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Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., criticized Trump’s budget blueprint today in separate statements, specifically taking aim at the proposal for military spending.
McConnell said in his statement, “It is peculiar how much time the President’s advisors spend talking about restoring peace through strength, given how apparently unwilling they’ve been to invest accordingly in the national defense or in other critical instruments of national power.”
The former GOP leader, who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees defense spending, accused the Trump administration of doubling down on “the Biden Administration’s material neglect for the glaring national security threats challenges about which they speak with great alarm.”
In a separate statement, Wicker said that the White House budget office requested “a fifth year straight of Biden administration funding, leaving military spending flat, which is a cut in real terms.”
“This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” he warned. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
Trump’s plan calls on Congress to increase military spending by 13%.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., praised Trump’s 2026 budget proposal today, calling it “a bold blueprint that reflects the values of hardworking Americans and the commitment to American strength and prosperity.”
“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson said in a statement.
The speaker said that House Republicans are ready to work with Trump to implement a “responsible budget that puts America first.”
“This budget also reflects the critical role the One Big, Beautiful Bill will play in securing our border and strengthening our national security,” he said, referring to the reconciliation bill that House Republicans are crafting. “This proposal promises the American people that their government is finally listening, leading with commonsense, and restoring the principles of good governance.”
President Donald Trump released a budget proposal Friday calling for a mix of cuts to domestic programs involving public health, education and clean energy, while seeking to increase spending on the president’s priorities like border security and a bigger military.
The 40-page request was addressed to congressional leaders and accompanied by a letter from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought addressed to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Overall, Vought said the proposal contains a 23% cut ($163 billion) to discretionary funding and a 13% increase to military spending.
The White House budget comes as the Republican-led Congress is seeking to craft a massive bill for Trump’s priorities of tax cuts, higher spending on immigration enforcement and the military, spending cuts in other parts of the federal government, and a debt limit increase. Vought mentions the calls for border funding in the new budget blueprint.
Read the full story here.
Days after a Canadian election that hinged on who would best stand up to President Donald Trump, he is at the center of an election in another liberal democracy.
Trust in the United States is plummeting in Australia, which votes Saturday amid global financial turmoil sparked by tariffs Trump has imposed on trading partners around the world, including Australia, a U.S. ally and vital security partner in countering China.
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Japan could use its more than $1 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasurys as leverage in trade negotiations with Washington, its finance minister said, though he stopped short of threatening to sell them.
“I think it exists as a card,” Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said in a television interview today. “But whether to use it or not, that is another decision to be made.”
The U.S. was alarmed last month by a large global sell-off in U.S. Treasury securities after Trump imposed steep tariffs on trading partners around the world, including U.S. ally Japan.
Kato’s comments come a day after Japan held its second round of tariff talks in Washington with U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters in Tokyo today that while the discussions were “very positive and constructive,” no agreement has yet been reached.
After the White House announced that Trump had signed an executive order ending public funding for NPR and PBS, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement that the president’s decision is “blatantly unlawful.”
“The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” Kerger said. “We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans.”
Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, also responded to the order, saying that only Congress can approve changes in funding for public media.
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” Harrison said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and a group of Senate Democrats have sent a letter to the acting Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration asking her to open an investigation into Trump’s targeting of Harvard’s tax exempt status.
“It is both illegal and unconstitutional for the IRS to take direction from the President to target schools, hospitals, churches, or any other tax-exempt entities as retribution for using their free speech rights,” the senators wrote.
“It is further unconscionable that the IRS would become a weapon of the Trump Administration to extort its perceived enemies, but the actions of the President and his operatives have now made this fear a reality,” they wrote.
The senators specifically asked the Treasury official to investigate whether any request by Trump or an administration official that the IRS revoke Harvard’s exempt status violated a section of law aimed at insulating the IRS from political influence over those whom it chooses to audit, and whether any such requests have been made.
States are continuing to roll out their own versions of the Department of Government Efficiency, the outside advisory commission led by tech billionaire Elon Musk that Trump tasked with cutting federal spending and staffing.
Many of the officials who launched these bodies, which take different forms in different states, say they’ve wanted to have the impact of Trump’s DOGE, with some explicitly comparing them to the federal commission.
But while Musk’s slash-and-burn approach has caused major disruptions in Washington and across the nation, the more than 20 state-level DOGE organizations that have been rolled out since Trump’s federal launch have so far taken a far lighter touch.
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Marco Rubio was just two weeks into his new job when he got a critical lesson in being Trump’s secretary of state. In Latin America on his first trip outside the United States since he became America’s top diplomat, three senior administration officials said, Rubio was caught off guard by two policy decisions made in Washington: drastic changes to foreign aid and Trump’s publicly backing turning the Gaza Strip into a Middle East Riviera.
Rubio was similarly blindsided by foreign policy pronouncements from top administration officials two more times over the next 10 days.
Since then, he has figured out a strategy to minimize such frustrations.
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Trump announced on Truth Social this morning that he will revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.
The president suggested he would take this action after the Ivy League school sued the Trump administration last week over its decision to freeze more than $2 billion in funding to the university.
“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump wrote.
Any such move would face likely face litigation. The administration’s funding freeze came after it accused Harvard of failing to take action on its demands to end antisemitism on campus.
In a statement, a Harvard spokesperson said Trump did not have legal grounds to pursue such an action, adding that the move would harm the university’s mission and higher education more broadly.
“Such an unprecedented action would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission,” the spokesperson, Jason Newton, said. “It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation. The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”
The leadership election to succeed retiring Sen. Dick Durbin as the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber is a year and a half away, but Sen. Brian Schatz is already racking up endorsements.
Since Durbin, 80, of Illinois, announced last week that he wouldn’t seek re-election in 2026, Schatz, 52, of Hawaii, has been aggressively working behind the scenes to consolidate support for the post of Senate Democratic whip, having key allies speak to colleagues and securing at least eight endorsements.
Others could still jump in the race to be Democrats’ top vote-counter. Amy Klobuchar, 64, of Minnesota, a former presidential candidate who is the No. 3 Senate Democrat, hasn’t closed the door on a potential bid. And others have floated Patty Murray, 74, of Washington, who has held various leadership roles over the years and is now the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
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The Democratic Party launched today a new initiative aimed at pushing vulnerable Republicans to join Democrats in opposing a Trump-backed congressional budget bill that is expected to include cuts to Medicaid.
The DNC plans to partner with the DCCC, the House Democratic campaign arm, to specifically target four House Republicans: Tom Barrett, R-Mich., Don Bacon, R-Neb., Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., all of whom are in toss-up districts.
Bacon, Lawler and Fitzpatrick represent the only Republican-held districts in the country that former Vice President Kamala Harris won during the 2024 election, according to the Center for Politics. Barrett’s seat was previously held by Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and is rated a “Republican toss up” by the Cook Political Report.
“The American people are furious at Trump and Republicans’ dangerous attacks on their health care and vulnerable Republican Representatives Barrett, Bacon, Lawler, and Fitzpatrick will seal their political fate if they go along with Trump’s disastrous budget,” DNC Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement.
Democrats plan to host town hall-style events in the lawmakers’ districts and direct voters to “make their outrage known” by calling and emailing the lawmakers.
The party said it has already held more than 100 town hall events nationwide in the last two months alone, but this new effort will additionally encourage Democratic voters to host their own community events in a bid to further galvanize its base. Doing so will also help build “grassroots power for critical elections still ahead,” Martin added.
The Democratic initiative will be a part of the party’s “Fight to Save Medicaid” month of action intended to “pressure vulnerable Republicans to stand up for their constituents.”
Alabama Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of the DCCC, said the four Republicans “will face voters’ wrath if they cave to Trump’s budget demands.”
“To keep the pressure up, the DNC will host a new round of People’s Town Halls in these vulnerable Republicans’ districts, while employing state-of-the-art organizing tactics to activate supporters and put direct pressure on Republicans ahead of budget reconciliation votes,” she said in a statement. “This will be an all-out blitz by the Democratic Party to save health care for millions of Americans.”
Trump signed an executive order late yesterday to end public funding of National Public Radio and PBS to stop what he called “biased and partisan news coverage.”
The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS” to the extent allowed by law. The order could be challenged in court.
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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said yesterday that attacks by Trump and his allies on judges were “not random” and seemed “designed to intimidate the judiciary.”
Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked Trump in March for urging the impeachment of a federal judge, laying bare tensions between the country’s executive and the judiciary as Trump’s sweeping assertions of power encounter judicial obstacles.
“The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity,” Jackson said at a judges’ conference in Puerto Rico.
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