Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said that Wednesday's scheduled confirmation for President Trump's director of national intelligence nominee, Jay Clayton, is still on for now — hours after the president claimed it was canceled.The big picture: Clayton's nomination, which the Senate was aiming to fast-track, has been widely regarded as a way to ease tension between the White House and the upper chamber's Republicans after Trump nominated Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief. Driving the news: "We will proceed with his hearing as scheduled unless the president directs him not to appear or withdraws his nomination," Cotton, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's Republican chair, said in a Wednesday X post.The hearing for Clayton, who is currently the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, remains scheduled on the committee's website for Wednesday afternoon.Catch up quick: But early Wednesday morning, Trump posted that Clayton's hearing was canceled and would not be moving forward until his new pick for U.S. attorney, James McDonald, was approved.He said that in the meantime, Pulte, who emerged as a key ally for the president atop the Federal Housing Finance Agency, would serve as acting director.The White House referred Axios to Trump's Truth Social post about the hearing when asked for comment. Go deeper: Trump ties FISA renewal to his stalled voting bill
The Federal Reserve voted Wednesday to hold its interest rate target steady following the first meeting for new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, meaning that President Donald Trump’s long-expressed desire for the central bank to lower interest rates will be unfulfilled for now. After a two-day meeting in Washington, the Fed’s monetary policy committee announced it […]
"This way, if it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD. You better be careful, JD," Trump joked at a press conference.
President Donald Trump’s Iran deal is receiving a great deal of scrutiny from his own supporters, including Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. The details of the Memorandum of […]
President Trump holds a bilateral discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. The media questions about Iran and geopolitical events take up approximately 10 minutes of the video below. President Trump took a variety of questions on a variety of subjects. At 10:37 President Trump is asked about Bill Pulte and FISA (702). WATCH: […]
The post President Trump Holds a Bilateral Discussion with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared first on The Last Refuge.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that President Trump is “holding our national security hostage” by delaying the confirmation hearing for U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to serve as director of national intelligence. In an early morning Wednesday post on Truth Social, Trump said Clayton’s nomination would be delayed to ensure that Federal Housing Finance…
The Trump administration accelerated its assault on the US Education Department on Tuesday by announcing that the agency’s work defending civil rights and students with disabilities will be placed under the authority of other federal departments, a move that teachers, Democratic lawmakers, and advocacy organizations condemned as illegal and disastrous for vulnerable children.Linda McMahon, the billionaire education secretary who has enthusiastically advanced the destruction of her own agency, announced the transfer of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services—which oversees the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)—to the US Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Additionally, the Justice Department will oversee the work of the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, McMahon said, claiming the changes would “break down the bureaucratic barriers and strengthen the coordination of resources to improve programs that serve infants, toddlers, children, and adults.”Critics argued the moves would do the opposite, scattering crucial programs across departments that lack the expertise and resources to fulfill the education offices’ mandates, ultimately depriving children and their families of support.“Moving IDEA out of the Department of Education is not an administrative adjustment—it is an attack on the educational and civil rights foundation of the law,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. “It would drag us backward by treating disability as a medical issue instead of an educational right and by unraveling decades of progress. The Department of Education is the only federal agency with the expertise, infrastructure, and specialists needed to protect students’ rights and ensure they receive the services they are guaranteed.”“Relocating the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice as part of this scheme would further erode federal oversight and endanger disability-rights enforcement nationwide,” Pringle added.The Arc of the United States, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that “moving special education to HHS and civil rights enforcement to DOJ would split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency.”“Moving IDEA oversight into HHS pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life,” said Katy Neas, the group’s CEO. “When that mindset drives education decisions, students are more likely to be segregated, underestimated, or treated as separate from the school community.”“It’s an outrageous betrayal that undoes decades of hard-won progress for students.”The changes that McMahon announced Tuesday are part of the Trump administration’s effort to completely dismantle the Education Department, which cannot be legally abolished without congressional approval. The Washington Post noted that the newly targeted offices were among the last Education Department segments to “outsource major functions,” underscoring that the administration’s assault “has advanced far more than most observers predicted would be possible.”In addition to displacing agency functions, the Trump administration has gutted the Education Department’s staff, firing nearly half of its workers in what opponents say is an obvious effort to decimate public education.Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said the transfer of critical functions out of the Education Department is unlawful, “usurping the power of the purse while the Republican majority stands idly by, forfeiting their authority as a co-equal branch of government.” DeLauro pointed to language in a 2026 appropriations measure enacted earlier this year that prohibits the Education Department from transferring responsibilities to other federal agencies without congressional approval.“This is a disgraceful violation of the law,” DeLauro said Tuesday. “By moving special education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration is taking us back to a dark period in American history. One where individuals with disabilities were viewed not as whole persons deserving of an education, but as medical patients whose education is not a priority.”The top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, Patty Murray of Washington, warned that “the Trump administration is abandoning kids with disabilities and its most basic legal responsibility to protect the rights of every student in the classroom.”“Instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the...
