Highlights from April 30, 2025
- President Donald Trump cautioned patience from the public and blamed former President Joe Biden for the volatile stock market after data released this morning showed the U.S. economy contracted this year for the first time since 2022.
- The White House said it signed an economic partnership with Ukraine that includes an agreement on the ownership and extraction of natural resources from the war-torn nation.
- A bipartisan measure that sought to undo the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on most countries this month failed in the Senate. The vote ended in a 49-49 tie.
- Former Vice President Kamala Harris returned to the national spotlight this evening with a speech in San Francisco, where she criticized Trump's agenda.
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Kamala Harris criticizes Trump's agenda and warns of looming constitutional crisis in major speech
Harris delivered her first major speech since her November election loss tonight in San Francisco, where she said Trump has abandoned America’s highest ideals throughout his first 100 days in office, accused his administration of counting on “the notion that fear can be contagious” and warned of a potential constitutional crisis.
“We are living in a moment when the checks and balances upon which we have historically relied have begun to buckle,” Harris said. “When the checks and balances ultimately collapse, if Congress fails to do its part, or if the courts fail to do their part, or if both do their part, but the president defies them anyway. Well, friends, that is called a constitutional crisis.”
Harris described the early days of Trump’s presidency as a “high-velocity event,” telling the crowd that a “vessel” is being used for the “swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making.” That agenda, Harris said, includes efforts to cut public education, shrink the government and then privatize its services and provide tax breaks to the “wealthiest among us.”
Harris called Trump’s tariff regime “reckless” and said it is part of “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.” She praised voters and lawmakers who have spoken out against the import penalties.
“By the way, an agenda that is not lowering costs, not making life more affordable and not what they promised,” she said. “It’s an agenda -- a narrow self-serving vision of America, where they punish truth-tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power and leave everyone to fend for themselves, all while abandoning allies and retreating from the world.”
While it was her first major speech, it is not Harris first time speaking publicly since her election loss: In February, she spoke briefly at the NAACP Image Awards after she received the “Chairman award.” In addition, her office this month released to MSNBC video of a speech she gave at the Leading Women Defined Summit.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife filed for protection order against him in 2020, DHS document release shows
Documents released today by the Department of Homeland Security show Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the man who the Trump administration said was deported mistakenly — filed a petition for protection in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on Aug. 3, 2020, less than a year before she filed a separate petition for protection.
It was not clear why DHS released the documents today. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has been releasing similar documents as it tries to defend its deportation of Abrego Garcia.
“If the government believes it has a strong case against him, they should bring him back and give him a full and fair trial in front of the same immigration judge who heard the case in 2019,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, said in response to the document release.
“At that trial, they can introduce all of this evidence, and Mr. Abrego Garcia can respond in his own voice. Until then, we’re all talking about him and talking for him, but he hasn’t had the chance to speak for himself,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
In the documents, Vasquez Sura described an incident in which she ended up calling the police after, she said, Abrego Garcia locked their kids in the basement and wouldn’t let her make food for them.
Vasquez Sura indicated she wanted the court in 2020 to order Abrego Garcia not to abuse or threaten her or her children, not to contact or attempt to contact her, and not to go to their residence.
On Aug. 11, 2020, she filed a petition to rescind the protective order.
She never showed up to a hearing to rescind the petition, set for September 24, 2020, according to the filings provided by Prince George’s County.
Vasquez Sura said this month that she had “acted out of caution after a disagreement” with her husband.
“No one is perfect and no marriage is perfect,” she said in a statement. “That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation.”
Trump says he would 'love to see' Stephen A. Smith run for president as sports commentator mulls bid
Trump offered words of encouragement tonight for ESPN host and commentator Stephen A. Smith to run for president after he gave signs of launching a 2028 bid.
"He's a good guy. He's a smart guy. I love watching him. He's got great entertainment skills, which is very important," Trump said during his town hall with NewsNation. "You know, a lot of these Democrats I watch, I say they have no chance. I've been pretty good at picking people and picking candidates, and I will tell you I'd love to see him run all right."
Smith, a registered independent, has emerged as a vocal critic of the Democratic Party in the aftermath of Kamala Harris’ November loss to Trump. He told ABC News this month that he feels has “no choice” but to mull a run.
Smith co-hosted the NewsNation town hall alongside anchor Chris Cuomo and former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
Smith asked several questions, including asking Trump to respond to critics who say his targeting of Harvard University amounts to "an attack on academic freedom rather than a defense of fairness."
Trump responded by touting his support among Black and Latino voters, arguing that they "agree with what I'm doing with respect to Harvard."
"Harvard gets 4 or 5 billion dollars a year from the United States government in the form of grants, and they have $53 billion, and yet they don't treat the people right. They take foreign students — nobody knows where they come from, and they viciously hate our country," he said.
Smith, a graduate of Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, asked Trump whether historically Black colleges and universities should be concerned about potential funding cuts.
"Not at all," Trump said, adding that during his first term he secured additional funding for the schools.
Trump says companies, like Americans, will experience 'transition period' due to tariffs
Trump said private companies will experience a "transition period" as his tariff policies take effect, framing it as a necessary pain to spur U.S. manufacturing.
He maintained he is "flexible," however, pointing to his decision this week to amend the tariffs he placed on car manufacturers as an example.
"Now with the cars, I’m getting a 25% tariff for the people. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars, but they’re hurt because they can’t switch over 100% of the content of the car within a very short period of time," Trump said during a NewsNation town hall. "So I gave them a short period, two years, where they have to be switched over 100%, where every single part in the car is made in the USA."
"And if I didn’t do that, it would be very tough for these companies and these companies — it’s a transition period," he said later.
Trump used the same phrasing in an interview with ABC News yesterday when he was asked about Americans' potentially facing economic hardship due to the tariffs.
Map: New voter turnout data from the 2024 presidential election
Voter turnout in the 2024 presidential election dipped from 2020, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows.
Some takeaways:
- Turnout among the voting-eligible population declined 1.5 percentage points, to 65.3% from 2020’s 66.8%.
- By race and ethnicity, turnout declined most among Hispanic voters (down 3.1 percentage points), followed by Black voters (3.0 percentage points), then Asian American voters (2.6 percentage points). Turnout declined among white voters, too (1.5 percentage points), the least among the racial groups for which data is available.
- Regionally, turnout declined the most in the South (down 2.8 percent points) and the Northeast (2.5 percentage points) and the least in the Midwest (0.6 percentage points).
And from state trends in voting turnout:
- Minnesota once again had the highest presidential election turnout in the United States, with 75.9% of citizens voting.
- Turnout surged 5 percentage points or more in Kansas, Michigan and Nevada.
- Turnout plummeted 10 percentage points in Arizona and 6 percentage points in Texas.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confirms she's 'weighing' second bid for top committee spot
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, told NBC News that she is "weighing" a decision to run for the top Democratic spot on the House Oversight Committee.
“We need to have a conversation as a caucus and as a team,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “As we know, we’ve seen this movie before, and the party has its views known on seniority."
Ocasio-Cortez ran for the position ahead of the start of this session of Congress, but she was defeated by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who announced that he plans to retire from Congress at the end of this term and will step back from his leadership role on the Oversight Committee.
The secret-ballot vote among Democratic caucus members when Ocasio-Cortez was defeated was 131 to 84, according to a lawmaker in the room.
Republicans hit early snags as they start crafting a massive bill for Trump’s agenda
Republicans are already hitting some snags as they begin the work of crafting a bill for Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda. And they haven’t even made some of their hardest decisions yet.
Fresh off a two-week recess, House committees have begun marking up their respective pieces of the package, which aims to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, boost funding for immigration enforcement and the military, and increase the debt ceiling. In their hunt for steep savings to pay for it all, Republicans are starting with some of the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to spending cuts.
But that process has already sparked some skirmishes among Republican lawmakers, offering a preview of the bigger intraparty fights — such as whether to slash funding for anti-poverty programs like Medicaid — that are still to come.
A bipartisan measure to undo Trump’s global tariffs fails in the Senate
A bipartisan measure that sought to undo the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed on most countries this month failed in the GOP-led Senate today.
The vote ended in a tie, 49-49, with three Republicans — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joining all Democrats present in support of the resolution, which was designed to terminate the national emergency Trump declared to implement his global tariffs.
Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who voiced support for the measure, were not present for the vote. It needed a simple majority to pass.
U.S. and Ukraine sign economic deal that includes terms for natural resources in the war-torn country
The White House announced today that it signed an economic partnership with Ukraine that includes an agreement on the ownership and extraction of natural resources from the war-torn nation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agreement, established as the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, will allow the United States to “invest alongside Ukraine” to unlock its growth assets and ultimately accelerate its economic recovery.
“As the President has said, the United States is committed to helping facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Bessent said in a statement. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.
“And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he added.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez says 'impeachment exists for a reason'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told reporters today that Congress “should never take impeachment off the table” when it comes to possible lawbreaking by the president.
Asked whether Democrats should pursue impeachment if they take back the House next year, she said, “I don’t think that we should be, you know, promising anything the way that Trump tries to promise certain, you know, locking up his political armies.”
“But I do believe that our legal processes exist for a reason. Impeachment exists for a reason, and it should absolutely be on the table, should be on the table for every president,” she said, noting that she voted to impeach Trump during his first term in office.
As for such proceedings in his current term, she said, "I think we, I, believe that there is plenty of law-breaking that should be examined and looked at."
"There must be grounds and there very well may be, especially in the next year or two," she said.
Sen. John Ossoff, D-Ga., told attendees at a town hall last week that Trump's conduct to date “has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment.”
