Trump administration live updates: Voters head to the polls in Georgia and Mississippi

Speaker Mike Johnson today addressed some of the challenges Republicans are facing with Latino voters over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“We got a little hiccup with some of the Hispanic and Latino voters, for certain, because some of the immigration enforcement was viewed to be overzealous,” Johnson told NBC News' Scott Wong during an interview at a House Republican conference in Miami.

“You know, everybody can describe it differently. But here’s the good news: We’re in a course correction mode right now,” the speaker said, saying he was looking forward to DHS leadership under Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., Trump's nominee to replace Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary.

NBC News spoke to voters in Rome, Georgia, on the issues driving their vote ahead of tonight's special election to fill former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's congressional seat.

Sarah Umphrey, 77, said she is supporting Clay Fuller, whom Trump endorsed. She said the president's endorsement was "really important. I like Trump."

Charles Stevens, 67, who voted Republican but declined to answer which candidate, said he voted for Greene in the past but "I feel like she has more of a position for her own to fill as opposed to representing me."

He added, "I want somebody who I feel like is speaking for me and not just speaking for themselves and trying to accomplish what she wants to accomplish.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said this afternoon that he thought the House could “squeeze” new provisions into the SAVE America Act and send an amended version to the Senate.

The new provisions in the sweeping voter ID legislation would include banning men in women’s sports and gender affirming surgeries for children.

Johnson said the House is “looking at the mechanisms to do it,” and suggested the Senate could vote on the House-passed bill without the provisions and then send it back to the House for a new vote.

“If the Senate were able to move the existing legislation that we’ve already sent over, I suppose it’s possible they could amend it there and send it back to us in a different form, and we pass it then,” Johnson said while speaking to NBC News’ Scott Wong during a televised interview at the House Republican Conference in Miami.

Clay Fuller, the Trump-endorsed candidate seeking Greene's seat in today's special election in Georgia, has a far different take on the war in Iran than the former congresswoman.

Asked by NBC News about his position on the conflict, Fuller said, "I fully support the president and his efforts in Iran and the Middle East."

"The other thing that I hear from voters, they want to hear people be reminded that the Iranian regime since 1979 has killed or maimed thousands of Americans," Fuller said. "So this is something that President Trump is holding them accountable for, the Americans that they’ve killed since 1979 they understood that the Iranian regime was a national security threat to the United States and the State of Israel."

Greene, who resigned her seat in January, has been an outspoken critic of U.S. actions. "We voted for no more foreign wars, no more regime change, and to stop paying for foreign wars," Greene said in a post on X earlier this week, but after "a year, Trump starts a major war in Iran for Israel, destabilizing the Middle East, costing over $1 billion dollars a day, driving up the cost of gas, and tragically are killing innocent children they claim to be liberating."

State investigators in New Mexico yesterday searched a 7,600-acre property that used to belong to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The search came after documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act showed no record of federal investigators ever searching the property, known as Zorro Ranch, despite a number of years-old civil suits that accused Epstein of sexually assaulting girls there — allegations over which he was never charged.

Read the full story here.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., defended two members of his conference today who have recently made disparaging comments about Muslims in the U.S.

At the GOP retreat at Trump's golf resort in Miami, Johnson was asked by a reporter about the comments by Reps. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., and Randy Fine, R-Fla., and whether he had spoken to the lawmakers.

"I've spoken to those members, and all members as I always do, about our tone and our message and what we say," Johnson said.

"There's a lot of energy in the country and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem. That's what animates this. The language that people use — it's different language than I would use — but I think that's a serious issue. Sharia law and the imposition of Sharia law is contrary to the U.S. Constitution," he continued.

Johnson added, "When you seek to come to a country, and not assimilate, but impose Sharia law, Sharia law is in conflict with the Constitution. It's not about people as Muslims; it's about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution."

Trump has peppered aides in recent days about whether longtime adviser Corey Lewandowski profited personally from a $220 million federal advertising campaign featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired last week, according to three people familiar with his conversations. 

“He’s mentioned the ads several times,” a senior White House official said, referring to Trump asking questions about Lewandowski’s role in the ad contract.

The ads were a repeated focus of lawmakers’ questions during a pair of contentious hearings on Capitol Hill last week that led in part to Trump’s decision to remove Noem as head of the agency and reassign her to a role as special envoy to the newly formed “Shield of the Americas.”

Read the full story here.

Passengers are continuing to face long lines and hours-long wait times at airports across the United States. It comes after the TSA’s funding expired three weeks ago when lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on ICE protocols, triggering a partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown. NBC’s Tom Costello reports for "TODAY."

Travelers stuck in TSA lines amid partial government shutdown

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A federal judge in Oregon yesterday restricted federal officers from using tear gas at protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon issued the preliminary injunction after a three-day hearing in which the plaintiffs — including a demonstrator known for wearing a chicken costume, a married couple in their 80s and two freelance journalists — testified about having chemical or projectile munitions used against them.

Protesters confront law enforcement outside an ICE facility in Portland, Ore., in June. Jan Sonnenmair / Getty Images file

Read the full story here.

Idahoans may soon have the opportunity to trade jury duty for election work.

An Idaho Senate committee advanced a bill yesterday that would allow prospective jurors to volunteer as poll workers for elections instead.

If passed by the state Senate and signed into law, the bill would provide county clerks to make up for shortages of election workers with people who seek exemptions from jury duty. 

Read the full story here.

Longtime Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, 78, is facing a primary challenge today from a much younger candidate, Evan Turnage, in Mississippi.

Turnage, 34, is an antitrust lawyer who was an aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

The race between Thompson and Turnage in the deep-blue 2nd Congressional District, which includes Jackson, is another generational battle for Democrats, who have seen a number of longtime members announce their retirements ahead of the fall midterms.

Thompson has outspent his opponent in the race, and Turnage has focused on the incumbent's age and has taken to the airwaves to accuse him of being ineffective.

Internal Supreme Court divisions over how the high court has frequently ruled in favor of the Trump administration in emergency situations spilled out into public yesterday evening, with liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh locking horns.

The court’s conservative majority has on a regular basis blocked lower court rulings that have stymied Trump’s agenda, sparking criticism from within and outside the judiciary.

Jackson, often a vocal dissenter in those cases, forcefully aired her critique of the court’s actions in a rare public appearance with Kavanaugh at an event for lawyers and judges held at the federal courthouse in Washington.

Read the full story here.

The prospects for Trump’s SAVE America Act grew murkier yesterday as divisions deepened among Senate Republicans about how to pass it and whether it’s possible to overcome Democratic opposition.

Some say they’re convinced a “talking filibuster” under current rules could lead to passage of the sweeping election overhaul bill, even though it hasn’t worked before. Another GOP senator proposed a different path with less support. And the Senate’s top Republican emphasized that the path is “unclear” as the 60-vote rule may be too difficult to overcome.

Read the full story here.

A recently retired Miami news anchor announced this morning that he will run as a Democrat against Rep. Maria Elvira Salazár, R-Fla.

Eliott Rodriguez, 69, retired from the local CBS station, WFOR, in December, where he worked for 25 years, giving him considerable name recognition. Salazár is also a former journalist.

Rodriguez's newly launched campaign will focus on lowering the cost of living, restoring accountability in Washington and “bringing people together,” according to a news release.

Florida’s 27th Congressional District, located in Miami-Dade County, is heavily Latino, and residents have been affected by Trump’s immigration policies, with dramatic cases of detentions and deportations.

Voters are worried about AI and don’t trust either political party to handle the rapidly evolving technology, according to a new national NBC News survey.

A majority of registered voters, 57%, said they believe the risks of artificial intelligence outweigh its benefits, compared with 34% who said the opposite. What’s more, a plurality of voters view AI negatively and don’t believe either Democrats or Republicans are doing a good job handling policy related to the rapidly advancing technology.

Just 26% of voters say they have positive feelings about AI, compared with 46% who hold negative views. In fact, the only topics that were less popular than AI in the NBC News survey were the Democratic Party and Iran.

Read the full story here.

The Georgia district that sent Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a fierce defender of Trump, to Congress is now deciding how to replace her — and whether to let the president make the pick.

Voters are heading to the polls for a special election today in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District where all candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. Of the 17 Republicans in the race, five unofficially withdrew after the deadline and will still appear on the ballot along with three Democrats. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top two vote-getters head to a April 7 runoff.

Read the full story here.