What to know today
- The Trump administration will unveil its long-planned reciprocal tariffs this week, which are expected to include all nations, not just those with whom the United States has trade imbalances. Separately, U.S. tariffs on foreign-made autos and parts will also go into effect.
- Top allies of President Donald Trump downplayed his comments in an interview with NBC News yesterday that he was "not joking" about serving a third term.
- A federal judge in Virginia blocked the Trump administration from firing dozens of intelligence officers who were set for removal from their jobs because they had temporarily been assigned to diversity initiatives.
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Musk accuses federal judges of 'undermining faith in the legal system'
Musk tonight bashed federal judges whose rulings have impeded Trump's policies, accusing them of "undermining faith in the legal system."
"We've got this issue with with judges that are activists. They're not judges. They're just pretending to be judges. They're just politicians wearing judges' robes," Musk said during a livestreamed event with his super PAC, America PAC, in which he responded to questions from callers.
"These judges are undermining faith in the legal system because they're supposed to be objective, but they're clearly not being objective. They're being just politicians, and this is not right," Musk said, without naming any specific judges.
"We should have an independent judicial system, where it’s not a matter of politics," he added.
Musk has called for judges who have ruled against or slowed elements of his agenda to be impeached, prompting the American Bar Association to issue a statement this month opposing efforts to “cow our country’s judges, our country’s courts and our legal profession."
NBC News reported today that America PAC had funneled $12.2 million so far to boost conservative judge Brad Schimel's bid in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election tomorrow against Susan Crawford. Trump today criticized Crawford and said she would be "very bad" if she wins.
Cory Booker approaches 4 hours in Senate floor speech
More than 3½ hours after he began, Sen. Cory Booker is still speaking on the Senate floor to bring attention to what he says is the “grave and urgent” threat Americans face from the Trump administration.
Booker, D-N.J., was at one point briefly joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who asked him questions to give him a brief rest from speaking nonstop, but he retained control of the floor and has been speaking ever since.
Despite his marathon speech, Booker is not affecting floor consideration of any bill or nomination. Still, it's not clear when he will stop. The record for longest speech by a senator was set in 1957, when Strom Thurmond, D-S.C., spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
Booker has never led such a speech in the past, his office said, but he has participated in one before when he joined Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., in his 14-hour, 50-minute speech advocating for gun control legislation in 2016.
Long speeches on the Senate floor have been known to put senators on the national map. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, gave a 21-hour, 18-minute speech in 2013 against Obamacare, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., gave an 8½-hour long speech in 2010 that many say contributed to his elevated profile on the political stage.
Booker will cede control of the Senate floor if he leaves his desk or sits down.
The next piece of business set to happen on the Senate floor is a confirmation vote tomorrow on Matthew Whitaker’s nomination to be U.S. Permanent Representative on the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When that happens is likely to on whether Booker’s speech pushes past when the Senate typically comes in for the day, at 10 a.m.
Agencies named in Signal chat lawsuit give sworn statements about message preservation steps
In court filings tonight, representatives from the State and Defense departments, the National Intelligence Director’s Office and the CIA submitted sworn declarations about the status of Signal messages recovered from the group chat about U.S. military strikes that inadvertently included a journalist.
The State Department representative said, “Images of the Signal chat in the possession of the Office of the Secretary have been captured and will be preserved.”
The Defense Department rep said, "A search of Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s mobile device has been conducted, and available Signal application messages that are at issue in this case have been preserved."
Meanwhile, the National Intelligence Director’s Office said it has "taken screenshots of messages currently in existence and transferred said screen shots to an ODNI email address."
The CIA representative said that "residual administrative content from ‘the Signal chat’ was retrievable from" Director John Ratcliffe's personal account on the messaging app "and that that content has since been transferred to Agency systems.”
The agencies and departments are being sued by a government watchdog group, which cited the Federal Records Act on preserving government communications. The judge overseeing the case ordered the preservation of Signal group chat records from early to mid-March.
Sen. Cory Booker to speak late into the night, says 'our nation is in crisis'
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., took to the Senate floor tonight with the intention of “disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”
“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely our nation is in crisis,” he said at 7 p.m. ET.
According to his prepared remarks, he plans to keep going “by sharing just a few of the letters I have received from my constituents in recent weeks about what is at stake right now.”
It's not clear exactly how long Booker intends to speak.
Democratic leaders sue to block Trump's election-related executive order
Democratic leaders sued tonight to block an executive order that Trump signed last week aimed at elections.
Trump's order says proof of citizenship must be required to register to vote and calls on the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Department of Government Efficiency to look over states’ “publicly available voter registration list and available records concerning voter list maintenance activities,” then assess them against federal and state records to uncover rarely occurring and illegal voter fraud by noncitizens.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., argues that the Constitution empowers the states and Congress, not the president, to regulate elections. It also says the order "attempts to mandate new burdens" on those trying to register to vote in its requirements for proof of citizenship.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, Democratic Governors Association Chair Laura Kelly, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called the order "an unconstitutional power grab from Donald Trump that attacks vote by mail, gives DOGE sensitive personal information and makes it harder for states to run their own free and fair elections."
"It’s anti-American and Democrats are using every tool at our disposal — including taking Trump to court — to stop this illegal overreach that undermines our democracy,” they said in a statement.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment tonight.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna makes Freedom Caucus departure official
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., one of a handful of female members of the House Freedom Caucus, confirmed tonight that she is quitting the group of conservative hard-liners over their efforts to derail her push to allow remote voting for lawmakers who become new parents.
She accused her Freedom Caucus colleagues of threatening to “shut down” and halt all legislative business from moving on the floor unless her push to force a vote on her plan is not stopped.
“There’s some great people that are still members of the Freedom Caucus, but there’s a small faction that’s disingenuous, and I’m not going to play that game,” Luna told reporters at the Capitol. “This speaker is being held hostage. You had a small group of the Freedom Caucus that threatened to shut down the House floor regardless of what agenda was being placed — whether it was the president’s or not — and that’s not right.”
Luna has secured the 218 signatures needed to bypass GOP leadership and force a vote on bipartisan legislation that would allow members who become new parents to vote by proxy for up to 12 weeks. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his leadership team are opposed to proxy voting, as are many other Republicans. They also don’t like Luna using’s the process, known as the discharge petition.
Luna has not said when she plans to file her motion, which would kick-start the process.
“There’s some great members of the Freedom Caucus, but I’m not going to be treated like that,” Luna said. “I don’t play to lose.”
Judge halts DHS decision to end protections for Venezuelans
A federal judge in California today issued an order blocking the Department of Homeland Security from ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Venezuelan nationals.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had ordered those protections — which allows qualified Venezuelan national to reside and work temporarily in the United States — to be yanked April 7. In the final days of the Biden administration, Noem's predecessor, Alejandro Mayorkas, had extended the protections until October 2026.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said that Noem's action was "unprecedented" and that it threatened to "inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States.”
He also took aim at Noem's public claims that the majority of the TPS holders are criminals as "entirely unsubstantiated" and noted that people are ineligible for TPS if they have “been convicted of any felony or 2 or more misdemeanors committed in the United States.”
“To the extent the government contends that there is a threat from the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua,” he wrote, “it has made no showing that any Venezuelan TPS holders are members of the gang or otherwise have ties to the gang.”
Chen directed DHS to let him know whether it plans to appeal and acknowledged in the ruling that the extra protections are likely to end at some point.
"Although the TPS designations for Venezuela are only temporary, they still afford TPS holders with concrete, meaningful relief: for a fixed period of time, TPS holders have both the right to work and the right to be free from removal, which give not only stability but also security in their lives and time with their families otherwise threatened by Secretary Noem’s actions. In short, time matters, even if that time is limited," he wrote.
Trump says 'there is communication' with North Korea's Kim Jong Un
Trump told reporters at the White House today that “there is communication” between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump spoke fondly of his relationship with Kim, saying they get along "fantastically."
"He’s a big nuclear nation, and he’s a very smart guy. I got to know him very well," he added.
Trump referred to an exchange with Kim during his first term, which he said "started off very rough, very nasty," with Trump calling Kim a "rocket man" in an address to the United Nations in 2017 and the two leaders subsequently meeting three times from 2018-19. In 2019, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step across the 1953 armistice line dividing North and South Korea during his visit.
Trump indicates first overseas trip this term will be to Saudi Arabia
Trump appeared to confirm that the first overseas trip of his second term will be to Saudi Arabia, as well as Qatar and maybe the United Arab Emirates.
“It could be next month, maybe a little bit later,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “And we’re going to Qatar also, and also we’re going to, possibly, a couple of other countries. UAE is very important.”
He added: “So we’ll probably stop at UAE and Qatar.”
Axios reported yesterday that Trump is set to visit Saudi Arabia in May.
Trump, who made his first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia during his first term, said today that he did so because the kingdom followed through on an agreement to buy $450 billion worth of American goods, “military and otherwise.”
Trump says David Friedman, Richard Grenell and 'maybe 30 other people' are eyeing the U.N. ambassador post
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said “a lot of people” are interested in replacing Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Among those interested, he said, are former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Richard Grenell, whom Trump named as his envoy for special missions and as the Kennedy Center's interim executive director. Grenell was U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump's first term.
“We have a lot of good people that want it,” Trump said, adding that “maybe 30 other people” had asked about serving in the post.
“Everyone loves that position. That’s a star-making position," he added.
During Trump's first term, his first U.N. ambassador was former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who went on to challenge Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.
