Former Sen. Ben Sasse says he has been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer

(WASHINGTON) — Even before a federal judge has decided whether he’ll halt construction of the White House ballroom, the Trump administration has preemptively asked the judge to stay any injunction he might issue, warning that the project is “imperative for reasons of national security.”

The government’s overnight filing, entered just before the end of the day Monday, also says halting the construction would “leave an unsightly excavation site in President’s Park indefinitely.”

The administration’s stay motion comes a week-and-a-half after Judge Richard Leon publicly aired his deep skepticism of the government’s arguments that the president has the power to build a ballroom with private donations and without express authorization from Congress, comparing the plan to a “Rube Goldberg contraption.” Leon also said he expected the losing side of the case to appeal. 

The Justice Department’s filing restates many of the arguments its lawyer made before Leon last month, including the administration’s view that it would be “unworkable” to allow security-related portions of the project to continue while work on the ballroom has been stopped.

“[A]s the Secret Service attested, halting construction would imperil the President and others who live and work in the White House,” the administration argues, citing a senior agency official who said in court papers last month that the current open construction site is, “in and of itself, a hazard and complicates Secret Service operations.”

The government now says it will submit a second classified declaration from the Secret Service that further explains why halting construction “will endanger national security and therefore impair the public interest.”

It’s widely believed the plan is to replace the bunker FDR had built underneath the East Wing — destroyed in the demolition.

The filing also casts the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s challenge to the project as one that presents questions judges have never grappled with before, including whether a 1912 statute prohibiting the construction of federal buildings absent congressional authorization applies to the president.

Acknowledging Leon’s own expectation of an appeal by the losing side, the Justice Department is preemptively asking him to press pause on a potential ruling against the government.

“The D.C. Circuit should have the opportunity to weigh in on these significant and novel issues of first impression before the President is ordered to stop work in the middle of a high-priority construction project that implicates national security,” the filing concludes.

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(WASHINGTON) — After Tuesday night’s embarrassing defeat for Speaker Mike Johnson at the hands of rebellious Republicans, the House is set to vote Wednesday evening on a Democratic-led resolution to rescind President Donald Trump’s tariffs imposed on Canada — which could result in a major rebuke of the president’s trade policies.

The legislation, led by the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks, would force House lawmakers to go on the record for the first time on Trump’s tariffs and trade policy.

The measure seeks to end the emergency declaration Trump used to justify his Canada tariffs.

Even if the tariff vote clears the GOP-led House, Trump is likely to veto the measure. It’s unclear how the largely symbolic vote will fall given Speaker Johnson’s razor-thin majority.

Johnson argued on Fox Business Wednesday morning that Congress should not be getting in the way of Trump’s tariffs.

“I think it’s a big mistake. I don’t think we need to go down the road of trying to limit the president’s power while he is in the midst of negotiating America first trade agreements,” Johnson said, adding that tariffs have “done great for the economy.”

He pointed to the tariff case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court — arguing that Congress should allow that process to play out.

House Republican leaders have fought for a year to block such a tariff vote from hitting the House floor, but the failed rule vote Tuesday night opened the door to full House votes on overturning the president’s tariffs.

Three Republicans — Reps. Kevin Kiley, Don Bacon and Thomas Massie — bucked their own party to defeat the procedural effort that failed by a vote of 214-217.

Bacon posted on X Wednesday, “Congress has Article One Constitutional responsibilities on tariffs. We cannot & should not outsource our responsibilities. As an old fashioned Conservative I know tariffs are a tax on American consumers. I know some disagree. But this debate and vote should occur in the House.”

Even if the House passes the resolution the matter would need to go back to the Senate.

Last October, the Senate voted on similar resolutions to cancel some of Trump’s tariffs.

At the time, some Senate Republicans joined Democrats to rebuke the president’s trade policy.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Defense Department on Monday identified another U.S. service member who died following the opening wave of Iranian retaliatory attacks across the Middle East, marking the seventh U.S. service member to die in the war with Iran. 

Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, died Sunday from injuries he sustained during a March 1 retaliation strike on U.S. troops at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia from Iran.

“He gave the ultimate sacrifice for the country he loved,” Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, the top officer for Army Space and Missile Defense Command, said in a statement. “That makes him nothing less than a hero, and he will always be remembered that way. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends.”

Pennington enlisted in the Army in 2017 as a supply specialist and was assigned to the 1st Space Battalion, 1st Space Brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado. He is set to be posthumously promoted to staff sergeant, the Army announced. 

Pennington was working at a strategic radar installation responsible for early warning against incoming missile threats, a critical node in the U.S. military’s missile-defense architecture, according to a source familiar with the situation.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of the other six American service members killed in the war’s opening hours, after an Iranian drone struck in Kuwait. All six were killed in the same attack.

Even as the ceremony underscored the war’s early toll, the president and senior Pentagon officials have been preparing the public for the likelihood that more casualties are ahead.

“The president’s been right to say there will be casualties,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.”

Hegseth cast the losses as a grim but familiar feature of war for a country that has spent more than two decades fighting in the Middle East.

“Especially our generation knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets,” he said. “But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.

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