April 18, 2025 – Donald Trump presidency news

• Legal battles over wartime power: A federal judge in DC ruled tonight he did not have the power to pause deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, even though he was concerned about the administration’s actions. Separately, a group of Venezuelan migrants in Texas asked the Supreme Court to halt their removal under the sweeping wartime law.

• Case of mistakenly deported man: The White House said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, will “never” return to the United States. Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who spoke with him in El Salvador, slammed the Trump administration for the “illegal abduction” and said it must end.

• Ukraine war talks: The Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of its proposal to end the war in Ukraine, according to an official familiar with the framework.

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has moved here.

The Trump administration is appealing a judge’s order tonight that paused the termination of nearly 1,500 of the 1,700 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson put the terminations on hold so that she could scrutinize whether the layoffs violated a court order imposing certain limits on mass firings at the agency while litigation over President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle it continues.

A federal appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, placed a pause on plans by a judge in DC to move forward with contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for how it allegedly defied his orders in a high-stakes deportation dispute.

With the hold the court put on Judge James Boasberg’s plans, DC US Circuit Court of Appeals ordered briefs to be filed next week on whether the appeals court should allow the proceedings to go forward.

The ruling was 2-1. Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both appointed by President Donald Trump, voted for the administrative stay. Judge Nina Pillard, an Obama appointee, said she would not have granted the stay.

Boasberg canceled a hearing on the issue scheduled for Monday afternoon.

A federal judge in DC told lawyers for migrants in Texas who believed the Trump administration is about to swiftly deport them under the Alien Enemies Act that he did not have the power to pause the deportations, even though he was concerned about the administration’s actions.

During the hearing, a Justice Department attorney said that while no flights are planned, the Department of Homeland Security said it reserves the right to remove people tomorrow.

He said that, under a recent Supreme Court ruling, only the courts with jurisdiction over the Texas detention center where the migrants were being held had the power to intervene.

The Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of a proposal to help end to the war with Ukraine, according to an official familiar with the framework. The proposal would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the war, the source said.

The framework was shared with European and Ukrainian officials who met in Paris yesterday, the source said. It was also communicated in a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

There are still pieces of the framework to be filled out. The US plans to work with Europe and Ukraine on that next week in London, the source said.

The Trump administration is simultaneously planning another meeting between President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian officials to get Moscow on board with the overall US framework, the source said.

Remember: Russian forces seized control of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, and Moscow annexed the territory in a move considered illegal by a vast majority of the international community. The move presaged Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A lawyer for the Department of Justice is not aware of any deportation flights using the Alien Enemies Act tonight or tomorrow, he told a federal judge during an emergency hearing over Zoom tonight.

Judge James Boasberg is now giving Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign 30 minutes to touch base with the government to ensure that no flights will leave until Sunday.

How we got here: This hearing, which is currently in recess and is scheduled to resume at 7:20 p.m. ET, is due to an emergency appeal over President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, a sweeping 18th century wartime authority. This case centers specifically on the fate of Venezuelans currently held in Texas.

The American Civil Liberties Union alleges more men are being deported under Trump’s use of the act without due process.

More from the hearing: ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said detainees received notice of their removal less than 24 hours ago, with no option to challenge. Gelernt alleges they are now being moved on buses toward flights.

Ensign said last month’s Supreme Court ruling on the Alien Enemies Act said that the government must give notice of removal under the law, but that they do not need to provide a space to challenge. He says that anyone who says they want to challenge their removal are given a process to do so.

Gelernt said that the notice is only being given in English, which Ensign said is not true, according to his sources, although he has only seen the notice in English.

On his arrival back on US soil today, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen detailed his meeting yesterday with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador described being “traumatized” by his time at the country’s notorious CECOT prison and has since been moved.

The US lawmaker traveled to the Central American nation in a push for the man’s release. Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, and his case has been at the center of the fight over the Trump administration’s hardline deportation push.

During a news conference this afternoon, Van Hollen called for the end to what he called Abrego Garcia’s “illegal abduction” and argued that his case has broad significance for due process rights for all Americans.

Here’s what you should know:

More on Van Hollen’s meeting with Abrego Garcia:

Trump’s response to Van Hollen’s meeting:

Here’s other immigration news from today:

CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Lauren Fox, Aditi Sangal, Samantha Waldenberg, Kit Maher, Tori B. Powell, Natasha Bertrand, Haley Britzky, Jake Tapper and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this post.

A group of Venezuelan migrants in Texas asked the Supreme Court today to halt their removal under the Alien Enemies Act.

The emergency appeal is the second time President Donald Trump’s use of the sweeping 18th century wartime authority has landed at the high court.

Last week, the court permitted Trump to use the authority, but said migrants being removed under it needed to receive notice they are subject to the act and an opportunity to have their removal reviewed by the federal court where they are being detained.

In the appeal brought today, lawyers for the migrants say they are “at risk of imminent removal” under the law and that officials haven’t provided the migrants with the sufficient notice the Supreme Court said must be given.

The Supreme Court effort is separate from the emergency hearing being held by District Judge James Boasberg this evening, though both involve the Venezuelan migrants in Texas.

The emergency appeal comes a day after a federal judge in Texas denied a similar request for a temporary order blocking the deportations. US District Judge James Hendrix, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, wrote that the government had “answered unequivocally” that it did not intend to remove two identified (but unnamed) migrants and so they were not at immediate risk of removal.

But the attorneys for the men are seeking to certify a class that would include all individuals who are at risk of being deported under the Alien Enemies Act. The Venezuelan detainees who appear to be imminently subject to the authority are being held at the Bluebonnet detention facility in Anson, Texas.

Some background: The 1798 law has been invoked three times before — most recently as a justification for some internments during World War II.

This time, the administration says it targeting Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang, declaring that its members “have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”

In March, the Trump administration sent more than 200 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. CNN previously reported that the administration has been preparing to send more migrants to El Salvador’s notorious mega prison.

A federal judge has scheduled an emergency hearing for 6:15 p.m. ET on an alleged Trump administration effort to deport more Venezuelans, currently held in Texas, under wartime power.

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing after lawyers of Venezuelan migrants alleged that the administration was about to deport the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act, the law at the heart of several ongoing legal disputes about aggressive efforts to quickly deport migrants.

Judge James Boasberg, based in Washington, DC, will hold the hearing over Zoom at 6:15 p.m. ET.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen said upon his return to the US from meeting mistakenly deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia that he learned during his travel to El Salvador that “the Trump administration has promised to pay $15 million dollars to detain these prisoners, including the illegally abducted Kilmar.”

“My best information … to date, they’ve paid out more than $4 million of that $15 million,” the Maryland Democrat added.

Van Hollen continued that while he is aware of some sort of document between the White House and El Salvador’s government, he isn’t sure whether there is an official agreement that lists all the commitments.

In response to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s taunts that Sen. Chris Van Hollen and mistakenly deported Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia were sipping margaritas during their meeting yesterday, the Maryland Democrat said Salvadoran government officials had placed the glasses on the table and the two men did not take a sip.

“When I first sat down with Kilmar, we just had glasses of water on the table and I think maybe some coffee. And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice and I don’t know if it was salt or sugar around the top. But it looked like margaritas,” Van Hollen said.

Posting photos from Van Hollen and Abrego Garcia’s meeting, Bukele said in a post on X last night: “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture’, now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!”

The US will withdraw roughly half of its troops in Syria in the coming months as part of a “consolidation” of forces there, the Pentagon announced today.

The statement confirms CNN’s reporting on Wednesday that troop levels in Syria will be reduced to just under 1,000 in the coming months, down from the approximately 2,000 currently in the country.

The change will result in US troops being less spread out across Syria, following peace talks between the new Syrian government and the Kurdish, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, officials told CNN this week.

Parnell said the US will continue to help allies fight ISIS in Syria and the broader region.

“U.S. Central Command will remain poised to continue strikes against the remnants of ISIS in Syria,” Parnell said. “We will also work closely with capable and willing Coalition partners to maintain pressure on ISIS and respond to any other terrorist threats that arise.”

President Donald Trump has long been skeptical of the US troop presence in Syria and moved to withdraw all US forces from the country in 2019. They were later moved back into the country following pushback from the Pentagon.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was first detained in El Salvador’s maximum-security prison, CECOT, was moved to another detention center nine days ago, according to Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“He’s no longer at CECOT,” Van Hollen said. “He’s at a different prison which is pretty far outside of San Salvador.”

The Maryland senator said that Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, told him about this move during their meeting yesterday.

The “conditions are better” in this detention center that’s in Santa Ana, Van Hollen said, but “he still has no access to any news from the outside world.”

CNN’s Tori B. Powell contributed reporting.

Thinking of his family is what gave Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, the strength to keep going as litigation regarding his return to the US continues, according to Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“He said that thinking of you, members of his family, is what gave him the strength to persevere, to keep going day to day even under these awful circumstances,” Van Hollen said of his conversation with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador yesterday.

He went on to say that Abrego Garcia spoke “several times” about his five-year-old son who has autism and who was in the car when Garcia was pulled over by immigration agents.

Upon his detention, Abrego Garcia detailed to the Maryland senator being handcuffed and put on a plane with others where they were unable to see where they were going. The plane eventually landed in El Salvador and he was then taken to the CECOT mega-prison, Van Hollen said.

This post has been updated with additional comments from Van Hollen’s news conference.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Thursday, said the mistakenly deported man from Maryland described his deportation to El Salvador and being held at a maximum-security mega-prison there.

“He told me that he was taken to Baltimore first. I assume that was the Baltimore Detention Center. He asked to make a phone call from there to let people know what had happened to him but he was denied that opportunity,” Van Hollen said. “He said he was later taken with some others from Baltimore to a detention center in Texas and some point thereafter — I don’t know if it was hours or days — he was handcuffed, shackled and put on a plane along with others where they couldn’t see out of the windows.”

Van Hollen continued that when Abrego Garcia was taken to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT, he believes he had been placed in a cell with about 25 people.

The Maryland Democrat also described a phone call with Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, saying: “I told her what he said to me, which was first and foremost, that he missed her and his family. And as he said that, you could see a tear come down.”

Van Hollen said he did not get the sense that Abrego Garcia had been abused.

“You never know, but I asked him if he was OK. And he said he has a like a blood pressure condition, he has seen a doctor,” the senator added, noting that this conversation happened with a lot of cameras around.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen argued that the case of the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador has broad significance for due process rights for all Americans.

“This case is not just about one man, it’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America,” Van Hollen said today after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. “If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.”

He went on to accuse the Trump administration of lying about what Garcia’s case is truly about.

“They want to change the subject,” he said. “They want to make it about something else.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who returned to the United States Friday after meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said the “illegal abduction” of the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to the Central American nation must end.

The Trump administration has admitted that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported there and sent to El Salvador’s mega-prison, CECOT. However, the White House and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have said that Abrego Garcia will not be returned to the United States.

Ford has stopped shipping vehicles to China in the face of 125% tariffs that China has placed on US goods.

“We have adjusted exports from the US to China in light of the current tariffs,” a Ford spokesperson told CNN. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The automaker shipped about 5,500 vehicles from its US plants to China last year, which is down from an average of 20,000 a year during the previous decade.

US exports make up only a fraction of the 400,000 cars and trucks Ford sells in China. Most of those vehicles are built in the Chinese factories it operates with joint venture partners.

American automakers have been losing market share in China, the world’s largest car market, in recent years as Chinese automakers become more competitive and Chinese buyer shift toward purchasing electric vehicles.

Ford confirmed it continues to ship the Lincoln Nautilus SUV from China to the United States despite stacked tariffs of 145% on Chinese goods and 25% on autos. That is the only vehicle the company imports from China.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will not recommend invoking the Insurrection Act in a memo that the Pentagon and DHS are preparing to send to President Donald Trump about the conditions at the southern border, multiple US officials familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The Insurrection Act is a 19^th century law that would allow the president to use active-duty troops within the United States to perform law enforcement functions such as arresting migrants. Trump issued an executive order in January declaring an emergency at the southern border that ordered Hegseth and Noem to send him a report within 90 days about the conditions there, and whether to invoke the Insurrection Act to help obtain “complete operational control” of the border.

The deadline for Hegseth and Noem’s recommendation is Sunday, but the Pentagon and DHS are expected to send the memo with their findings to the White House next week, officials said.

Hegseth and Noem are expected to tell Trump that border crossings are currently low and that they don’t need additional authorities at this point to help control the flow of migrants, officials said. Migrant crossings at the US southern border have been under 300 a day, according to a Homeland Security official — a dramatic drop from recent years when unlawful crossings were well over 1,000 or more a day.

President Donald Trump says his administration is making it easier to fire career government employees who “refuse” to advance his policy interests, reviving a controversial rule from his first administration that would strip civil service protections from thousands of federal workers.

Some background: An executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office revived an order he signed shortly before the 2020 election, which had created a category for federal employees involved in policy — known as Schedule F — making those workers easier to fire.

President Joe Biden had quickly reversed that order and then last year finalized a new rule that further bolstered protections for career federal workers.

Trump’s 2020 order left many federal employees fearing for their jobs. It would have given him and his agency appointees more leeway in the hiring and firing of federal staffers deemed disloyal, a move that critics say politicizes civil service and could lead to career officials being pushed out for political reasons and replaced with those committed to the president.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made a gradual shift from his history of strongly supporting Ukraine leading up to the comments he made on Friday that the United States would “move on” if diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine fail.

The former senator once championed a Ukraine aid bill a decade ago to send a “very strong message to Russia and to the world that the United States of America and her people are firmly on the side of Ukraine’s sovereignty and Ukraine’s desire for independence from Russia.”

In the years to follow, Rubio would heavily criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin, including calling him a “gangster” and “an organized crime figure” in 2015.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the secretary of state has openly supported providing Ukraine with necessary resources to defend themselves in the war. He told MSNBC in 2022 that “no matter what, there always has to be a real, legitimate Ukrainian state that we have a relationship with. And I don’t know why we can’t begin to openly say we will support them as long as they are willing to fight, even if it’s an insurgency.”

President Donald Trump’s election victory in 2024 kickstarted a shift in Rubio’s rhetoric around the issue. He defended Trump’s promise to end the war in 24 hours and praised Ukraine’s bravery, telling “The Today Show” in November, “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong in standing up to Russia, but at the end of the day, what we are funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion.”

Rubio’s comments on Friday that the US could end its efforts on ending the Ukrainian conflict emphasize the shift he has taken on the Ukrainian conflict amid mounting frustration within the Trump administration at the lack of progress.

President Donald Trump called Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen “fake” after he traveled to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to the country.

US officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization — a claim his attorneys dispute and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward.

Earlier, the president referred to Van Hollen as a “GRANDSTANDER!!!” in a post on Truth Social.

Van Hollen posted a picture after meeting with Abrego Garcia, which immediately sparked outrage from some on the right.

The Trump administration was quick to compare Van Hollen’s image with one of Trump meeting with Patty Morin, whose daughter was murdered by an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant in 2023, in the Oval Office earlier this week.

CNN’s Kit Maher contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump reiterated Friday that he does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon ahead of a second round of high-stakes talks between the US and Iran this weekend.

“I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific,” Trump told reporters when asked if he would be open to letting Iran maintain a nuclear program.

He added, “With Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon, and if they have a nuclear weapon, you’ll be very unhappy. You’ll be very unhappy.”

Officials in the Trump administration have waffled on setting stricter lines on Iran, with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calling on Tehran to fully dismantle its entire nuclear program, not just the weapons component. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who represented the US last weekend in indirect negotiations with Iran, has said any final deal would require Iran to “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

Trump, who recently warned that the US will resort to Israeli-assisted military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites should Tehran fail to reach a deal with its interlocutors, in 2018 withdrew the US from the Iran deal that was negotiated by the Obama administration.

Witkoff is expected to hold talks with Iran, which will be mediated by Omani officials, on Saturday in Rome.

Gary Shapley will no longer be acting commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service, and deputy US treasury secretary Michael Faulkender will take on the role, according to a White House official and a source briefed on the matter.

The New York Times first reported Shapley’s ouster.

CNN has requested comment from the IRS and its parent agency, the Treasury Department.

Key context: The move ends a whiplash week at the IRS. Trump signed the paperwork appointing Shapley — the former IRS criminal investigator known for alleging the Justice Department slow-walked the investigation of Hunter Biden — on Tuesday, triggering panic among some career civil servants.

The outgoing acting commissioner, Melanie Krause, announced Shapley’s elevation in an agency-wide email on Wednesday, according to three sources.

“I have made the decision to step down as acting commissioner and today is my last day in the office before I transition into a leave status,” Krause wrote at the time. “I also have the privilege of sharing that President Trump has appointed Gary Shapley as the next acting commissioner.”

Two days later, Shapley is on his way out.

President Donald Trump seemed to downplay Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s warning that US patience for negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine is running out, declining to put a specific timeline on potentially ending the talks.

Earlier Friday, Rubio told reporters after meetings with European and Ukrainian officials in Paris that if it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, the United States needs to abandon its efforts and “move on.”

Trump offered a less hardline approach, saying that Rubio is “right” but projecting more optimism about the prospects of a deal.

He continued: “If, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re foolish. You’re horrible people,’ and we’re just going to take a pass — but hopefully we won’t have to do that.”

The president declined to say whether he is prepared to walk away completely from the talks or whether he would support Ukraine militarily if talks fall through.

Asked what progress he would need to see to continue negotiations, Trump said he would “have to see an enthusiasm to want to end it” from both sides, predicting he would know “soon.”

Watch analysis from CNN’s Matthew Chance on Rubio’s comments:

President Donald Trump quipped about Harvard University on Friday during a swearing-in ceremony for Mehmet Oz, an alum of the school and Trump’s pick to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Dr. Oz comes to this position as one of the nation’s most talented and beloved medical professionals. He graduated from Harvard University,” Trump said, pausing. “Ah, Harvard. Wow. How convenient, should we talk about Harvard?”

Others in the room seemed to acknowledge the irony, laughing.

Just the day before, Trump called Harvard “a joke” and said it should no longer receive federal funding.

Harvard has rejected the Trump administration’s demands for policy changes that the White House says are geared at combatting antisemitism. In response, the administration has frozen more than $2.2 billion in federal funding for the university, while the IRS makes plans to rescind its tax-exempt status.

A federal judge said today he would not “micromanage” the White House’s handling of its newly reworked press corps rotation, after the Associated Press complained that officials were violating his ruling striking down a ban President Donald Trump instituted against the news outlet earlier this year.

“I don’t intend to micromanage the White House,” US District Judge Trevor McFadden said during a hearing this morning, siding with arguments pushed by a lawyer for the White House that he should stay out of the dispute.

Though the judge acknowledged that under the newly reworked press corps rotation, the AP had not been picked frequently this week for a spot in the system, he said he was inclined to believe the White House’s new system was created “in good faith” and that it appeared to comply with his ruling from last week.

“Statistics are going to be pretty telling,” he said. “I agree that we are not yet at the point” that the White House’s decisions this week with respect to the AP are a clear violation of his ruling.

The White House said on social media today that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not and will “never” return to the United States.

The official X account for the White House posted an edited screenshot of a New York Times article about Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s meeting yesterday with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, striking through the original headline to make it read: “Senator Meets With Deported MS-13 Illegal Alien in El Salvador Who’s Never Coming Back.”

Remember: While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador and the Trump administration admitted in court documents he was deported there due to a clerical error.

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return from CECOT, and the Supreme Court largely endorsed that order.

In recent days, however, Trump administration officials have denied that he was mistakenly deported and alleged he is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys dispute that claim, and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward it.

The Trump administration has released about 10,000 pages of records on the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

The release of the records is part of President Donald Trump’s push to allow the public to inspect long-secret records pertaining to a series of high-profile assassinations in the 1960s — including former President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Trump signed an executive order directing the release of files dealing with those assassinations soon after he took office. Thousands of pages related to the JFK assassination were released in March.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement that, unlike the JFK assassination files, records dealing with RFK and MLK were not digitized. Gabbard said she directed a task force to help with their digitization.

It is not immediately clear what new information has emerged from the disclosure.

The assassination: RFK, a US senator from New York and former attorney general, was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 when he was shot at a Los Angeles hotel on June 5, shortly after delivering a speech that marked his victory in the California and South Dakota primaries. He was 42.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the current Health and Human Services secretary who was 14 when his father was assassinated, said in a statement today that “lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government.”

A federal judge paused the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off nearly 1,500 of the 1,700 employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as she considers whether the mass firing violated an existing court halting the dismantling of the agency.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson will scrutinize the layoffs with an evidentiary hearing on April 28, during which there would be witness testimony, she said at an emergency hearing called this morning after the layoffs were announced yesterday. She is ordering the administration to turn over documents to the unions and other groups that have sued the administration over its efforts to take apart the agency.

The mass layoff “is not going to happen in the meantime,” Jackson said in court.

The CFPB’s new leadership has been reviewing the agency’s activities and staffing since February, Mark Paoletta, the agency’s chief legal officer, said in a declaration Friday. Previously, the CFPB’s activities have “pushed well beyond the limits of the law” and the agency has “engaged in intrusive and wasteful fishing expeditions,” he said.

During today’s proceedings, Berman Jackson zeroed in on the command by an appeals court in a recent order that any terminations the agency conducted must come after a “particularized” assessment that such layoffs would not interfere with the agency’s ability to meet its statutory functions.

A member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency kept Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffers working for 36 hours straight to send out mass layoff notices at the agency, screaming at those he thought weren’t working fast enough, according to a declaration filed Friday in a legal case over the terminations.

The CFPB started sending RIF notices to about 1,500 of the 1,700 agency staffers yesterday.

US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson is holding an emergency hearing today to examine the layoffs. The hearing is ongoing.

Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters that he wants to look into “new legal analysis” before determining whether President Donald Trump can or should remove Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell — a break from Hassett’s previous comments stressing the Federal Reserve’s independence.

In his 2021 book, Hassett wrote that Trump’s 2018 threat to fire Powell “would have savaged the reputation of the Federal Reserve Board as an objective and independent manager of the nation’s money supply.” He warned that “the credibility of the dollar would have been compromised” and “the stock market might have crashed.”

Trump suggested yesterday that he had the power to remove Powell, saying, “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast.” Hassett, now director of the National Economic Council, declined to stand by that assessment. But he also said his opinion differed from his assertions in the 2021 book.

Pressed on whether firing Powell was an option, Hassett said: “The president and his team will continue to study that matter.”

A source familiar with negotiations for a Ukraine peace deal told CNN that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was “communicating the president’s views” with his comments that the US will “move on” if it’s not possible to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Characterizing the administration’s thinking on where things stand in the conflict, the source said that President Donald Trump “doesn’t have limitless patience for people to posture and play games.”

Rubio was communicating the “frustration” of the president about progress toward peacemaking not being “where he thought it would be at this point.”

The source pointed to Trump foreign envoy Steve Witkoff’s three meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as numerous meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss an end to the over three-year conflict.

Waning GOP support: Republican willingness to see the US play a role in backing Ukraine continues to erode, according to recent polling on the conflict.

A Pew Research survey, conducted in late March and released yesterday, finds Democratic-aligned adults are now 44 points likelier (67%) than Republican-aligned adults (23%) to say the US has a responsibility to Ukraine. That’s up from a 29-point gap in a poll taken just after the 2024 election, with the movement coming almost entirely among Republicans.

The poll also finds that GOP enmity toward Russia has softened somewhat over the past year, with 40% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents now calling the country an enemy of the US, down from 58% in spring 2024.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy contributed to this report.

Nintendo will launch its new Switch 2 console in the United States for $450 — the same price it announced during the console’s April 2 unveiling — and will open preorders on April 24.

The announcement comes after Nintendo postponed US preorders, initially planned for April 9, to assess the impact of tariffs, and amidspeculation the gaming giant could raise US prices because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports.

While pricing for the console won’t change, Nintendo said accessories “will experience price adjustments from those announced on April 2 due to changes in market conditions.” The company also noted the price of “any Nintendo product” could change “in the future depending on market conditions.”

“We apologize for the retail pre-order delay, and hope this reduces some of the uncertainty our customers may be experiencing,” Nintendo said todayin a news release. The console launches on June 5.

Unlike smartphones and computers, video game consoles, and some peripheral devices, don’t fall under any tariff exception for electronics.

The big picture: The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s biggest product launch in years. The first Switch became the world’s third-best gaming console. Its sequel will likely dictate the next decade for one of the world’s most recognizable and iconic entertainment companies.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused US envoy Steve Witkoff of “disseminating Russian narratives,” after the American diplomat made controversial comments about occupied parts of Ukraine.

Speaking during a news conference Thursday, Zelensky accused Witkoff of taking the “strategy of the Russian side.”

“I think it is very dangerous because he is consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know, disseminating Russian narratives. In any case, it does not help,” he said.

Witkoff touted his recent talks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — his third meeting with the Russian leader — in an interview with Fox News on Monday, describing the meeting as “compelling.”

Witkoff told Fox News that any peace deal in Ukraine will center on the “so-called five territories,” referring to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, and the four mainland Ukrainian regions Russia has occupied since its full-scale invasion in 2022 – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Some background: These four regions were illegally annexed during Russia’s full-scale invasion and Kyiv vehemently opposes giving them up. The Kremlin has since staged referendums on joining Russia in those regions, which were widely dismissed as a sham by the international community.

CNN has previously reported that voting in the regions had been carried out at gunpoint, with one resident saying the results were a foregone conclusion.

Witkoff’s comments on Monday prompted accusations that he was trying to parrot Moscow’s line. Oleksandr Merezhko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, told CNN Tuesday that Witkoff “with all due respect… may be inadvertently trying to push pro-Russian narratives.”

Remember: It’s not the first time Witkoff has been accused of echoing Kremlin talking points. Last month, in a long interview with podcast host Tucker Carlson, Witkoff praised a “gracious” Putin and dismissed longstanding concerns across Europe that Putin would seek to invade further territory if given the opportunity. He also claimed that referendums in the four mainland regions of Ukraine annexed by Russia showed the “overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.”

President Donald Trump didn’t mince words, attacking Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen after his trip to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s mega-prison.

“Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Van Hollen posted a picture after meeting with Abrego Garcia, which immediately sparked outrage from some on the right.

“I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance,” Van Hollen said in a post on X. “I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.”

The Trump administration was quick to compare Van Hollen’s image with one of Trump meeting with the Patty Morin, whose daughter was murdered by an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant in 2023, in the Oval Office earlier this week.

“We are not the same,” the White House account posted on X.

Senior Israeli officials are expected to meet in Paris with Steve Witkoff, the US envoy to the Middle East, ahead of the second round of Iran talks scheduled for tomorrow, an Israeli official told CNN.

Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidant — and Mossad Director David Barnea will meet Witkoff today, the official said.

Yesterday, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement defending the aggressive policy he has pushed toward Iran.

“As the Prime Minister has made clear more than once: Israel will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons,” according to his office. The statement was issued after a New York Times report said the Trump administration had blocked Israel from preparing a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program as soon as next month.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not deny the veracity of the article, instead asserting that Israel’s actions have delayed Iran’s nuclear program.

Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly reported where the meeting will be held. It is taking place in Paris.

Today is a gauntlet for President Donald Trump’s executive decisions in court, as multiple judges now are concerned that the Trump administration may be openly disobeying court orders and flouting fundamental rights.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the DC District Court holds a hearing at 11 a.m. ET over the firing of more than 1,000 workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week, that may disregard court rulings that the administration shouldn’t make cuts that would interfere with the agency’s work at this time.

And Judge Trevor McFadden, also in Washington, DC, hears arguments over whether the White House’s changes to its press corps are in violation of the Associated Press’ First Amendment rights, which the judge has said must be preserved.

Those two hearings are only the latest where judges look closely at accusations the administration is ignoring court orders, especially ones from trial-level district judges.

The accusations of Trump officials intentionally disobeying the courts has simmered all week in dual cases about the Trump administration deporting immigrants to be kept in a prison for terrorists in El Salvador.

Just after midnight Friday, the administration asked a federal circuit court to stop criminal contempt proceedings that have been launched by Judge James Boasberg in Washington. Those proceedings regard the administration sending planes of migrants to El Salvador despite Boasberg telling lawyers for the administration to turn the planes around because the deportations may not have been legal.

All of this comes less than 24 hours after one of the country’s longest-serving and well-respected conservative judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, a Reagan appointee, penned a seven-page order warning the Trump administration that it may be crumbling American democracy.

That, too, was in an immigration case where the administration has done little to facilitate the return of one migrant mistakenly sent to the Salvadoran prison.

US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson scheduled an emergency hearing for 11 a.m. ET Friday to examine the mass layoffs that began Thursday at the embattled Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

She is requiring that an official with personal knowledge of the scope of the mass terminations and how they’re being implemented be present at the hearing. She also demanded the Trump administration file certain internal documents related to the layoffs at 10 a.m. ET ahead of the hearing.

The Trump administration on Thursday started sending reduction in force, or RIF, notices to the majority of CFPB’s staff. About 1,500 of the agency’s 1,700 workers are being let go, according to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents staffers at the agency and led the lawsuit against the administration’s efforts to dismantle the CFPB.

The CFPB was an early target of the Trump administration’s downsizing efforts, but its undoing was largely blocked in federal court. However, a federal appeals court last Friday said that the administration could further shrink the agency but not shutter it completely. The order made clear that the administration cannot trim the bureau down so much that it cannot carry out its statutory functions.

The unions and other groups that initially sued are arguing that it is “unfathomable that cutting the Bureau’s staff by 90 percent in just 24 hours” wouldn’t interfere with its obligations to carry out the mandates set by Congress.

The NTEU noted in a statement Thursday that the appeals court required the agency to “make a ‘particularized assessment’ with respect to employees if it was going to carry out a reduction in force.” The union questioned whether that could have been done in less than four business days.

Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration feels “optimistic” they will ultimately be able to successfully negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.

This comes just hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the Trump administration may “move on” from trying to end the conflict if their efforts prove futile over the next few days.

More on Rubio’s remarks: Asked to clarify what Rubio meant that the US would “move on,” a US official told CNN that the secretary of state was talking about the US moving on from negotiations and that the next few days will be important to figure out where things go from here.

A framework has been presented to both sides, Rubio and the State Department have said, which Rubio on Friday called a “broad framework” to determine whether the differences can be narrowed in this short timeframe. Rubio said it would be taken by the Ukrainians back to President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss, and it was raised between Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on a call on Thursday.

If there’s no movement, the US official said, the administration will have to make significant policy decisions. Trump has threatened secondary sanctions and tariffs on Russia. But he has also said the US won’t continue to fund Ukraine indefinitely and that Europe needs to step up, the official noted.

So, in the coming days the administration wants to see if there can be an agreement on the framework or those bigger policy decisions are going to have to be made, the official said.

CNN’s Alex Marquardt contributed reporting to this post.

This post has been updated with additional information.

Vice President JD Vance arrived in Rome on Friday and was welcomed by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom he and President Donald Trump met with just a day prior at the White House.

“I’ve been missing you,” Meloni said with a laugh.

“Hello, it’s been a long time,” Vance said, warmly greeting Meloni.

During Trump’s meeting with Meloni at the White House yesterday, he expressed confidence that the US would reach a trade deal with the EU before the end of his 90-day pause on tariffs.

More on VP’s visit: Vance will participate in bilateral meetings with Meloni and Italian officials at the Palazzo Chigi in the afternoon.

Vance will also meet privately with US embassy staff and their families, along with US Marines who are stationed nearby.

Later, Vance will attend Good Friday Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Second Lady Usha Vance and their children are also on the trip.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that if it is not possible to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US needs to abandon its efforts.

Rubio and envoy Steve Witkoff met with European and Ukrainian officials in Paris yesterday as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes for an end to the war.

A US-authored outline of a peace plan had received an “encouraging reception” at the talks, according to the State Department. Rubio also spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and conveyed the same outline, the department said.

Rubio said he and Witkoff had come to Paris to “begin to talk about more specific outlines of what it might take to end the war” and whether or not the war could be ended.

Trump said Thursday the US would hear from Russia this week about the US proposal for a ceasefire.

Also on Thursday, Ukraine signed a memo with the US as a step toward a minerals deal. It is unclear whether it includes one of Ukraine’s priorities: security guarantees in the face of Russia’s war. Trump said the US and Ukraine could sign the deal next week.

The new US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, placed a note from President Donald Trump in the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday morning in what he called his “first act” in his new role.

The former governor of Arkansas, who was confirmed in the post last week, showed the small note to the media and the crowd gathered for the visit. Written on a tiny piece of paper, the note said, “For peace in Israel – DT.”

Huckabee said Trump gave him the note to place in the wall last Thursday.

Some background: Jewish worshippers and other visitors often place prayers and notes on tiny slips of paper in the cracks of the wall, the holiest site at which Jews can pray.

Huckabee was wearing a Jewish prayer yarmulke on his head and a yellow ribbon pin, which shows support for the hostages still held in Gaza.

A staunch supporter of Israel who has previously said there’s “no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee said Trump was “praying for the peace of Jerusalem.” He made no mention of Gaza or the Palestinians.

US airstrikes on an oil port in western Yemen have killed at least 58 people, Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported Friday, in one of the deadliest days since the United States escalated its aerial military campaign against the Iranian-backed group in recent weeks.

US Central Command said Thursday the strikes on Ras Isa fuel port in Hodeidah province were aimed at cutting off revenue to the Houthis, adding the port has been used as a source of illicit profits to the group.

Al-Masirah reported that all those killed were workers at the port and that the strikes also injured 126 people, citing the Houthi-run health ministry’s regional office.

Since mid-March, US airstrikes have pounded Houthi targets in Yemen, hitting oil refineries, airports and missile sites, with President Donald Trump vowing to use “overwhelming force” until the US achieves its goal of stopping the Houthis from targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

Houthis have launched numerous missiles against Israel and disrupted shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s war in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongfully deported to El Salvador, and said he would provide a full update on his visit upon his return to the US today.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said Abrego Garcia is back in custody after the meeting.

Van Hollen said he was previously denied entry to El Salvador’s mega-prison when he tried to check on Abrego Garcia’s well-being.

Here’s the latest on Trump’s immigration crackdown: