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White House special envoy Steve Witkoff has drawn criticism from foreign policy and national security experts for his unorthodox negotiating style with Russia – and now former Trump administration insiders are even calling out the real estate billionaire’s approach.

Witkoff, a longtime Donald Trump friend and golfing buddy, has reportedly met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at least four times while entirely unaccompanied by the usual set of advisers that traditionally accompany officials in such high-level talks. He has also stepped into negotiations in the Middle East involving the complex situation with Israel and Hamas, the Daily Beast reported.

President Donald Trump is "profoundly wary" of the Medicaid cuts being debated under House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Politico reported on Wednesday.

The cuts are part of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" combining tax cuts with border security and energy changes. GOP lawmakers have repeatedly denied they would cut Medicaid as part of the necessary $800 billion health cost savings they set in their budget framework, but left room for themselves to institute limits on the growth or federal cost sharing for the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion — which could still end in millions of people thrown off their coverage.

President Donald Trump "absolutely" complicated his administration's efforts to defy a Supreme Court order to "facilitate" the return of a Maryland father who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, a CNN legal analyst said Wednesday.

Elie Honig joined Anderson Cooper on Cooper's eponymous show and was asked whether Trump's comments in an exclusive ABC News interview "complicate[d] things for the administration."

House Republicans' "antisemitism" bill is a thinly-veiled effort to target left-wing organizations and criticism of Israel, global affairs journalist Emily Tamkin wrote in a column for MSNBC published on Wednesday evening — and a last-minute amendment they slipped in is a "blatant giveaway" of this fact.

"That bill — the Antisemitism Awareness Act — would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as the sole definition to be used by the Department of Education when investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination," wrote Tamkin. The problem is, "elevating it to the only definition under the law, some critics (admittedly including me) warn, would lead to it being used to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism."

El Salvador’s top anti-gang official has joined others who are skeptical over President Donald Trump’s claims that tattoos prove a Maryland father wrongly deported in March is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, according to media reports.

Salvadoran Minister of Justice and Security Gustavo Villatoro confirmed Wednesday in an interview with the Telegraph that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been moved to a low-security prison after the Trump White House failed to present any “evidence” linking him to the gang.

The Senate narrowly shot down a resolution to block President Donald Trump's global scheme of "reciprocal tariffs" on Wednesday evening, NBC News reported.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), one of the resolution's cosponsors, alongside Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), joined with Democrats on the measure, which needed a simple majority to pass. However, the bill came up short because two senators expected to support the resolution were absent.

CNN's Jake Tapper repeatedly questioned Rep. Brendan Gill (R-TX) on Wednesday why he and his partisan colleagues want to eliminate funding for NPR and PBS. He claimed these networks promote "far-left ideologies" — but failed to name a single example of this when pressed.

"Speaker Johnson has said he would additionally like to cut funding for public broadcasting, PBS, which does receive some support from the federal government," said Tapper. "I just — it's interesting, I just have to say, on a personal level, I learned to read by watching 'Sesame Street' and 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood' and 'The Electric Company.' That's literally how I learned to read as a kid. Why do you not think PBS is important?"

The United States and Ukraine unveiled a new reconstruction and investment fund that gives the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral reserves, formalizing a months-long economic agreement between the Trump White House and Ukraine, according to the New York Times.

The deal announced Wednesday ends tense negotiations over whether the United States will continue to back Ukraine with economic and military support as peace negotiations for the Russia-Ukraine conflict continue, the Times reported. It is aimed at satisfying President Donald Trump’s claims that the U.S. has handed Kyiv “a blank check,” according to the report, while providing the war-torn country with a security arrangement.

A Trump administration effort to inquire about the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia with officials in El Salvador was reportedly slapped down by the authoritarian government, according to a new report in The New York Times.

The Salvadoran government, led by President Nayib Bukele, said no in response to a diplomatic note sent by White House officials, the Times reported Wednesday. The Bukele administration reportedly claimed Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father whom U.S. officials have admitted was sent to the country in error, should remain there because he is a Salvadoran citizen, according to the publication.

One of President Donald Trump's Cabinet officials bought into a conspiracy theory that his agency helped enslave children.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told his colleagues that he had shut down the connection between the government and a child trafficking ring that doesn't exist, The Daily Beast reported Wednesday.

Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia is taking action following a viral video of a middle-schooler tormenting a 5-year-old preschooler with racial slurs, People Magazine reported on Wednesday.

“Let me be clear: hate speech and racial slurs have no place in our schools or in our community,” wrote LCPS Superintendent Aaron Spence in a letter to parents in the district. “Every child, every family, and every staff member deserves to feel safe, respected, and valued. In a wonderfully diverse county like Loudoun, it is not just our responsibility, it is our moral obligation, to honor the dignity and humanity of each individual.”

The Supreme Court’s supermajority appeared ready to hand the religious right a sweeping legal victory that could dramatically increase religion’s influence in American public schools.

That’s according to Vox’s Ian Millhiser, who flagged for readers Wednesday what real-world implications the case could carry.

Even conservative firebrand Ann Coulter is fed up with the shameless groveling at President Donald Trump’s Cabinet meetings.

The president on Wednesday opened his latest televised meeting with complaints about the judiciary blocking some of his administration's deportations, before calling on embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other agency heads, who took turns praising Trump's actions – almost “to the point of parody,” as The Daily Beast pointed out.