block

The Trump administration argued in federal court Wednesday that any judicial intervention to curtail its deployment of military troops to Los Angeles would endanger federal immigration agents and undermine the president’s authority to keep American cities safe.

Attorneys for President Trump called California’s request Tuesday for a temporary restraining order barring those deployments a “crass political stunt endangering American lives” amid violent protests over immigration raids in the city.

If granted, they wrote, a restraining order would prevent Trump “from exercising his lawful statutory and constitutional power” as commander in chief to ensure federal facilities and personnel are protected and that the nation’s immigration laws are adequately enforced.

“There is no rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law.”

Hindering the administration’s deployment of troops, the attorneys argued, “would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous.”

The administration was responding to California’s request Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issue a restraining order blocking Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployments of thousands of state National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to L.A.

The troops were deployed without the request or approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom or city leaders, who have called their presence unnecessary, politically motivated and a move to increase tensions on the streets, rather than reduce them.

Trump and other administration officials have defended the deployments as necessary, and in their filing Wednesday, the president’s attorneys argued that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents had been targeted in violent attacks and that federal facilities had been damaged and defaced.

They also said that local police had acknowledged things had spun out of control and that their response had been inadequate to restore order.

Trump’s attorneys included with their opposition a written declaration from Ernesto Santacruz Jr., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations unit in Los Angeles. He described how federal agents faced violence from protesters during a raid in the Garment District, near a Home Depot store in Paramount, and at a secure ICE processing facility downtown.

Santacruz said federal immigration officials were also having their personal information spread by protesters online, and that efforts by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol to restore order and address the threats on the street were inadequate.

“Even with the LAPD, LASD, and CHP all engaged in the ensuing law enforcement activities, I believe the safety of local federal facilities and safety of those conducting immigration enforcement operations in this area of responsibility requires additional manpower and resources,” Santacruz wrote.

The administration’s arguments, if adopted by the court, could have implications elsewhere. Similar demonstrations against immigration raids have erupted in San Francisco and Santa Ana and across the country, including in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York and Seattle. More protests were scheduled to coincide with a large military parade in Washington on Saturday.

Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta first filed a lawsuit over the L.A. deployments Monday, arguing they are unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — violating state sovereignty and clear federal law limiting the use of military forces for domestic policing, including the Posse Comitatus Act.

They said Tuesday that a restraining order was necessary on an emergency basis to prevent “imminent, irreparable harm” to the state, arguing that the Trump administration intended for the military troops to “accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles.”

Bonta said Trump was using military personnel as “a political pawn” to “create a confrontational situation.” Newsom said the federal government was turning the military against American citizens in a way that “threatens the very core of our democracy.” Trump, he said, was “behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

Constitutional scholars and members of Congress also have raised concerns about the executive branch deploying military assets to quell street protests, suggesting such tactics are most commonly used by authoritarian strongmen and dictators.

A coalition of 18 other state attorneys general issued a statement Wednesday backing Bonta and California’s lawsuit, saying Trump’s decision to deploy troops without the consent of California’s leaders was “unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic.”

“The federal administration should be working with local leaders to keep everyone safe, not mobilizing the military against the American people,” said the statement, which was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont.

In their response to California’s restraining order request Wednesday, the president’s attorneys said the military forces in L.A. would not be directly engaged in policing, and that state officials had offered zero evidence to suggest otherwise.

“Neither the National Guard nor the Marines are engaged in law enforcement. Rather, they are protecting law enforcement, consistent with longstanding practice and the inherent protective power to provide for the safety of federal property and personnel,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

A hearing on the state’s request for a restraining order is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The outcome could potentially affect how federal resources are deployed at future demonstrations in L.A. and beyond, including in coming days.

The administration has said immigration raids will continue in L.A. and nationwide. Trump has warned that any protesters who show up at the military parade in Washington will be “met with heavy force.”

The parade is for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, according to the administration, but critics have derided it as an authoritarian show of strongman power by Trump — whose birthday is also Saturday.

California on Tuesday asked a federal court for a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of both state National Guard forces and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles amid mass protests over sweeping federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The request was filed in the same federal lawsuit the state and California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed Monday, in which they alleged Trump had exceeded his authority and violated the U.S. Constitution by sending military forces into an American city without the request or approval of the state governor or local officials.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, whose office is handling the litigation on behalf of both Newsom and the state, said the restraining order was necessary to bring an immediate stop to the deployments, which local officials have contended are not needed and only adding to tensions sparked by sweeping immigration detentions and arrests in communities with large immigrant communities.

“The President is looking for any pretense to place military forces on American streets to intimidate and quiet those who disagree with him,” Bonta said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s not just immoral — it’s illegal and dangerous.”

Newsom, in his own statement, echoed Bonta, saying the federal government “is now turning the military against American citizens.”

“Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” Newsom said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

The state’s request Tuesday asked for the restraining order to be granted by 1 p.m. Tuesday “to prevent immediate and irreparable harm” to the state.

Absent such relief, the Trump administration’s “use of the military and the federalized National Guard to patrol communities or otherwise engage in general law enforcement activities creates imminent harm to State Sovereignty, deprives the State of vital resources, escalates tensions and promotes (rather than quells) civil unrest,” the state contended.

The request specifically notes that the use of military forces such as Marines to conduct domestic policing tasks is unlawful, and that Trump administration officials have stated that is how the Marines being deployed to Los Angeles may be used.

“The Marine Corps’ deployment for law enforcement purposes is likewise unlawful. For more than a century, the Posse Comitatus Act has expressly prohibited the use of the active duty armed forces and federalized national guard for civilian law enforcement,” the state’s request states. “And the President and Secretary Hegseth have made clear — publicly and privately — that the Marines are not in Los Angeles to stand outside a federal building.”

At Trump’s direction, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mobilized nearly 2,000 members of the state’s National Guard on Saturday after Trump said L.A. was descending into chaos and federal agents were in danger, then mobilized another 2,000 members on Monday. The Pentagon approved the deployment of 700 U.S. Marines from the base in Twentynine Palms to the city Monday, with the stated mission of protecting federal buildings and agents.

Hegseth said the deployments would last 60 days, and the acting Pentagon budget chief said the cost would be at least $134 million. He told members of the House appropriations defense subcommittee that the length of the deployments was intended to “ensure that those rioters, looters and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.”

Local officials have decried acts of violence, property damage and burglaries that have occurred in tandem with the protests, but have also said that Trump administration officials have blown the problems out of proportion and that there is no need for federal forces in the city.

Constitutional scholars and some members of Congress have also questioned the domestic deployment of military forces, especially without the buy-in of local and state officials — calling it a tactic of dictators and authoritarian regimes.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass questioned what Marines would do on the ground, while Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the arrival of military forces in the city without “clear coordination” with local law enforcement “presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us tasked with safeguarding this city.”

Bonta had said Monday that the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits federal power around such deployments, that the deployment of National Guard forces to quell protests without Newsom’s consent was “unlawful” and “unprecedented,” and that the deployment of Marines would be “similarly unlawful.”

On Tuesday, he said the state was asking the court to “immediately block the Trump Administration from ordering the military or federalized national guard from patrolling our communities or otherwise engaging in general law enforcement activities beyond federal property.”

Harvard University has broadened its existing lawsuit against the administration of President Donald Trump to fight a new action that attempts to stop its international students from entering the United States.

On Thursday, the prestigious Ivy League school filed an amended complaint that alleges Trump’s latest executive order violates the rights of the school and its students.

Just one day earlier, Trump published an executive order claiming that “it is necessary to restrict the entry of foreign nationals who seek to enter the United States solely or principally” to attend Harvard.

He called Harvard’s international students a “class of aliens” whose arrival “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”. As a result, he said that he had the right under the  Immigration and Nationality Act to deny them entry into the country.

But in Thursday’s court filing, Harvard dismissed that argument as the latest salvo in Trump’s months-long campaign to harm the school.

“The President’s actions thus are not undertaken to protect the ‘interests of the United States,’ but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard,” the amended complaint says.

It further alleged that, by issuing a new executive order to restrict students’ entry, the Trump administration was attempting to circumvent an existing court order that blocked it from preventing Harvard’s registration of foreign students.

The complaint called upon US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Massachusetts to extend her temporary restraining order to include Trump’s latest attack on Harvard’s foreign students.

“Harvard’s more than 7,000 F-1 and J-1 visa holders — and their dependents — have become pawns in the government’s escalating campaign of retaliation,” Harvard wrote.

Trump began his campaign against Harvard and other prominent schools earlier this year, after taking office for a second term as president. He blamed the universities for failing to take sterner action against the Palestinian solidarity protests that cropped up on their campuses in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The president called the demonstrations anti-Semitic and pledged to remove foreign students from the US who participated. Protest organisers, meanwhile, have argued that their aims were non-violent and that the actions of a few have been used to tar the movement overall.

Critics have also accused Trump of using the protests as leverage to exert greater control over the country’s universities, including private schools like Harvard and its fellow Ivy League school, Columbia University.

In early March, Columbia — whose protest encampments were emulated at campuses across the country — saw $400m in federal funding stripped from its budget.

The school later agreed to a list of demands issued by the Trump administration, including changes to its disciplinary policies and a review of its Middle East studies programme.

Harvard University was also given a list of demands to comply with. But unlike Columbia, it refused, citing concerns that the restrictions would limit its academic freedom.

The Trump administration’s demands included ending Harvard’s diversity programmes and allowing the federal government to audit its hiring and admissions processes to “establish viewpoint diversity”. When those demands were not met, it proceeded to strip Harvard of its federal funding, to the tune of billions of dollars.

Trump also threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status and barred it from receiving future federal research grants.

But the attack on Harvard’s international students has threatened to drive away tuition revenue as well. Nearly a quarter of Harvard’s overall student body is from overseas.

In May, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would revoke Harvard’s access to a system, the Student Exchange Visitor Program, where it is required to log information about its foreign students.

That would have forced currently enrolled Harvard students to transfer to another school, if they were in the country on a student visa. It would have also prevented Harvard from accepting any further international students.

But Harvard sued the Trump administration, calling its actions “retaliatory” and “unlawful”.

On May 23, Judge Burroughs granted Harvard’s emergency petition for a restraining order to stop the restriction from taking effect. But since then, the Trump administration has continued to exert pressure on Harvard and other schools.

Earlier this week, for example, the Trump administration wrote a letter to Columbia University’s accreditor, accusing the New York City school of falling short of federal civil rights laws.

May 28 (UPI) — A three-judge panel on Wednesday struck down President Donald Trump‘s unilateral tariffs, including 10% imposed on most U.S. trading partners, calling them “contrary to law.”

Despite several lawsuits filed in different courts, this is the first time a federal court has blocked them.

The New York-based Court of International Trade, in a 49-page opinion, said the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy across-the-board tariffs.

The Trump administration can appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and, ultimately, the Supreme Court.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the U.S. trade deficits with other countries have “created a national emergency that has decimated American communities.”

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency. President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to CBS News.

The judges’ decision was based on two cases brought by a group of small businesses and 12 Democratic state attorneys general.

The judges were appointed by three presidents: Gary Katzmann by Barack Obama, Timothy Reif by Donald Trump and Jane Restani by Ronald Reagan.

“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA,” the judge wrote. “The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law.”

Separate tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico “do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders,” the court also found. These went into effect on March 4.

Trump imposed a 25% tariff against Canadian and Mexican goods, except for items compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada, and 10% for energy and potash from the U.S. northern neighbor. China was hit with a 30% tariff.

The 10% duties went into effect on April 5.

The president has the right to impose tariffs, based on a 1970s court decision involving the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

The judges said the president’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone without approval by Congress.

“Because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress, we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” they wrote. “We instead read IEEPA’s provisions to impose meaningful limits on any such authority it confers,” the ruling said.

Earlier this month, T. Kent Wetherell II, a district judge in Florida nominated by Trump, said the president has the authority on his own to impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.

Several lawsuits have been filed since Trump announced the tariffs on April 2 as “Liberation Day.”

Trump also announced on April 2 plans for harsher tariffs against the so-called worst offenders but one week later he paused them for 90 days until July. They include ones against America’s greatest allies: 26% against India, 25% against South Korea, 24% against Japan and 20% against the 27 members of the European Union.

Trump also had announced a 125% tariff on top of 30% against China but he suspended that. He also excluded tariffs on electronic products in China but last week threatened a 25% one on Apple products not made in the United States.

Last week Trump suggested 50% tariffs on the EU by June but paused them until July 9 on Sunday.

The tariffs have rattled U.S. stocks.

WASHINGTON — A multifront assault by the Trump administration against the nation’s oldest university intensified on Friday when Harvard sued to block the government from barring international student enrollment, and a judge issued an immediate order to halt the ban.

The rapid-fire legal action is the latest in Trump administration attacks against the university as it claims Harvard failed to adhere to its demands to combat antisemitism.

But the whiplash felt by Harvard international students is reverberating far beyond Cambridge, Mass., as university leaders and foreign students across the United States and California watch with growing alarm over how federal actions will affect the nation’s 1.1-million foreign student population — 6% of American higher education enrollment.

Campuses have been on alert since last month, when the Homeland Security and State departments canceled thousands of enrollment certifications and visas at dozens of U.S. colleges, including UCLA, for individuals who often had minor infractions such as traffic tickets. The government, seeing losses in court, later reversed those cancellations and was further blocked from undertaking them when an Oakland-based federal judge issued an injunction Thursday.

“The current mindset of the international community is uncertainty,” said Syed Tamim Ahmad, a junior at UCLA who is from India and recently completed his term as the student government’s international student representative.

Ahmad, who recently took the MCAT and plans to apply to medical school, said he was reconsidering whether continuing his studies in the United States is a safe option.

“We do not know what to expect or what to come next,” he said. “Every student saw what happened at Harvard and was absolutely shocked. We wonder, what if it happens at UCLA or any other university?”

UCLA senior Adam Tfayli, a dual U.S.-Lebanese citizen who grew up in Beirut, had a different view. “My friends at Harvard are very concerned right now,” said Tfayli, who finished his term this week as the Undergraduate Student Assn. Council President. “At UCLA, it’s tense just because it has been on college campuses for months under this administration, but doesn’t feel as bad as it did when people’s visas were being revoked last month.”

In a statement, UCLA Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications Mary Osako said that “international Bruins are an essential part of our community.”

“We recognize that recent developments at other universities have created a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety, and we remain committed to supporting all Bruins’ ability to work, learn, teach and thrive here at UCLA,” Osako said.

USC, home to 17,000 international students — the most of any California school — declined to respond to events at Harvard, and pointed The Times to statements on its Office of International Services website about foreign students. “New restrictions could be implemented with little notice. The decision to travel internationally should be made carefully,” said a letter this month.

Like at Harvard, government officials have also scrutinized USC for its enrollment of Chinese students, who they have suggested may be a security threat — an accusation that also arose at California colleges during the first Trump administration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has accused Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students amid pro-Palestinian protests, accused the university on Thursday of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”

In March, a House commitee wrote to USC to request data on Chinese nationals and their “involvement in federally funded research and the security of sensitive technologies developed on campus.”

USC said in a statement Friday that it is “cooperating with the select committee’s inquiries and are following all applicable privacy laws and other legal protections.”

Speaking on Fox News on Thursday, Noem said the actions against Harvard were a “warning” to universities nationwide.

“This should be a warning to every other university to get your act together,” she said. “Get your act together.”

The case amplifies an increasingly existential fight for Harvard, one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher education. The Trump administration has launched multiple investigations into the university, moved to freeze nearly $3 billion in federal funding and pushed to end its tax-exempt status. Taken together, the federal actions raise fundamental questions over Harvard’s ability to sustain its international standards.

Harvard alleged in its suit Friday that the Trump administration’s moves mark “the latest act by the government in clear retaliation for Harvard exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”

The administration’s “pernicious” actions, Harvard alleged, would prevent some of the world’s greatest minds from pursuing research and degrees at the university. Already, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has offered “unconditional” acceptance of international students forced to depart the Boston area due to Trump’s policies.

U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs, appointed by former President Obama, granted an immediate restraining order, agreeing with Harvard’s argument that the Trump directive would cause “immediate and irreparable harm” to the institution.

In a statement to The Times, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, dismissed the judicial injunction out of Massachusetts.

“The American people elected President Trump — not random local judges with their own liberal agenda — to run the country,” Jackson said. “These unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”

The Trump administration’s assault on higher education has not focused solely on Harvard, but on much of the Ivy League and other elite campuses, including Columbia University, several UC campuses, USC and Stanford. Columbia and UCLA in particular became a focal point last year when protests against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza roiled campuses.

A Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism established by Trump sent Harvard a letter last month demanding the university police ideology on campus and expel students it deems are “anti-American.”Harvard has sued over those demands, as well, calling them a violation of free speech.

Discussing the legal fight with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump noted that “billions of dollars have been paid to Harvard.”

“How ridiculous is that?” he asked. “Harvard’s going to have to change its ways.”

The same task force has also similarly singled out UCLA, USC and UC Berkeley. While the campuses have been subject to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant cancellations that have affected a wide swath of American academia, they have not seen the targeted federal funding clawbacks that took place at Harvard and Columbia.

Still, the California universities — anticipating less federal support overall — have recently instituted hiring freezes and budget cuts. They’ve also vowed to address campus antisemitism allegations and faced criticism that they have given unequal treatment to allegations of bias against Muslim and Arab American student activists.

It was the second time in one day that the FTC pulled out of litigation begun during the Biden administration.

The Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission is abandoning a Biden-era effort to block Microsoft’s purchase of Call of Duty video game maker Activision Blizzard.

In an order issued Thursday, the FTC said it had determined that “the public interest is best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case.”

It was the second time in one day that the FTC pulled out of litigation begun during the administration of former President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Earlier Thursday, the FTC said it was dismissing a lawsuit against PepsiCo that was filed by the Democratic-controlled FTC in January.

Microsoft announced a $69bn acquisition of Activision in January 2022. It was one of the most expensive tech acquisitions in history and was designed to boost sales of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, which has lagged in sales behind Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo.

In December 2022, the FTC – then led by Democratic Chairwoman Lina Khan – sued to temporarily block the acquisition, saying it would let Microsoft suppress competitors who want access to Xbox and its subscription content.

In July 2023, the United States District Court in Northern California denied the FTC’s request to pause the acquisition, but the FTC appealed. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court also denied the FTC’s request.

In the meantime, Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision in October 2023 after it won approval from the United Kingdom’s competition watchdog, which had also considered blocking the merger.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chairman and president, said Thursday in a statement on X that the decision is a victory for video game players and for “common sense in Washington DC”.

“We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement,” Smith said.

Political actions

Khan stepped down from the FTC when President Donald Trump took office in January, and Trump fired Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya in March. Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the Trump administration, saying their removal was illegal.

Right now, the FTC is made up of three Republican commissioners, and it’s unclear when the two Democrats on the commission will be replaced. A message seeking comment was left with the FTC.

In the PepsiCo case, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the Biden-era FTC rushed to authorise a case just three days before Trump’s inauguration. He said on Thursday that the case, which alleged that PepsiCo was violating the law by giving unfair price advantages to Walmart, was a “dubious political stunt”.

But the FTC hasn’t stood in the way of some Biden-era policies. Earlier this month, a rule the FTC announced in December requiring ticket sellers, hotels, vacation rental platforms and others to disclose their fees upfront went into effect.

WASHINGTON — In a massive setback, House Republicans failed Friday to push their big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee, as a handful of conservatives joined all Democrats in a stunning vote against it.

The hard-right lawmakers are insisting on steeper spending cuts to Medicaid and the Biden-era green energy tax breaks, among other changes, before they will give their support to President Trump’s “big beautiful bill.” They warn the tax cuts alone would pile onto the nation’s $36-trillion debt.

The failed vote, 16-21, stalls, for now, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to have the package approved next week. But the holdout lawmakers vowed to stay all weekend to negotiate changes as the president is returning to Washington from the Middle East.

“Something needs to change or you’re not going to get my support,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).

Tallying a whopping 1,116 pages, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, named with a nod to Trump, is teetering at a critical moment. Conservatives are holding out for steeper cuts to Medicaid and other programs to help offset the costs of the tax breaks. But at the same time, lawmakers from high-tax states including New York and California are demanding a deeper tax deduction, known as SALT, for their constituents.

Johnson has insisted Republicans are on track to pass the bill, which he believes will inject a dose of stability into a wavering economy.

Democrats slammed the package, but they will be powerless to stop it if Republicans are united. They emphasized that millions of people would lose their health coverage if the bill passes while the wealthiest Americans would reap enormous tax cuts. They also said it would increase future deficits.

“That is bad economics. It is unconscionable,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democratic lawmaker on the panel.

The Budget panel is one of the final stops before the package is sent to the full House floor for a vote, which is expected as soon as next week. Typically, the job of the Budget Committee is more administrative as it compiles the work of 11 committees that drew up various parts of the big bill.

But Friday’s meeting proved momentous. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House and have just a few votes to spare to advance the measure, including on the Budget Committee.

Four Republican conservatives initially voted against the package — Roy and Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Andrew Clyde of Georgia. Then one, Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, switched his vote to no.

The conservative holdouts from the Freedom Caucus are insisting on deeper cuts — particularly to Medicaid. They want new work requirements for aid recipients to start immediately, rather than on Jan. 1, 2029, as the package proposes.

Roy complained that the legislation front-loads new tax cuts and spending while back-loading the savings.

“We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price,” Roy said.

“Sadly,” added Norman, “I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out.”

At the same time, the New Yorkers have been unrelenting in their demand for a much larger SALT deduction than what is proposed in the bill, which could send the overall cost of the package skyrocketing.

As it stands, the bill proposes tripling what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year.

Rep. Nick LaLota, one of the New York lawmakers leading the SALT effort, said they have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.

The conservatives and the New Yorkers are at odds, each jockeying for their priorities as Johnson labors to keep the package on track to pass the House by Memorial Day and then onto the Senate.

“This is always what happens when you have a big bill like this,” said Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). “There’s always final details to work out all the way up until the last minute. So we’re going to keep working. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

At its core, the sprawling package extends the existing income tax cuts that were approved during Trump’s first term, in 2017, and adds new ones that the president campaigned on in 2024, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay and some auto loans.

It increases some tax breaks for middle-income earners, including a bolstered standard deduction of $32,000 for joint filers and a temporary $500 boost to the child tax credit, bringing it to $2,500.

It also provides an infusion of $350 billion for Trump’s deportation agenda and to bolster the Pentagon.

To offset more than $5 million in lost revenue, the package proposes rolling back other tax breaks, namely the green energy tax credits approved as part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Some conservatives want those to end immediately.

The package also seeks to cover the costs by slashing more than $1 trillion from healthcare and food assistance programs over the course of a decade, in part by imposing work requirements on able-bodied adults.

Certain Medicaid recipients would need to engage in 80 hours a month of work or other community options to receive healthcare. Older Americans receiving food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, would also see the program’s current work requirement for able-bodied participants without dependents extended to include those ages 55-64. States would also be required to shoulder a greater share of the program’s cost.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates at least 7.6 million fewer people with health insurance and about 3 million a month fewer SNAP recipients with the changes.

Mocking the name of the bill, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called it “one big, beautiful betrayal.”

“To pay for it,” Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey said, “kids in Kentucky will go hungry, nursing homes and hospitals will close, and millions of Americans will be kicked off their health insurance. It’s wrong.”

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writer Leah Askarinam contributed to this report.

Senators accuse US President Donald Trump of engaging in ‘corruption of US foreign policy’ with defence deals.

A group of United States senators is trying to halt $3.5bn in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar over concerns that the deals will personally benefit the family of US President Donald Trump.

Two “resolutions of disapproval” were submitted on Thursday in the US by Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, along with Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who often votes with Democrats.

The legislators also issued statements accusing President Trump, who is concluding a trip to the Middle East, of actively engaging in the “corruption of US foreign policy” over the timing of the sales and recent investment deals.

The Department of State this week approved the $1.6bn sale to the UAE of Chinook helicopters and equipment, F-16 aircraft components, and spare and repair parts to support Apache, Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters. Initial reporting cited the figure as close to $1.3bn, but the $1.6bn figure was used in a statement from the legislators. The lawmakers are also seeking to block $1.9bn in sales to Qatar of MQ-9B Predator drones and associated equipment, which was approved by the State Department in March.

The legislators accuse Trump of accepting favours in exchange for the deals, citing news from April that the Emirati investment firm MGX would use a stablecoin – a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to another asset – issued by the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial to finance a $2bn investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.

The Trump family is reported to have made millions off niche cryptocurrencies like the $TRUMP “meme coin” since the president returned to the White House in January.

I know Trump’s crypto scams can seem hard to understand. So I went the Senate floor to break down the most outrageous one.

A foreign government is investing $2 billion in Trump’s coin to get favorable treatment from the Administration. A wild corruption.

Here’s how it works. pic.twitter.com/pxLSlZH2QN

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 13, 2025

In addition to business dealings, the senators also expressed fears that US weapons sent to the UAE could end up in the hands of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which is allegedly backed by the UAE and has played a critical role in Sudan’s civil war.

“The US should not be delivering weapons to the UAE as it aids and abets this humanitarian disaster and gross human rights violations,” Van Hollen said, citing Sudan’s civil war.

The senators also cited Qatar’s offer of a Boeing 747 jumbo for the president’s temporary use as Air Force One. The offer has drawn criticism from both Democrats and some Republicans because it would be the most expensive foreign gift ever exchanged between a foreign government and an elected US official.

“There’s nothing Donald Trump loves more than being treated like a king, and that’s exactly why foreign governments are trying to buy his favour with a luxury jumbo jet and investments in Trump’s crypto scams,” Murphy said in a statement.

When asked about the offer of the aircraft, Trump blamed Boeing’s lack of progress in building a new Air Force One and said he would be “stupid” to refuse a free plane.

“It’s not a gift to me, it’s a gift to the Department of Defense,” he said.

It is unclear when a vote will happen on the joint “resolutions of disapproval”, but the US political news outlet The Hill said that due to the nature of the bills, Democrats will likely force them to the floor of the Senate.