MSN

MSNBC host Alex Witt questioned a GOP congressman about whether it's true he's gone into "legislative witness protection" to dodge constituents amid the government shutdown.

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) lashed out after being asked about comments from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Friday morning.

President Donald Trump called into a private meeting of Indiana state senate Republicans to pressure them personally to enact an all-Republican Congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, the New York Times reported.

Indiana's Republicans have publicly resisted Trump's extraordinary demands for a mid-decade realignment of the nation's Congressional maps to assure his party retains House control in 2026. State legislators in Texas and Missouri complied with Trump with little or no resistance.

"Mr. Trump was expected to ask the state lawmakers to support a new map that would eliminate the state’s two Democratic districts and give Republicans all nine congressional seats," the Times reported, citing anonymous sources.

Vice President JD Vance has emerged as one of the only high-ranking Republican officials refusing to condemn the Young Republicans scandal, in which several Republican operatives were discovered making racist and even pro-Nazi proclamations in group chats. While the scandal has led to condemnation even from some MAGA figures and the disbandment of some state GOP groups, Vance has proclaimed these were just "kids" telling edgy jokes — even though these operatives are between 18 and 40 years old — and that the real disgrace was the journalists who reported on the leaked messages.

There might be a reason why Vance is so desperate to stake out this position, wrote Ed Kilgore for New York Magazine's The Intelligencer: to make up for all the years he was outside the fold of the Trump movement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared at the White House on Friday as part of the ongoing conversations with President Donald Trump over ending Russia's years-long invasion.

And at the end of the question-and-answer session with the press, Trump was asked about Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro offering all of the country's minerals to work with the United States.

Protesters have been gathering outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Illinois for the past few weeks in objection to the federal takeover of the city and the ongoing raids. On Friday, those protesters were moved, leading to a conflict with police.

A federal judge ordered that the large fence erected by the Department of Homeland Security around the Broadview processing facility must be removed. The Village of Broadview took DHS to court, demanding that the fence be removed, WGN reported. The judge agreed it "created a public safety concern" and that it was erected without the proper permits.