned group Sinochem as its largest investor, the Italian tyre maker said on Friday. Sinochem has a 37% stake in Pirelli and is at odds with the company and its Italian shareholders over governance, at a time when being seen as a Chinese-linked business is increasingly proving an obstacle for doing business in the US, one of Pirelli’s key markets. Pirelli makes about 25% of its revenues in North America, which it mostly serves through its plants in Mexico, South America and Europe, although it also runs a smaller facility in the US state of Georgia. The Italian government intervened in 2023 to curb Sinochem’s powers in Pirelli and shield management’s autonomy. Responding on Friday to a media report, Pirelli said its desire to increase its production capacity in the US “has been known for some time”, reports Reuters. “At the moment, however, nothing has been decided given the regulatory obstacles linked to questions of governance and shareholder structure regarding which … evaluations and in-depth analyses with Sinochem are still ongoing,” it said in a statement. The Corriere della Sera daily said on Friday that Paolo Zampolli, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy for global partnerships, hoped that Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni would announce an investment by Pirelli during her visit to the White House on 17 April. Zampolli said Pirelli would invest $1bn in Georgia to produce smart tyres, raising the investment to $2bn in the future. Expanding capacity in the US would help limit the impact of US tariffs, but Washington has also decided to crack down on Chinese technology in the automotive industry, banning key software and hardware from Chinese-controlled companies. Marco Tronchetti Provera, the Italian businessman at the helm of Pirelli since 1992 and now its executive vice-chair, said early this week that US local authorities were raising objections in negotiations on plans to expand the group’s capacity in the country due to Sinochem’s stake. Tronchetti’s vehicle Camfin controls a 26.4% stake in Pirelli. Shareholders are now discussing possible solutions ahead of a board meeting on 28 April. Donald Trump, the oldest person to assume theUS presidency, is to undergo his first physical examination of his second term on Friday. Trump, who turns 79 in June, is known for his love of fast food but often talks about his robust physical and mental health. “I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” Trump wrote in a post on the Truth Social platform on Monday, announcing the planned exam. The White House did not respond to queries about the exam and what would be included, reports Reuters. The physical could offer the first clear look at Trump’s condition since his ear was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July. His campaign released a report by Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former White House doctor, saying the injuries were superficial. The White House typically determines what data will be released from a president’s health exam. Trump is not compelled to release any information, and there is no template for the presidential exam. Trump released only limited information about his health during his presidential campaigns. During the 2024 election, Trump drew sharp contrasts with his predecessor, Joe Biden, now 82, claiming he was younger and fitter. A White House doctor said in 2018 when Trump was serving his first term that he was in overall excellent health but needed to shed weight and start a daily exercise routine, reports Reuters. Trump included a cognitive exam, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, as part of his physical during his first term, and his doctor later said he scored 30 out of 30. Biden released detailed summaries of his physical exams while in office, but several books published in recent months have raised questions about his mental acuity in his final months in the White House. The mental ability and age of both Biden and Trump were in focus during last year’s election campaign, especially after Biden’s disastrous performance in a debate with Trump in June, and Trump’s increasingly rambling speeches at rallies. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Friday that “the US cannot act recklessly, and the wheel of history cannot go backwards,” referring to US tariffs on China. Reuters reports that Wang made the remarks in a meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi in Beijing. China on Friday increased its tariffs on US imports to 125%, hitting back against US president Donald Trump’s decision to increase duties on Chinese goods to 145% and raising the stakes in a trade war that threatens to up-end global supply chains. After doubling down on his promise not to pause his latest tariffs, Donald Trump has announced a 90-day pause for most countries except China. Why did he change his mind? My colleague, Jonathan Freedland, speaks to James Bennet of the Economist about who might have forced the president’s hand, and what could happen next, in the latest episode of the Politics Weekly America podcast: China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”. Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners. The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday that it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff raises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”. “If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come. Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”. Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week. The US Senate approved Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s top military officer on Friday after the president abruptly fired the previous chair of the joint chiefs of taff this year. Lawmakers signed off on Dan Caine’s nomination and promotion to four-star general in an early morning vote of 60 to 25 ahead of a two-week recess, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Trump’s administration has dismissed a series of senior officers as part of a rare and major shake-up of top US military leadership that began shortly after he returned to office in January. Democrats have sharply criticised the firings – including of the previous joint chiefs chair, Gen Charles “CQ” Brown- accusing Trump and defence secretary Pete Hegseth of seeking to ensure the military is led by people loyal to the president. AFP reports that Caine sought to allay such concerns about his nomination during his confirmation hearing last week, pledging that he would “continue the traditions and standards of my oath of office and my commission as a nonpartisan leader who will always strive to do the right thing”. He said that guarding against politicisation of the military “starts with being a good example from the top and making sure that we are nonpartisan and apolitical and speaking the truth to power every day”. “The nation and the constitution all require a nonpartisan military,” said Caine, who as a retired lieutenant general was a highly unusual candidate for the top military post. Nominees for chair of the joint chiefs must have served as the head of a military branch, as leader of a combatant command or as vice-chair – none of which Caine has done – but the president can waive that requirement. The US supreme court upheld on Thursday a judge’s order requiring Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador. US district judge Paula Xinis last week issued an order that the administration “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation. The supreme court, in an unsigned decision, said that the judge’s order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”. However, the court said that the additional requirement to “effectuate” his return was unclear and may exceed the judge’s authority. The justices directed Xinis to clarify the directive “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”. The administration, meanwhile, “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the court directed. The Associated Press (AP) reports that the administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending him to El Salvador, but argued that it no longer could do anything about it. More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments: Donald Trump is undergoing his annual physical on Friday, potentially giving the public its first details in years about the health of a man who in January became the oldest in US history to be sworn in as president. “I have never felt better, but nevertheless, these things must be done!” Trump, 78, posted on his social media site. A week of turmoil unleashed by US president Donald Trump’s tariffs showed little sign of easing on Friday, with some markets again tumbling and French president Emmanuel Macron describing the 90-day tariff pause as “fragile”. Macron wrote on X early on Friday that the partial suspension “sends out a signal and leaves the door open for talks. But this pause is a fragile one”. During a cabinet meeting, Trump defended his tariff policies, saying, “We’re in great shape,” while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president’s abrupt decision to postpone the implementation of “reciprocal” tariffs by 90 days sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Meanwhile, former treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy. Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the government can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his “beliefs”. In response to a judge’s request for evidence, the government submitted a two-page memo, in which it argues that the Trump administration may deport noncitizens whose “beliefs, statements or associations” represent a threat to US foreign policy interests. The memo was released the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement shared, and then deleted, a social media post saying that it is responsible for stopping illegal “ideas” from crossing the US border. Iran said on Friday it was giving nuclear talks with the United States on Saturday “a genuine chance”, after president Donald Trump threatened bombing if discussions failed. Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that Washington and Tehran would begin talks in Oman, which has mediated between the west and Tehran before. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can require all people in the country without authorisation to register with the federal government. Also today, the Washington Post reported that the Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, and the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status. The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The decision would mark a major escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution. House speaker, Mike Johnson, was finally successful in muscling through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan.