(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, on Monday said he would back challengers to members of Congress who vote for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Musk broke his short-lived X silence about the bill over the weekend, unloading on it for being “utterly insane.” On Monday, Musk criticized “every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history,” vowing that “they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Monday lifted U.S. sanctions on Syria, signing an executive order to carry out a promise he made in May.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters ahead of the signing that Trump’s action was designed to “promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace.”
When he met with Syria’s new president Ahmad al-Sharaa last month, Trump announced he would lift the crippling U.S. sanctions against Syria and urged al-Sharaa to meet specified conditions in hopes that it will stabilize the country.
Those conditions included normalizing relations with Syria’s neighbors, including Israel, as well as the United States.
Ahmad al-Sharaa is a former al-Qaeda insurgent who fought against U.S. forces in Iraq and served time in the infamous Abu Ghraib priso.
Senior Trump administration officials who previewed the president’s action terminating the Syria sanctions program said it would dismantle the architecture of the program established by the executive branch while maintaining provisions targeted at Bashar Al Assad, his collaborators, and other destabilizing forces still at work in the region.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and the administration’s Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack cast the executive order — which is intended to work in tandem with the general waiver significantly easing sanctions that was issued by the U.S. in May — as a move by the president to “give these guys a chance,” referring to Syria’s interim government.
“You have a general who transitioned from wartime into a position of being the leader of a reframed new country that needs everything, and that’s basically what’s happened, but the vision and the execution was limited by our imposition of sanctions,” he said. “Syria needs to be given a chance, and that’s what’s happened.”
Barrack also said the purpose driving Trump was not to hold leverage over the newly-formed government.
“But one thing is clear, neither the president or the secretary of state is nation building. They’re not dictating, they’re not requiring. They’re not giving the framework of the democratic model that needs to be implemented to their architecture or desire. They’re saying we are going to give you an opportunity. We have a bunch of criteria that we want to watch along the way,” he said, referencing the Abraham Accords, integrating foreign fighters in Syrian society, protecting U.S. allies who fought against ISIS, and other issues.
Brad Smith, the acting under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the Treasury Department, spoke about the more technical aspects of the order and emphasized that it would allow the administration to retain restrictions “where appropriate.”
“The significance of this moment cannot be overstated,” Smith said. “While we remain hopeful for the country’s future and its new government, we are also clear eyed that threats to peace remain, the United States will remain ever vigilant where our interests and security are threatened, and Treasury will not hesitate to use our authorities to protect us and international financial systems.
Abraham Accords
A senior administration official insisted that the Trump administration wasn’t looking to maintain “leverage” over Syrian authorities as it seeks to encourage its leadership to sign onto the Abraham Accords.
“Leverage is not what we’re interested in doing. The president ripped the sanctions off without any conditions,” they said. “It’s to Syria’s benefit to lean towards Israel.”
The senior administration official continued to note that it has been reported that Syria and Israel have been having conversations “on a backchannel basis.”
“So the way to entice them to get to the Abraham accords is to make it fruitful for them on an economic basis, on a on a civilization basis, on a peace and prosperity basis, and that’s all coming together. And what’s happened between Israel and Iran gives that window,” the official said. “So we’re not interested in leveraging them into anything.”
Despite the action Monday and previous suspension of many sanctions against Syria, a senior administration official acknowledged that it may take further action from Congress to permanently lift the penalties.
“We are now — pursuant to the executive order — going to look at suspension criteria for the Caesar Act,” the official said.
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 enhanced sanctions on any foreign entity that engaged in significant transactions in the Syrian government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, back in May, issued a 180-day waiver of the Caesar Act sanctions.
“Ultimately Congress has the power to repeal the act,” the official said on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Monday charged four North Koreans in a brazen scam to pose as IT workers with stolen credentials and use them to get hired by U.S.-based companies and scam those companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Kim Kwang Jin, Kang Tae Bok, Jong Pong Ju and Chang Nam Il are all allegedly “citizens of North Korea who used stolen and false personally identifiable information to pose as non-North Koreans and thereby obtain employment with technology companies, gain victim companies’ trust, obtain access to virtual currency assets controlled by victim companies, steal those virtual currency assets, and launder the proceeds of that activity.”
Federal authorities in Atlanta, Georgia said that the four allegedly stole $900,000 in cryptocurrency from one company, according to prosecutors, and the scheme has been ongoing since at least 2020.
In one instance, a U.S. company hired who they thought was Malaysian IT worker “Bryan Cho,” but in reality they hired Jong Pong Ju, who was a North Korean bad actor, according to the Justice Department.
Hiring “Byran Cho” also allowed for other North Koreans to be brought into the fold, including Chang Nam Il, the department said.
“On or about March 29, 2022, defendant KIM KW ANG JIN, without Company-1’s knowledge or consent, modified the source code for two smart contracts owned and controlled by Company-1 that resided on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Defendant KIM KW ANG JIN’ s modifications to these smart contracts changed the rules governing the withdrawal of virtual currency from two funding pools controlled by Company-1,” the court record says.
The four are not in the U.S., the department noted.
In total, the Justice Department seized 29 known or suspected “laptop farms” across 16 states, and seized 29 financial accounts used to launder illicit funds and 21 fraudulent websites, and charged four North Korean nationals, six Chinese nationals and two Taiwanese nationals for their involvement in separate information technology worker schemes, DOJ officials told reporters on a call with reporters on Monday.
In Massachusetts, the Justice Department alleges that nine more North Koreans posed as IT workers and were able to cause $3 million in losses from more than 100 U.S. companies, including some Fortune 500 companies over a four-year period, as well as steal “export controls and US military technology off the company’s network,” the official said.
Kejia Wang, a U.S. citizen, worked with others abroad to “to facilitate the criminal schemes” alleged by the Justice Department. According to senior DOJ officials, Wang was arrested on Monday.
Similar to the case unsealed earlier today in Georgia, workers posing as tech workers used fraudulent identification cards to dupe U.S. companies., according to the department.
Authorities said that it is not only profitable for the North Koreans, but they attempt to steal U.S. secrets as well.
“These schemes target and steal from U.S. companies and are designed to evade sanctions and fund the North Korean regime’s illicit programs, including its weapons programs,” John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s National Security Division, said in a release. “The Justice Department, along with our law enforcement, private sector, and international partners, will persistently pursue and dismantle these cyber-enabled revenue generation networks.”
Medicaid is a joint federal and state health insurance program for disabled and low-income Americans. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services works with state programs to administer Medicaid, which enrolls more than 71.2 million people.
The original measure passed by the House made around $600 billion in cuts to Medicaid, which then faced deeper cuts in the Senate.
New estimates from the Congressional Budget Office project federal spending on Medicaid will be reduced by $1 trillion and that the current version of the bill in the Senate would increase the number of uninsured by 11.8 million by 2034.
Health policy experts and health care workers say sharp Medicaid cuts could result in vulnerable Americans no longer being able to receive care, either by losing coverage or by closing the centers that provide such care.
Work requirements could result in lost coverage
The bill imposes new 80-hour per month work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients aged 19 to 64 who don’t have dependents. These requirements include working or other approved activities, such as volunteering.
There are exemptions for parents or guardians of children under age 14 and those with disabilities. Under the bill’s current text, these work requirements won’t kick in until 2026.
An analysis published last week from the UC Berkley Labor Center found that work requirements could have a devastating impact on older Americans, between ages 50 and 64.
Nari Rhee, director of the Retirement Security Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center and author of the analysis, told ABC News that after age 50, employment becomes increasingly difficult.
For instance, many older workers become physically unable to continue employment until they reach retirement age.
“Most people hope and plan to retire at something like age 65, but life happens and quite often what happens is people start having health issues,” Rhee said. “If you’ve had blue collar work or manual work, often you started working probably in your late teens. And so, by the time you get into your 50s, your late 50s, your body is just really worn out, and you’re not no longer able to work the kinds of jobs that you used to do.”
She added that some older workers who are physically unable to do the jobs they used to do or who were laid off have a hard time finding employment again due to age discrimination.
Additionally, many older adults are responsible for caring for family members including spouses and parents, which may mean leaving the workplace entirely.
“In practical terms, there are all kinds of legitimate reasons why, especially older adults, might not be able to meet the work requirements in terms of actually putting in the number of hours, and that’s before we even get to all the administrative issues,” Rhee said. “Even if you do work, you might not be able to navigate the red tape.”
AARP, an interest group that focusing on issues affecting those 50 and older in the U.S., sent a letter over the weekend to Sen. Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expressing opposition to a provision that would disqualify people who fail to meet Medicaid work requirements from receiving Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
“This creates a steep coverage cliff for those in their 50s and early 60s — particularly for those nearing retirement or working part-time — who may be left with no affordable coverage option at all.”
Risk of rural hospitals, health centers closing
Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurse Association, said cuts to Medicaid could force rural hospitals and community health centers to close.
Although Senate Republicans have proposed a $25 billion rural health stabilization fund due to cuts to the Medicaid provider tax, it is unclear if that will be enough to prevent hospitals from closing.
“These hospitals have been on the verge of tight finances for years, and this could be enough to shut them down,” Mensik Kennedy told ABC News. “If we have cuts to Medicaid, we’re going to see these hospitals start to shutter their doors, and people are going to have to drive three, four, hours to deliver a baby, to go have emergency care to get seen, and that’s got to be unacceptable to everyone.”
Arnulfo De La Cruz, president of SEIU 2015, the nation’s largest long-term care union and California’s largest labor union, concurred, saying cuts to Medicaid would impact states’ ability to provide health coverage and long-term care, particularly for rural and low-income Americans.
“Any cuts to Medicaid, the impact in California would be devastating … Medicaid is really the core of how the long-term care system is structured and funded,” he told ABC News. “Medicaid helps to fund clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, home care — it’s all connected as part of our health delivery system. If you were to dismantle or cut to the extent that they’re talking about, I think you see clinics close, you see hospitals close, you see nursing homes close.”
He went on, “I think it would have a devastating impact on the ability for rural Californians and low-income Californians to be able to access their health care, thereby becoming sicker and having to look to much more high-cost alternatives.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will travel to the new “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center in Florida‘s Everglades on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Monday.
The Trump administration is turning the remote Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport into a facility that officials say will eventually hold up to 5,000 people. Officials say operations will start on Tuesday. The facility is part of Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations by expanding detention capacity. The president has already sent migrants to Guantánamo Bay and the mega-prison in El Salvador.
Leavitt said Trump’s visit will be a chance for the president to tout the funding for more detention facilities and efforts to enact Trump’s mass deportation policy that are in his megabill that the Senate could vote on Tuesday before sending to the House before Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
“I think his trip to this detention facility actually underscores the need to pass the One Big, Beautiful Bill because we need more detention facilities across the country,” Leavitt said.
A source familiar with the planning tells ABC it will cost Florida $450 million a year, and officials say some of that money will be reimbursed from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program.
Leavitt described the facility’s remote location in her briefing on Monday.
“There’s only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight,” she said. “It is isolated and surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain. The facility will have up to 5,000 beds to house, process and deport criminal illegal aliens.”
“This is an efficient and low-cost way to help carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in American history,” Leavitt added.
When asked about the remote and dangerous location, Leavitt said that it was a feature of the facility to help prevent detainees from escaping.
“Well look, when you have illegal murderers and rapists and heinous criminals in a detention facility surrounded by alligators, yes, I do think that’s a deterrent for them to try to escape,” she said. “We do know that some of these illegal criminals have escaped from other detention facilities, like one in New Jersey, which I know was recently reported on. So, of course, we want to keep the American people safe, and we want to remove these public safety threats from our streets, and we want to effectively detain them as best as we can.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier posted on X that the facility is a “one stop shop” to carry out Trump’s mass deportation agenda, claiming the location saves money on security since it’s surrounded by dangerous animals.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide,” Uthmeier posted.
Among officials who will join Trump at the facility are Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.
In a statement released Monday, Noem said, “Alligator Alcatraz, and other facilities like it, will give us the capability to lock up some of the worst scumbags who entered our country under the previous administration. We will expand facilities and bed space in just days, thanks to our partnership with Florida. Make America safe again.”
DeSantis touted the facility last week as “as safe and secure as you can be.”
Environmental groups are suing to stop construction, alleging the government violated the Endangered Species Act by building on protected land.
Protesters gathered along the highway that cuts through the Everglades to demonstrate on Saturday. They included environmental activists and Native Americans advocating for their ancestral homelands. Others demonstrated against the treatment of migrants.
Sofia Carson stars in the trailer for her latest Netflix rom-com, My Oxford Year.
The film stars Carson as Anna, an ambitious young American woman who moves to England to study at the University of Oxford. She soon falls for her charming professor, Jamie, played by Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story star Corey Mylchreest.
“Flirting with the hot teacher on the first day?” a student played by Harry Trevaldwyn asks Anna in the trailer.
Flustered, she says no, while the student reassures her he is not judging.
“Oh, no, I love it,” he says. “That is a serious bit of crumpet.”
Carson told Netflix it was an honor to study the poets who walked the halls of Oxford to prepare for this movie.
“Our story is a film that in every frame reaffirms the belief that life is too short to not live it in love. To not live it in joy,” Carson said.
Along with starring in the film, Carson also executive produces. Iain Morris directed the romance movie from a script by AllisonBurnett and Melissa Osborne, which is based on the novel by Julia Whelan.
Dougray Scott, Catherine McCormack, Esmé Kingdom and Nikhil Parmar also star in the movie.
My Oxford Year makes its way to Netflix on Aug. 1.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Justice is suing the city of Los Angeles over its sanctuary city policy, alleging it interferes with the enforcement of federal immigration laws, officials announced on Monday.
“The challenged law and policies of the City of Los Angeles obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit is targeting Ordinance Number 188441, which prohibits city resources, including personnel, from being used for immigration enforcement. The DOJ is seeking a permanent injunction barring the city from enforcing the ordinance.
The Los Angeles City Council and the city’s mayor, Karen Bass, are named among the defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in California’s Central District federal court.
The lawsuit comes after President Donald Trump deployed National Guardsmen and Marines to the city, over the objections of local and state leaders, in response to protests against the government’s immigration crackdown.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement Monday. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”
Bill Essayli, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said in a statement that the lawsuit holds Los Angeles “accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Gird your loins: The Devil Wears Prada sequel begins filming this week.
Production on the sequel to the iconic 2006 film starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci has started. To mark the occasion, 20th Century Studios shared a teaser.
The video shows a pair of stylish red stilettos with devilish pitchforks as the heels, a reference to the original film’s poster, which featured a single red stiletto with a pitchfork heel.
Audio for the video features iconic lines from the first film, including Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly, saying, “By all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me.”
At another point, Hathaway’s character, Andy Sachs, is heard saying, “Can you please spell ‘Gabbana’?”
Blunt’s character, Emily Charlton, rattles off another memorable line: “I refuse to be sick. I’m wearing Valentino for crying out loud.”
Miranda is heard elsewhere in the video saying, “Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea, everybody wants this.”
“That’s all,” she adds.
The end of the video includes onscreen text that reads, “Now in production.”
In the caption, the studio wrote, “The Devil Wears Prada 2. Now in production.”
20th Century Studios confirmed to Good Morning America on Monday that Streep, Hathaway, Blunt and Tucci are all slated to return for the sequel.
Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh will also star in the film as Miranda’s husband, according to 20th Century Studios.
In May, several outlets reported that the release date for the upcoming film had been set for May 1, 2026.
Disney is the parent company of 20th Century Studios and ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — GOP Sen. Thom Tillis was back on Capitol Hill on Monday as Senate Republicans struggled to pass their “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” he opposes — before President Donald Trump’s July Fourth deadline.
“I may look for an opportunity to speak again,” Tillis said during his fiery remarks on the Senate floor on Sunday night, in which he urged his Republican colleagues to reconsider their support for the GOP tax bill, which he said “breaks” President Donald Trump’s promises to protect Medicaid.
But on Monday it remained unclear whether any of his fellow Republicans would go along.
Monday morning, as lawmakers began another long day of debate, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lauded Tillis for his remarks calling out the GOP megabill’s provisions he said would slash Medicaid in his home state of North Carolina.
“I salute my colleague from North Carolina. We all heard what our colleague from North Carolina had to say yesterday about this bill. My guess is about half — maybe more than half of the Republicans in the Senate agree with him. But he had the courage to speak the truth,” Schumer on Monday morning, as a vote-a-rama on the bill began.
“He said it himself: the bill devastates his state but make no mistake about it, it will devastate the states of almost every Republican here,” Schumer added.
But how Tillis will navigate the rest of his term in the Senate — and perhaps the rest of the reconciliation bill’s consideration — remains to be seen — after he abruptly announced he wouldn’t run for reelection when Trump threatened to support a GOP primary challenger.
While his speech railing against the measure’s Medicaid cuts displayed some of the “pure freedom” he noted in his retirement announcement “to call the balls and strikes as I see fit,” Tillis also told reporters at the Capitol on Sunday that he would never do anything to “undermine” or “surprise” the Senate Republican Conference.
“Look, here’s the thing, I was a leader. I’m never going to do anything to undermine my conference, and I’m never going to surprise my conference,” Tillis said..
“I let Senator Thune last night know that I intended to do this today. I’m not that kind of guy. I mean, if you’ve got a surprise or jam your conference to get something done, you’re a pretty shitty legislator, and that’s just not my style,” he went on.
“So, I’m going to stand behind John and the leadership and do everything I can to make them successful,” Tillis said.
In his speech to “explain” his vote Saturday against the motion to move forward on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” he condemned the legislation.
“What do I tell 663,000 people in two years, three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding is not there anymore, guys?” Tillis asked at one point. “The people in the White House advising the president, they’re not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
He said blasted the president’s self-imposed July 4th deadline to pass the legislation as “artificial.”
“I believe that we can make sure that we do not break the promise of Donald J. Trump — that he’s made to the people on Medicaid today,” Tillis went on. “But what we’re doing because we’ve got a view on an artificial deadline on July 4 that means nothing but another date and time we could take the time to get this right, if we lay down the house mark of the Medicaid bill and fix it.”
“What’s wrong with actually understanding what this bill does?” he said.
Tillis laid out how he’d done the work of understanding the bill over recent weeks, talking with leaders in North Carolina and members of the Trump administration about the impacts of the legislation’s Medicaid provisions on his state.
He said administration officials could not disprove his findings that there would be about a $26 billion cut in Medicaid across North Carolina as a result of the bill.
Tillis said he started his fact-finding process by asking Republican staff in the North Carolina legislature, members of Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s team and to the non-partisan Hospital Association for their estimates about this bill’s cuts to Medicaid in North Carolina.
“I asked three different independent groups: a partisan Democrat group, a partisan Republican group of experts, and a nonpartisan group of the Hospital Association to develop an intact assessment, independent, not talking, not sharing, reporting to me, and what I found is the best case scenario is about a $26 billion cut,” Tillis said.
He said when he presented those findings to the Trump administration, they were rejected.
“I had people in the administration say, you’re all wet, you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said.
Tillis concluded by saying that the Senate “owes it to the American people” to withhold advancement of the bill ” until it’s demonstrated to me that we’ve done our homework.”
“We’re going to make sure that we fulfill the promise And then we can feel — I can feel — good about a bill that I’m willing to vote for, but until that time, I will be withholding my vote,” Tillis said.
