Trump hosting Netanyahu at the White House
Donald Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are meeting at the White House on Wednesday, with Iran and Gaza on the agenda. Netanyahu is expected to press Trump for limits on Tehran’s missile arsenal and other security threats, while Trump looking to push the ceasefire agreement he brokered last year.
This is the seventh meeting between the two since Trump’s re-election, according to Reuters.
The meeting is an opportunity for Netanyahu to influence the next round of US discussions with Iran after nuclear negotiations held in Oman last Friday. Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached, while Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war. Trump told Fox Business on Tuesday that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles”, without elaborating. He also told Axios he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group as part of a major US buildup near Iran.
“I will present to the president our perceptions of the principles in the negotiations,” Netanyahu told reporters before departing for the US. The two leaders could also discuss potential military action if diplomacy with Iran fails, one source said.
Updated at 12.59 EST
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Pam Bondi has left a House judiciary committee hearing after more than five hours.
During the hearing, Bondi answered questions from lawmakers about the Epstein files and the justice department’s ongoing prosecution of anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota. She shook hands with Republican legislators before leaving the hearing room.
Updated at 15.34 EST
All of the survivors currently attending the House judiciary committee hearing on the Epstein files raised their hands when congressman Dan Goldman asked if they had tried to speak with the justice department but not received a response.
Survivors of convicted sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein stand in the audience as Pam Bondi testifies before the House judiciary committee in Washington DC. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Goldman criticized attorney general Pam Bondi’s justice department, pointing to a list of victims’ names that had been released in the files, which Congress ordered redacted for survivors’ privacy. “That is clearly intentional to intimidate these survivors and victims,” he said.
Updated at 15.04 EST
Donald Trump’s White House meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, concluded after nearly three hours.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” Trump said in a social media post. “Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a Deal, and they were hit with Midnight Hammer — That did not work well for them. Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
Netanyahu did not provide a statement on the meeting.
Updated at 15.08 EST
The brief closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, this morning can be attributed to a dispute between the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration officials over the testing of anti-drone lasers, the Associated Press reports.
The Department of Defense intended to test the new system on an incursion of drones from Mexican cartels, but FAA officials were concerned about threats to commercial air safety, unnamed sources told the AP.
Despite a meeting scheduled later this month to discuss the issue, the Pentagon wanted to go ahead and test it, prompting the FAA to shutter the airspace. It was not clear whether the laser was ultimately deployed.
The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, said earlier that a response to an incursion by Mexican cartel drones had led to the airspace closure and that the threat had been neutralized. Drone incursions are not uncommon along the southern border.
The FAA’s notice initially closed airspace above the city for 10 days, which would have crippled transportation and logistics for the border city. The nearest major alternative airport for El Paso is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a four-hour drive west of El Paso.
Updated at 14.23 EST
Dharna Noor
On Wednesday, the president reportedly plans to sign an executive order directing the defense department to procure more power from coal, the most planet-warming fossil fuel.
“Clean, beautiful coal is not only keeping the lights on in our country but also driving down the cost of electricity across the country as well,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters yesterday.
On the same day, the president is set to be awarded the inaugural “Undisputed Champion of Coal” title from the Washington Coal Club – a DC-based pro-coal industry organization – for his efforts to roll back federal climate regulations.
The coal industry poured $3.5m into efforts to elect Trump in 2024. Reports show the president’s efforts to keep ageing coal plants offer could push up already-soaring energy bills nationwide.
“Trump gets showered with millions in campaign donations and absurd awards, billionaire coal barons get the EPA gutted and a license to pollute, and working people get stuck with skyrocketing utility bills,” said Jesse Lee, senior adviser to the green non-profit Climate Power.
Updated at 13.37 EST
Minneapolis mayor says city won’t change immigration policies despite ‘positive’ meeting with Trump ‘border czar’
Rachel Leingang
Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said he has met with Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, who took over the Minnesota immigration surge, and that the meetings have been “positive”. But, he said, the city would not be changing its policies to meet the administration’s demands.
“We’re not changing those things locally,” he told the Guardian. “We’ve got a separation ordinance. We’re a welcoming city. We’re gonna stay that way.”
Frey said he’s hopeful that there will be a drawdown in agents on the ground, mirroring comments made by the state’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, this week. Homan said last week that about 700 agents would depart the state, but that leaves about 2,000 still on the ground, compared with about 100 agents normally working in Minnesota.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said.
He called Minnesotans’ response to the ICE surge “inspirational”, noting the people protesting peacefully, dropping off food for families staying home out of fear or standing watch outside schools and daycare centers. But he acknowledged there will be long-term needs after ICE leaves, including emergency assistance and business recovery assistance from the state.
The first step toward this, though, is for agents to leave completely, he said.
“If you’re looking for a rejuvenated economy, if you’re looking for things to come back, there’s a very clear antidote, which is for ICE to leave,” Frey said. “And once they do, yeah, we’re going to fling open the doors, we’re going to turn on the lights. People are going to come back into work, and we’re going to make sure that this economy gets rocking again … Minneapolis is going to bounce back strong.”
Updated at 13.33 EST
José Olivares
Delia Ramirez, the Democratic representative from Illinois, grilled the Veterans Affairs secretary, Doug Collins, about the VA’s changes in the past year under the Trump administration.
“We know that VA workers have been stripped of nearly all their labor rights. The department is struggling to staff and deliver services to veterans. Proven programs have been gutted while promising new, more effective solutions. And the Department of Homeland Security is kidnapping and deporting veterans and executing VA employees in broad daylight,” Ramirez said.
“You care about pleasing this president and advancing his ‘privatization to profit’ agenda,” she added.
Collins refused to answer any questions from Ramirez related to the shooting of Alex Pretti. Pretti was a VA nurse, who was shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement officials.
“Would you call for [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Noem to resign, given her execution of a VA employee?” Ramirez asked.
“I have said all on this issue that I’m going to say,” Collins replied.
Ramirez also questioned Collins on cuts to the VA workforce and whether non-citizen veterans deported from the US are receiving their benefits. Collins did not have an answer to the latter question.
Updated at 12.35 EST
Democratic senators say failed attempt to charge them over military video was ‘authoritarian’
Democratic senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona held a press conference on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the failed attempt of federal prosecutors to charge them criminally for releasing a video last year calling for troops to refuse to obey unlawful orders.
“They tried to have us charged and thrown into jail because we said something that they didn’t like,” Kelly said. “Because we repeated what the law actually is. This happened here. This is straight from the authoritarian playbook. This did not happen in Russia or China. In Russia and China, we see these things. This didn’t happen decades ago. It happened less than a mile from this building in the United States of America, yesterday.”
A Washington DC grand jury declined to indict the two, along with four other Democratic lawmakers who participated in the video, including Slotkin, Kelly, Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan, who all have military and intelligence backgrounds.
Trump, in outrage, called for the group to be “hanged”.
“If things had gone a different way, we’d be preparing for arrest,” Slotkin said. The speakers on the video were “simply restating the law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice that military members had a duty to refuse illegal orders. We said nothing more than everyone from Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi have said themselves out of their own mouth. For that, President Trump said that we should be investigated, arrested and ultimately hanged.”
Slotkin said she refused a voluntary interview with prosecutors last week.
“The president is using our justice system to weaponize it against his perceived enemies,” Slotkin said.
Kelly is fighting a post-retirement censure from the defense department in court. But he said that the administration’s response has had a chilling effect on other veterans.
“Retired service members have told me that they have changed what they do and say publicly in their retirement, because of what has happened to us,” Kelly said. “That’s already happening. I hope in time that that corrects itself when they see Senator Slotkin and I standing up to these bullies.”
The two thanked the anonymous citizens on the grand jury for refusing to indict.
“If fear is contagious, so is courage,” Slotkin said. “The common citizen is showing the country and the world how to stand up for their values.”
Updated at 13.33 EST
Trump hosting Netanyahu at the White House
Donald Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are meeting at the White House on Wednesday, with Iran and Gaza on the agenda. Netanyahu is expected to press Trump for limits on Tehran’s missile arsenal and other security threats, while Trump looking to push the ceasefire agreement he brokered last year.
This is the seventh meeting between the two since Trump’s re-election, according to Reuters.
The meeting is an opportunity for Netanyahu to influence the next round of US discussions with Iran after nuclear negotiations held in Oman last Friday. Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached, while Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war. Trump told Fox Business on Tuesday that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles”, without elaborating. He also told Axios he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group as part of a major US buildup near Iran.
“I will present to the president our perceptions of the principles in the negotiations,” Netanyahu told reporters before departing for the US. The two leaders could also discuss potential military action if diplomacy with Iran fails, one source said.
Updated at 12.59 EST
House hearing on veterans affairs turns tense amid questions over VA nurse Alex Pretti’s killing
José Olivares
The secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), Doug Collins, and Representative Mark Takano of California engaged in a heated exchange during a House oversight hearing.
Takano grilled the secretary on his attempts to restructure the VA. Takano said there is a lack of transparency about the details of Collins’ goals. At one point, Takano asked Collins whether he is offering signing bonuses to new nurses and doctors, as the VA continues to struggle with staffing nationwide. “Quit yelling at me!” Collins said, as Takano grilled him on the question of staffing.
Takano then lambasted Collins for his public response to Alex Pretti’s shooting. Pretti was a VA nurse, who was killed by immigration enforcement officials in Minneapolis.
“Alex Pretti worked for you – can you just tell me, was he a good employee?” Takano asked.
“As far as I know, everything about it – I’ve already said what I’m gonna say about Alex Pretti and I’m not gonna be brought into anything else about it,” Collins said.
In response, Takano criticized Collins for not speaking out about his employee who was killed. Other Trump administration officials, after the shooting, called Pretti a “terrorist”.
“When your employee was attacked publicly and falsely, by your own colleagues, you had a choice to defend him or stay silent,” Takano said. “And you chose silence. And that silence is deafening.”
Updated at 11.42 EST
The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, just began screaming at committee members after trying to avoid a question from Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York.
“I’m gonna answer the question,” Bondi screamed.
“No, answer my question,” Nadler said back.
“Your theatrics are ridiculous,” Bondi said. “Chairman Jordan, I’m not gonna get in the gutter with these people. But I’m gonna answer the question.”
Then Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the panel, interrupted to ask Nadler get more time to ask a question. “You can let her filibuster all day long, not on our watch, not on our time. No way,” he said.
When Raskin said he told Bondi she wouldn’t be allowed to take up time, Bondi screamed, “You don’t tell me anything,” and then proceeded to call Raskin “washed up” and “not even a lawyer”.
Updated at 11.18 EST