Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed a bill ending the 75-day partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker will take a break from public events after undergoing a “routine out-patient urology procedure,” on Friday, according to his office.
Pritzker is running for a third term as governor and is among the Democrats mulling a 2028 presidential bid.
“Earlier today, Governor Pritzker completed a routine out-patient urology procedure. Next week, the Governor will fulfill his duties and pause public events while resting,” Matt Hill, deputy chief of staff of communications for Pritzker said in a statement. “The Governor is grateful for well-wishes and looks forward to resuming public events soon.”
After Trump announced that he was planning to put a higher 25% tariff on truck and car imports from the European Union, Bernd Lange, the chairman of the EU Parliament’s trade committee tells NBC News. “President Trump’s behaviour is unacceptable.”
“This latest move demonstrates just how unreliable the U.S. side is,” Lange said.
Referring to another one of Trump’s tariff threats earlier this year, he added: “We have already witnessed these arbitrary attacks from the U.S. in the case of Greenland; this is no way to treat close partners.”
Trump said he’s “not satisfied” with Iran, saying that it wants to make a deal with the U.S. over ending the war, but its leadership is “very disjointed.”
“They have no leaders, because, frankly, their leaders are very disjointed. They have a lot of problems right now … their leaders are not getting along with each other,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before leaving for Florida.
He added, “They have no idea who their leaders are, but they’re very confused, and that’s because of the success we’ve had militarily. They essentially have no military.”
Asked what military options were presented to him at the White House yesterday on resolving the war with Iran, Trump said, “I mean, do we want to go and just blast the hell out of ’em and finish them forever, or do we want to try and make a deal? Those are the options.” He said he’d prefer not to “blast them away.”
Trump told reporters outside the White House that the Trump administration will raise tariffs on cars imported from the European Union because he said it hasn’t adhered to a trade deal.
“We raised the tariffs on cars coming in from the European Union because the European Union was not adhering to the trade deal we have,” Trump said.
Trump said some European companies, however, are building plants in the U.S. and said when they open, “there won’t be any tariffs.”
“But we raised the tariffs because they were not, as usual, they were not adhering to the agreement that we have,” he continued. “We have a trade deal with the European Union. They were not adhering to it. So I raised the tariffs on cars and trucks to 25% — that’s billions of dollars coming into the United States, and it forces them to move their factory production much faster.”
In a post on TruthSocial, the president threatened to impose a 25% tariff on cars and trucks on the European Union next week.
“I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” Trump wrote. “The Tariff will be increased to 25%. It is fully understood and agreed that, if they produce Cars and Trucks in U.S.A. Plants, there will be NO TARIFF.”
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, will introduce legislation to change House rules to ban members from using prediction markets after the Senate passed a similar resolution Thursday that applied only to that chamber’s lawmakers and staff.
“I am leading this effort in the House,” Hinson, who is running for Senate, posted on X after the Senate action. “Let’s get it done.”
A spokesperson for Hinson told NBC News that the congresswoman “believes that Members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to profit off of insider information, so she’ll be introducing legislation to modify House rules to ban the use of prediction markets for Members of Congress to profit off of political events.”
The House is now in a district work period and will return on May 12.
Former President Joe Biden today backed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ campaign for governor in Georgia, his first endorsement since leaving office last year.
“I’ve known her for a long time, and she’s something special,” Biden said in a video backing the former mayor, who served as a senior adviser in the Biden administration.
Biden added in the video that the “same qualities that made her a great mayor made her invaluable to our administration.” He called Bottoms “smart” and “focused” and said she “gets things done.”
“Georgia, she’s ready. She’s been ready,” said the former president, who included Bottoms on a short list of potential vice presidential running mates in 2020.
Bottoms is running in a crowded Democratic primary field, which also includes former Georgia state Sen. Jason Esteves, former state labor commissioner and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who served as a Republican but later switched parties.
Read the full story here.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said today that he doesn’t plan to delay Georgia’s primary this month to redraw his state’s political maps for this year’s elections.
“Voting is already underway for the 2026 elections,” Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ahead of the state’s May 19 primary elections.
He said that a Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais this week makes clear it “requires Georgia to adopt new electoral maps before the 2028 election cycle.”
Kemp praised the high court’s decision, saying it “restores fairness to our redistricting process and allows states to pass electoral maps that reflect the will of the voters, not the will of federal judges.”
Kemp’s remarks come after Louisiana announced yesterday it’s delaying its primaries that were set for May 16 to give state legislators time to redraw their maps in the wake of the court ruling.
A source close to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee said that the White House accusation that Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., delayed Dr. Casey Means’ nomination is “bull—-.”
The source said Means, whose nomination for surgeon general was withdrawn yesterday, did not have the votes to be confirmed.
After pulling her nomination, Trump and other administration officials blamed Cassidy, the HELP panel’s chairman, for standing in the way of her nomination in committee where a vote to advance it had stalled.
“After her hearing, multiple members on and off committee made clear they would never vote for her. Many conservative leaders also shared public and private concerns regarding her answers on life,” the source told NBC News.
Yesterday, Cassidy told reporters, “She didn’t have the votes to pass. The White House has known for a while she didn’t have the votes to pass.”
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur has had at least nine lives in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District, a Toledo-area constituency that has grown more conservative over the last decade. That happened both organically, because of shifting demographics, and forcibly, because of Republican-drawn district lines.
Put them together, and she again in 2026 is one of Republicans’ top targets in the battle for House control.
Kaptur has beaten all comers on the way to becoming the longest-serving woman in congressional history. Now, she is running for a 23rd term in a district that was redrawn to stretch into even redder territory than before, and many believe the new boundaries make her more vulnerable than ever before.
But Republicans, who won a three-seat majority in the House in 2024, are sorting through a jam of their own. They are approaching a crowded primary Tuesday with no clear front-runner, as well as a concern that whoever emerges will need a big boost from the national party to finally unseat Kaptur.
Read the full story here.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., plans to campaign for Iowa Senate candidate Zach Wahls this month, adding firepower to a raging battle between progressive outsider candidates and the Democratic Party establishment.
Wahls, a state senator, is pitted against state Rep. Josh Turek, whom many perceive as the favorite of Democratic leaders in Washington, in the June 2 primary. The winner will take on Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson in what promises to be a closely watched race in the fight for control of the Senate.
“Zach Wahls is running to shake things up,” Warren said in a statement announcing her May 10 visit to a Wahls rally in Des Moines. “He’s taking on a corrupt system that’s rigged against working families; a system where giant corporations, their lobbyists, and their super PACs funnel millions to candidates like Ashley Hinson, so those politicians let them jack up prices on groceries, prescriptions drugs, and the basics Iowans need to get by.”
Read the full story here.
NBC News