The Senate is set to vote on whether to confirm Patel as FBI director, a decision that could place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite concerns from Democrats over his qualifications and the prospect that he would do President Donald Trump’s bidding.
Here’s the latest:
Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Congress needs to “stand up” against efforts by Trump that exceed his authority, including any attempts to withhold federal funds that Congress has already appropriated.
If Congress permits that, it effectively cedes some of its authority, the centrist Republican and frequent critic of Trump told a tele-town hall attended by more than 1,000 people late Wednesday.
“We have to stand up. Now, the ‘we’ has to be more than just me. And this is where it becomes more of a challenge, but it requires speaking out. It requires saying, ‘That violates the law, that violates the authorities of the executive.’”
It also requires using relationships that have been built within the administration “to go back to the executive and say, ‘There is a way to accomplish what you are seeking, but you have to do it within the confines of the law.’” she said.
Murkowski said some Alaskans will want her to “raise hell” and fight the administration while others want her to back the president.
Roughly 100 people have lost their jobs at the U.S. government agency devoted to preventing overdose deaths and suicides, according to a Health and Human Services official who wasn’t authorized to disclose the figure and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The dismissals last weekend – part of the White House’s efforts to shrink the government workforce – amounted to about 10% of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration staff, the official said.
SAMHSA provides expertise and grant money to communities to prevent overdoses and suicides, operates treatment locators where people can find addiction treatment providers, and supports efforts to enhance mental health. The agency operates and promotes awareness of the 988 suicide and crisis hotline.
President Donald Trump made the opioid crisis a priority during his first term. In 2017, Trump became the first president to declare the opioid crisis a national health emergency. In 2018, he signed a bill increasing federal opioid funding to record levels.
About 20 senators from both sides of the political aisle gathered in the Senate chamber as McConnell paid tribute to his family, his home state and to the Senate itself, having announced he will not seek reelection.
“The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence,” he told them. “And, to the disappointment of my critics, I’m still here on the job.”
As he concluded, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. motioned that the audience of senators, staff and Capitol visitors be allowed to applaud for up to 30 seconds.
Then, the Republican senators in attendance lined up to greet McConnell and gathered around him.
He took out a tissue and made a joke, prompting the group to laugh. Senate Majority Leader John Thune then gave him a warm handshake and a dozen other senators soon did so as well.
A group of Venezuelans is suing the Trump administration over its decision to end temporary protections that shield hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the South American country from deportation.
The lawsuit by the National TPS Alliance and eight Venezuelans alleges that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem illegally revoked an 18-month extension of Temporary Protection Status, or TPS, for Venezuelans that was granted by the Biden administration in January.
Noem’s order affects 348,202 Venezuelans living in the U.S. with TPS slated to expire in April. That’s about half of the approximately 600,000 who have the protection. The remaining protections are set to expire at the end of September.
“Venezuelan TPS holders, like all TPS holders, are lawfully present here pursuant to protection granted because it is not safe for them to return to their country,” said Jose Palma, coordinator of the National TPS Alliance.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, at Federal Court in the Northern District of California.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who has become Trump’s close adviser spearheading a massive effort to cut spending and downsize the federal government, is set to meet with Argentine President Javier Milei, who is in Washington to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Musk was announced as a speaker for the conference earlier on Thursday by Mercedes Schlapp, a CPAC organizer. The scheduled meeting between Musk and Milei was confirmed by a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss an event that hadn’t yet been announced publicly and said the meeting was private and had been planned for weeks.
Milei was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after he won the election, but before he took office. He was also invited to the inauguration. A self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Milei has received praise frequently from Musk for implementing a series of austerity measures, laying off tens of thousands of government workers, freezing public infrastructure projects to fix Argentina’s long mismanaged economy.
-By Adriana Gomez Licon
Vance told conservatives that American culture is sending a message that is diminishing masculinity.
“I think that it wants to turn everybody into, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same, and act the same. We actually think God made male and female for a purpose,” Vance said.
He told the CPAC audience that when it comes to the Trump administration, “We want you guys to thrive as young men and as young women and we’re going to help with our public policy to make it possible to do that.”
He said Trump appeals in particular to young men because “He doesn’t allow the media to tell him he can’t make a joke or he can’t have an original thought.”
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is announcing on Thursday that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decades-long tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump.
McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends. He informed The Associated Press of his decision before he was set to address colleagues in a speech on the Senate floor.
His announcement begins the epilogue of a storied career as a master strategist, one in which he helped forge a conservative Supreme Court and steered the Senate through tax cuts, presidential impeachment trials and fierce political fights.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett will address reporters at the White House on Thursday as part of the press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced.
Leavitt said in a post on X that the officials will be there “to discuss the President’s accomplishments so far.”
People are gathering in a Washington suburb for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where Vice President JD Vance will open as the first speaker.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear on Saturday, the organization announced.
Attorney General Pam Bondi and House Speaker Mike Johnson will be speaking later Thursday as well as Steve Bannon, a popular Trump ally. Other international figures such as former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss and Argentine President Javier Milei are also appearing at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni is scheduled to address attendees at the conference, but her office said it will be a video appearance.
A Kyiv official says a news conference after talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy was cancelled Thursday at the request of the U.S.
The scheduled comments to the media by Zelenskyy and retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, were called off after their meeting, the Ukrainian president’s spokesman Serhii Nikiforov said.
Kellogg’s trip to Kyiv coincided with recent feuding between Trump and Zelenskyy that has bruised their personal relations and cast further doubt on the future of U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort.
He’s expected to host a reception for Black History Month in the afternoon, and then go to the National Building Museum to give a speech to a meeting of the Republican Governors Association.
Also on tap is a press briefing with the White House press secretary and other administration officials.
The Resolute Desk, an Oval Office mainstay, “is being lightly refinished,” Trump posted on social media. The desk was built from oak used in the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute, and Queen Victoria gave it as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.
In the meantime, Trump said he would sit at the “C&O” desk previously used by President George H.W. Bush. It was originally built around 1920 for the owners of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, hence the name.
“This is a beautiful, but temporary replacement!” Trump said.
He listed four targets in his executive order on Wednesday, including the United States Institute of Peace, which promotes conflict resolution around the world, and the Presidio Trust, which manages a park in San Francisco.
Both organizations were created by Congress. The executive order said they “shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
Trump also directed the elimination of various advisory panels, including the Health Equity Advisory Committee, the Advisory Committee on Long COVID and the Community Bank Advisory Council.
Trump on Wednesday threw his support behind congressional efforts for a federal takeover of the nation’s capital, saying he approves putting the District of Columbia back under direct federal control.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump complained about crime and homelessness in the district, saying, “I think we should take over Washington, D.C. — make it safe.” He added, “I think that we should govern District of Columbia.”
Under terms of the city’s Home Rule authority, Congress already vets all D.C. laws and can outright overturn them. Some congressional Republicans have sought to go further, eroding decades of the city’s limited autonomy and putting it back under direct federal control, as it was at its founding.
▶ Read more about Trump’s suggestion for the federal government to take over DC
The Senate was set to vote Thursday on whether to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, a decision that could place him atop the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency despite concerns from Democrats over his qualifications and the prospect that he would do President Donald Trump’s bidding.
Patel cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee last week by a 12-10, party-line vote.
He is expected to be confirmed unless more than three Republican senators defy Trump’s will and vote against him, which is seen as unlikely.
Patel, a Trump loyalist who has fiercely criticized the agency that he is poised to lead, would inherit an FBI gripped by turmoil. The Justice Department in the last month has forced out a group of senior FBI officials and made a highly unusual demand for the names of thousands of agents who participated in investigations related to Jan. 6.
Trump has said that he expects some of those agents will be fired.
▶ Read more about Patel’s expected confirmation
It’s been a burning political question for weeks: How long will Trump — who doesn’t like sharing the spotlight — be able to do just that with Musk, a billionaire also overly fond of attention?
In a joint Fox News Channel interview that aired Tuesday, both insisted they like each other a lot and would stick with their arrangement despite what Trump said were attempts by the media to “drive us apart.”
At times, Trump sat back as Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity heaped praise on Musk in an attempt to counteract a Democratic narrative that he’s a callous and unelected force out to destroy the government and upend civil society.
There were also moments when Trump and Musk were all but finishing each other’s sentences, as if they were part of a buddy comedy and not the president and his most powerful aide.
▶ Read more about Trump and Musk’s friendship
Trump said at an investment conference in Miami on Wednesday that he likes the idea of giving some of the savings from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency back to U.S. citizens as a kind of dividend, and that the administration is considering a concept in which 20% of the savings produced by DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts goes to American citizens and another 20% goes to paying down the national debt.
Trump also said the potential for dividend payments would incentivize people to report wasteful spending.
▶ Read more about Musk’s plan to give DOGE savings to Americans