White House economic adviser says he expects there is ‘nothing to see’ in criminal investigation of Jerome Powell
Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House economic council, said that he expects there is “nothing to see here” when it comes to the ongoing criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell by the justice department. In an interview with Fox News, Hassett said that he wishes the Fed had been “more transparent” when it comes to Powell’s congressional testimony about the ongoing renovations to the central bank that are at the heart of the investigation.
Hassett, who is a contender for the top job at the Fed when Powell leaves the role in May, said that, if offered, he would take the job with a commitment to “independence and transparency”.
“I think that’s something the Fed could have done better in the past,” he added.
Key events
The president ended his rural healthcare roundtable without taking questions from reporters. As he went around the room and heard from various officials, including lawmakers and cabinet members, he said that “we’re going to have to go very fast” because they were “way behind schedule”.
Joseph Gedeon
Reporting from the White House
As the soft, elegant piano music played to a fade and Donald Trump walked into a packed East Room, he took to the microphone immediately to say this investment in rural healthcare is “the big one” and called it “the great healthcare plan”.
“That means low price and great healthcare,” the president said while adding that the administration was rolling out $50bn in rural healthcare funding,
He said of Obamacare: “This was a bill to make insurance companies wealthy.
“They put Band-Aids, literally Band-Aids, over the communities”, he added.
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on countries who ‘don’t go along’ with plans to acquire Greenland
Speaking at the White House today, Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries who pushback against his moves to annex Greenland.
“I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland,” the president said. “Because we need Greenland for national security.”
Trump began his remarks today by undermining the Affordable Care Act, and touted his newly unveiled “Great Healthcare Plan”.
A reminder that Affordable Care Act subsidies, that were extended during the Covid pandemic, expired at the end of last year, and legislation to revive them has stalled in Congress.
My colleague, Richard Luscombe, has been reporting on the wave of criticism from health policy experts in response to Trump’s plan, who say that the framework is unspecific and lacks detail about how the administration actually plans to accomplish its healthcare goals.
Donald Trump just sat down for his roundtable on rural healthcare in the East Room of the White House.
The president just called out White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett for his appearance on television this morning, which we reported earlier.
“I actually want to keep you where you are if you want to know the truth,” Trump said of discussions about Hassett taking over as the chair of the Federal Reserve. “We don’t want to lose him.”
Bipartisan group of US lawmakers underscore need to preserve Nato alliance amid Trump’s threats to annex Greenland
In Copenhagen, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers held a press conference after they held talks with Danish and Greenlandic officials on Friday, amid Donald Trump’s persistent threats to acquire Greenland as a national security measure.
“We spoke about the value of Nato and the commitment to respecting the core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination,” said Democratic senator Chris Coons, who led the delegation’s trip to the Danish capital this week.
“Are there real, pressing threats to the security of Greenland from China and Russia? No, not today,” Coons added. “Are there real opportunities for us to partner through Nato to contribute to Arctic security? Yes, and if we ask respectfully and plan together, we can achieve that goal.”
Republican senator Lisa Murkowski – who the president recently scolded publicly for voting for a war powers resolution to curb the administration from taking further military action in Venezuela – said that the delegation “heard about the concerns and the fears directly from the people of Greenland,” and on “more broadly what this means, not just to Denmark to Greenland, but to the Nato alliance”.
My colleague, Lucy Campbell, is covering the latest developments out of Europe.
Follow along here:
Trump ally and ICE deputy director resigns to run for Congress in Ohio
Joseph Gedeon
Madison Sheahan, a Trump ally and the second-ranking official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said on Thursday she was ditching her leadership position to run for Congress in Ohio.
The 28-year-old, who describes herself as a “Trump conservative”, announced her candidacy in a video in which she highlighted the agency’s expansion under her tenure.
“In just one year we’ve made history,” Sheahan said, citing the recruitment of 12,000 ICE officers and the deportation of 2.5 million people. “Ohio neighborhoods are safer thanks to President Trump and ICE.”
Sheahan was appointed to the deputy director position in March despite having no law enforcement experience. She was tapped during the initial major reorganization of ICE leadership, as the Trump administration pushed hard to accelerate heavy-handed immigration enforcement nationwide. Under her leadership, ICE had its deadliest year since 2004, with 32 people killed while in custody.
Read more here:
White House economic adviser says he expects there is ‘nothing to see’ in criminal investigation of Jerome Powell
Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House economic council, said that he expects there is “nothing to see here” when it comes to the ongoing criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell by the justice department. In an interview with Fox News, Hassett said that he wishes the Fed had been “more transparent” when it comes to Powell’s congressional testimony about the ongoing renovations to the central bank that are at the heart of the investigation.
Hassett, who is a contender for the top job at the Fed when Powell leaves the role in May, said that, if offered, he would take the job with a commitment to “independence and transparency”.
“I think that’s something the Fed could have done better in the past,” he added.
Donald Trump will hold a rural health roundtable at the White House at 10am ET, and we’ll bring you the latest lines from that meeting. Notable, because this comes after the White House unveiled its “Great Healthcare Plan” this week – which experts the Guardian spoke to criticized as having “absolutely no detail”.
Trump will then travel to Palm Beach, Florida, where he’ll take part in a dedication ceremony for a stretch of road – that leads to his Mar-a-Lago estate – to be named in his honor.
Donald J Trump Boulevard, coming to a GPS near you …
After the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, calls are growing for accountability in the fatal shooting of Keith Porter Jr in Los Angeles.
Porter, a 43-year-old father of two, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on New Year’s Eve outside his apartment complex.
While a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said the off-duty immigration officer was “forced to defensively use his weapon” while responding to an “active shooter”, much about the incident remains unclear. There is no footage of the shooting and Porter’s family and local activists have argued that, contrary to the DHS’s portrayal of the events, Porter was not threatening anyone and was celebrating the new year.
The Guardian’s Sam Levin has more here:
More than 2,400 people have been arrested in the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota over the recent weeks – including some who had valid visas and a right to be in the US, according to local leaders who have been responding to constituents affected by the raids and lawyers representing immigrants.
Several refugees with legal status have also been arrested in recent days after the Trump administration said it would “re-examine thousands of refugee cases”, the Guardian has confirmed.
The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh and Rachel Leingang are in Minneapolis reporting on the families being ripped apart by these federal immigration operations. Read more here:
Here are some images coming in overnight on the wires from Minneapolis:
Minnesota leaders call for peace as Trump threatens Insurrection Act in response to ICE protests
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog.
Tensions remain high in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good by a federal agent. About 3,000 immigration officers are either continuing their operations in Minnesota or are en route to deploy in the state.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests, as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the widespread protests against the federal immigration operations.
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has urged demonstrators to “speak out loudly, urgently but also peacefully” and made a direct appeal to the president to “turn the temperature down”.
“Stop this campaign of retribution,” Walz said in a statement. “This is not who we are.”
On Wednesday night, a federal officer shot a man in the leg during an enforcement operation in north Minneapolis, which sparked more protests.
After the shooting, Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, beseeched his constituents to “not take the bait” and respond with violence. “We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” he said.
In other developments:
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A group of US parliamentarians is visiting Copenhagen today for talks with senior Danish and Greenlandic officials. The Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers announced on Wednesday that they were forming a working group with the US to discuss their “fundamental” disagreements over Greenland – but on Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, maintained that the purpose of this working group was “to continue to have technical talks on the acquisition of Greenland”. Our colleague Jakub Krupa has more on that over on the Europe live blog.
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In more immigration news, the death of a man who was being held at a federal detention camp in Texas in early January may be investigated as a homicide after the local medical examiner reportedly found the preliminary cause was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”.
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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met with Donald Trump at the White House and a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Afterward, she said that she had presented Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal.
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An appeals court dismissed Mahmoud Khalil’s lawsuit challenging his initial detention, and opened up the path for his rearrest. Khalil – a green card holder and Columbia graduate – was released from an immigration detention facility last year, after he was initially arrested for his role in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
