Hundreds of federalized National Guard members sent to Illinois and Oregon will return to their home states as soon as this week, a defense official told NBC News.
Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party is making plans to support a primary challenge to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman when he is up for re-election.
The state party announced today that they plan to start recruiting “working class leaders into a candidate pipeline” as well as volunteers and raise money for a challenge in 2028.
“We deserve real working class leadership in the U.S. Senate. Senator Fetterman has sold us out, and that’s why the Pennsylvania Working Families Party is committed to recruiting and supporting a primary challenge to him in 2028,” Shoshanna Israel, the Mid-Atlantic political director Working Families Party, said in a statement.
Israel also wrote that Pennsylvanians “deserve a Senator who won’t enable Trump or vote with Republicans to rip health care away from over 400,000 of our neighbors.”
NBC10 reached out to Senator Fetterman’s office for a comment and has not yet received a response.
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To hear Trump tell it, this was “one of the biggest approvals in the history of the United Nations,” a “moment of true historic proportion” that would “ lead to further peace all over the world.” But the gravity of the U.N. Security Council’s endorsement of the U.S. Gaza plan raised renewed questions today over how it will actually work.
Most pressingly, it is not clear whether those at the heart of this conflict — the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves — actually support its end goals.
Hamas, which still controls around half of the strip, outright rejected the resolution and said it robs Palestinians of their own agency, effectively allowing Trump free reign over the Gaza Strip for the next two years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed its passage, but previously said he rejects its talk of “Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”
On a practical level, the proposal says it will require the creation of several as-yet-non-existent bodies, including the “Board of Peace” headed by Trump, and the International Stabilization Force, or ISF, whose troops could be drawn from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and as far away as Indonesia.
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The House could vote today on a resolution by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., to disapprove of Rep. Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., over his ploy to handpick the successor for his congressional seat.
Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip, offered a motion to table Gluesenkamp Perez’s resolution, which would have effectively killed the effort. But the tabling motion was defeated 206-211, with Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, joining Gluesenkamp Perez in voting against it.
After the tabling vote, Gluesenkamp Perez debated Democrats who support Garcia.
“And the question at hand is, do we condone a subversion of an election because it is playing by the rules?” she said on the House floor. “That’s not what we’re here to do.”
Garcia rose to speak, saying he “wasn’t expecting to stand here to debate my retirement.” He said he “decided that it was time to dedicate more of my time to the people who have sacrificed the most,” listing his wife, children and grandchildren. He said he wanted to focus on helping his wife manage her multiple sclerosis, as well as take care of his grandson whom he and his wife adopted following the death of their daughter.
Gluesenkamp Perez responded: “I feel deeply for the sacrifice that it’s taken him to serve his community. That does not legitimize the way in which he left his seat and choosing his successor and refusing to be forthright with his constituents.”
Massie warned the Senate to not “muck” up the Epstein bill after it passes the House.
“It may be tempting for them to get cute and to do things that will limit the release of these documents,” Massie said. “They are afraid that people will be embarrassed. Well, that’s the whole point here. They need to be brought to justice, and embarrassment is no reason to stop it.”
Massie speaks at the Capitol today. Heather Diehl / Getty Images
Massie also criticized the nearly two-month delay in newly elected Rep. Adelita Grijalva’s swearing-in, which prevented him and other supporters of the bill from getting enough signatures to force the chamber to vote on it. He added that he thought in holding the vote on the bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., “wants to save face.”
Sky Roberts, the brother of Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre, delivered emotional remarks about his late sister, saying that she became “a beacon of hope” for other survivors of sexual assault and that tactics to silence his sister “did not work.”
“Virginia’s story is one that should have been filled with promise,” Roberts said. “But instead, it became a harrowing tale of exploitation and survival.”
Giuffre, who by suicide earlier this year, was one of the most prominent survivors of Epstein’s abuse. Since her death, her brother has become an advocate for his sister’s legacy.
“The most destructive wound they inflicted was that of forced complicity, a betrayal of self that was crafted by her abusers,” Roberts said, who paused at times during his remarks to hold back tears. “But I stand here today declare that their tactics of fear and intimidation did not work.”
“Virginia’s spirit could not be broken,” Roberts said. “She became a beacon of hope, a warrior, fighting not just for herself, but for every survivor who suffered in silence.”
Epstein survivor Jena-Lisa Jones strongly criticized Trump for directing the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s connections to prominent Democrats and others.
“I beg you, President Trump: Please stop making this political,” Jones said. “It is not about you, President Trump. You are our president. Please start acting like it. Show some class, show some real leadership, show that you actually care about the people other than yourself.”
Jones said she voted for Trump, but added “your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”
Jena-Lisa Jones holds up a photo of her younger self at the Capitol today. Heather Diehl / Getty Images
“It is time to take the honest, moral ground and support the release of these files, not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein’s friends were, who covered for him, what financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue, who knew what he was doing but was too much of a coward to do anything about it,” she said.
NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the criticisms over Trump’s initial refusal to support the effort to release the Justice Department’s case files and other actions related to the files.
Haley Robson, a survivor of Epstein, began her remarks by noting that while people see the survivors as adults, she emphasized they were fighting for themselves and other victims as the children who were left behind, showing a picture of herself as a child.
Robson thanked the lawmakers championing the effort, saying that to watch Republicans going against their party and risking their careers was “unbelievable to watch.”
Robson said that if Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who supported the vote to release the Justice Department’s Epstein case files, decided to read names of people connected to Epstein on the House floor, she would stand next to her.
Robson reacts during a news conference outside the Capitol today. Heather Diehl / Getty Images
Robson delivered a message to Trump, saying she was “skeptical” of his “agenda,” even though he flipped his stance on the House vote.
“I am traumatized, I am not stupid,” she said in her message to Trump. She said he had put them through “so much stress.”
NBC News has reached out to the White House for comment on the Epstein survivors’ criticisms of his previous opposition to releasing the files.
Reps. Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene each thanked Epstein survivors and lawmakers who supported efforts to release the Epstein files.
Greene, who had a public rift with Trump over the files, talked about being called a “traitor” by the president. She emphasized that a traitor is someone who serves foreign countries and themselves, but a patriot serves the country and people like “the women standing behind me.”
She predicted a unanimous vote in the House to release the files, but said “the real test will be will the Department of Justice release the files,” or would the files be “tied up” in investigations.
Trump says he has not ruled out putting American forces on the ground in Venezuela, but he’s also holding out the possibility he’d speak with the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, whom the administration accuses of running a cartel, an allegation Maduro denies.
The House is set to vote around 2 p.m. on the bill that would compel the Justice Department to release files related to the Epstein case.
The bill needs the support of two-thirds of the House members because the legislation is being considered under suspension of the rules, an expedited process typically used when a measure is expected to have enough votes to advance. Typically, a discharge petition like the one a majority of House members used to force the vote on the bill would require seven legislative days of waiting.
“Almost everybody” will vote for the legislation, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told NBC News last night, adding that leaders aren’t telling members how to vote.
If passed, the bill would head next to the Senate.
Jonathan Ocampo has called this Southern city home for six years, but, after immigration enforcement descended here over the weekend, the American citizen of Colombian descent said he doesn’t leave the house without his U.S. passport.
“I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad,” he told NBC News. Ocampo said he worries that his father, a citizen who has been in the country for 40 years, could be targeted because of being Hispanic-looking and speaking what he described as very broken English.
“It’s just scary,” he said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 130 people have been arrested since Border Patrol began an immigration enforcement push it calls “Operation Charlotte’s Web” on Saturday, putting many residents and business owners of the state’s largest city on edge. A popular Latino bakery was closed Monday over fears of Border Patrol activity. Several small businesses in a shopping center also shut their doors Monday after immigration authorities were seen smashing the car window of a Honduran-born U.S. citizen, Willy Aceituno, over the weekend.
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Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who spearheaded the Epstein discharge petition, suggested last evening that new Justice Department probes Trump directed to explore Epstein’s ties to other high-profile figures could block the release of more documents.
“I’m concerned that now he’s opening a flurry of investigations, and I believe they may be trying to use those investigations as a predicate for not releasing the files. That’s my concern,” Massie told reporters outside the Capitol.
“I’m afraid they’re going to try to use a provision of the law that allows you not to release these materials if they’re subject of an ongoing investigation and would harm, the release of which would harm the ongoing investigation,” he added.
Trump directed the Justice Department on Friday to investigate Epstein’s ties to notable Democrats.
Asked about Trump encouraging Republicans to vote for Massie’s measure — a sudden reversal of his position on releasing the Epstein files — Massie said it’s because “for four months, [Trump] thought the best thing for him was to keep the file secret, and somebody convinced him that the best thing for him was to release the files.”
“If they’re serious about it, they should release them right now. It’s that simple,” he said.
Trump encouraged House Republicans over the weekend to pass the measure, saying, “We have nothing to hide.”
As for how the vote today will go, Massie predicted his bill will pass with a veto-proof majority.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said today that he will travel to Turkey this week in an attempt to jump-start negotiations on ending Russia’s invasion, which began nearly four years ago.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff will join him in Turkey, a senior Turkish official told The Associated Press, but the Kremlin said that Russia won’t be sending anyone.
Turkey provided a setting for low-level talks between Ukraine and Russia earlier this year, though the only significant progress in Istanbul was on exchanging prisoners of war. U.S.-led international peace efforts have brought no breakthrough, either.
Zelenskyy said that he would be in Turkey tomorrow, a day after visiting Spain, where he hoped for pledges of new support today.
“We are preparing to reinvigorate negotiations, and we have developed solutions that we will propose to our partners,” Zelenskyy said on social media, without providing details. “Doing everything possible to bring the end of the war closer is Ukraine’s top priority.”
Heavy new American sanctions on Russia’s all-important oil industry, devised to push Putin to the negotiating table, are due to take effect Friday. The sanctions against oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil seek to starve Putin’s war machine of cash and halt its grinding war of attrition, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives in Ukraine.
Larry Summers, who was treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, said yesterday that he will be stepping back from public commitments following the recent publication of his correspondence with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement.
The House Oversight Committee last week released more than 20,000 emails from Epstein’s estate, which included extensive correspondence between the disgraced financier and Summers. The most recent one was from the day before Epstein was arrested in 2019.
“While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” Summers added in his statement.
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Hundreds of federalized National Guard members sent to Illinois and Oregon will return to their home states as early as this week, a defense official told NBC News yesterday.
The official said that 200 California National Guard members activated for the greater Portland area will head back home, leaving 100 members of the Oregon National Guard in place. In Illinois, 200 Texas National Guard members will depart the state, leaving 300 Illinois Guard members there.
The remaining guards will be conducting training, but are not on mission to protect federal property or personnel.
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Whether viewed as a visionary reformist or a murderous despot, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, will be taking a huge step toward rejoining the international community when he meets with Trump at the White House today.
Bin Salman, 40, became an international pariah after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a fierce critic of his government, in 2018, though Trump defended the Saudi government even after the CIA concluded that the crown prince himself ordered the killing.
Then-President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022 and controversially fist-bumped bin Salman, an image that went viral, at a time when most leaders had shunned the crown prince. Bin Salman said in 2019 that he took “full responsibility” for the Khashoggi killing since it happened on his watch, but denied ordering it.
But it is bin Salman’s trip today, his first during Trump’s second term, that will be seen more broadly as a move toward acceptance back into the diplomatic fold.
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The House is poised to vote overwhelmingly today for legislation to compel the Justice Department to release all its records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a major victory for the lawmakers in both parties who’ve been leading the push for months.
The measure, which last week secured enough bipartisan support to head straight to the House floor, got another boost over the weekend, when Trump reversed his position and urged Republicans to support it.
The bipartisan duo who co-authored the legislation — Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — are working to secure a veto-proof majority in the House, and they predict that as many as 100 Republicans could vote for it. The number could climb even higher now that Trump has given his blessing.
“Almost everybody” will vote for it, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told NBC News, adding that leaders aren’t telling members how to vote.
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