Trump News

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin turned his first House budget hearing into a shouting match Wednesday, repeatedly interrupting a Democratic congressman grilling him over his use of what the lawmaker called an $80 million luxury jet — forcing the Republican chairman to threaten to shut the whole thing down.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) came loaded for bear, confronting Mullin over flight logs showing the secretary regularly uses a Gulfstream G700 — one of two luxury jets purchased by his predecessor, Kristi Noem, for up to $200 million during a government shutdown — to make near-weekly trips home to Oklahoma.

The Trump administration is deploying aggressive legal tactics to prevent its top customs official from appearing in court under oath to explain why $166 billion in illegally collected tariffs remain undispersed to businesses owed refunds.

According to the New York Times, the administration is actively resisting a court order mandating full refunds, creating the possibility that only some importers will receive complete repayment. In contrast, others face partial reimbursement or delays.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) put Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the hot seat Wednesday over President Donald Trump's unprecedented stock trading, demanding to know whether the White House should face the same scrutiny Bessent himself once said Congress deserved.

The exchange, at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Trump's FY2027 budget, turned combative fast.

A tense exchange at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday turned into a dramatic public confrontation over President Donald Trump's health, as Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) played three videos he said showed Trump sleeping at official events — then accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of lying to Congress when Rubio denied ever witnessing it.

Rubio was testifying on the FY2027 State Department budget request when Lieu announced he would show footage from the December 2, 2025, Cabinet meeting — a session where Trump appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open during extended stretches while Cabinet officials gave updates, including Rubio himself.

A seemingly innocuous remark from President Donald Trump raised alarm bells for renowned international security expert Robert Pape on Wednesday, who went on to warn that the president’s comments were a likely precursor to an imminent military escalation in the Middle East.

In a video interview with the New York Post published on Wednesday, Trump was asked whether he believed the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would persist into September.

A House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the State Department's FY 2027 budget turned into a shouting match Wednesday when Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA) unloaded on Secretary of State Marco Rubio over a string of Trump administration national security appointments — and refused to let Rubio laugh it off.

Keating opened by putting Rubio on the spot, asking whether — in all his years vice-chairing the Senate Intelligence Committee — he had ever heard of Bill Pulte, President Donald Trump's newly named acting director of national intelligence.

President Trump's decision to nominate Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence caught many of his closest advisors off guard and dealt a significant blow to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with whom the Federal Housing Finance Agency head has engaged in an ongoing power struggle.

According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Pulte, who leads the agency overseeing the country's mortgage market, personally approached Trump with an audacious proposal: ascending to the position of director of national intelligence following Tulsi Gabbard's departure.

The nomination appears rooted not in foreign policy expertise—Pulte has none—but in what Trump prizes most: unwavering loyalty, the Journal is reporting before adding that, in pitching himself to the president, Pulte promised to become an "unyielding advocate" for Trump's foreign policy agenda and signaled support for the administration's Iran war, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

The move represents a major victory for Pulte in his internal administration battles. The Federal Housing Finance Agency director has become a deeply polarizing figure, clashing repeatedly with Trump advisers who have grown frustrated with his aggressive approach and willingness to bypass the chain of command to access the president directly.

Trump has reportedly resisted efforts by administration officials to remove Pulte, telling confidants he values the FHFA chief's loyalty above all else.

Trump "first raised the idea of appointing Pulte as intelligence director to aides over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter," the Journal is reporting before adding that the fact that president actually pulled the trigger on Pulte's nomination, "caught them by surprise."

As for Bessent, one of the president's closest allies in the Cabinet, he was reportedly kept out of the loop, the Journal is reporting.