Category: Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has rescinded a policy implemented during the Biden administration that restricted prosecutors from seizing reporters’ records in criminal investigations, according to an internal memo obtained by ABC News.

The move could signal a broader effort by Trump-appointed leadership to more aggressively pursue leaks coming from within the administration and directly target journalists for their reporting.

It was not immediately clear whether the impending policy change was prompted by any current ongoing investigation being pursued by the Trump Justice Department. But in her memo rescinding the policy, Attorney General Pam Bondi pointed to recent alleged leaks of potentially classified information to The New York Times.

“Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” Bondi said. “Therefore, I have concluded that it is necessary to rescind (former Attorney General) Merrick Garland’s policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks.”

Bondi added she has directed the DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy to publish new language that reflects the department “will continue to employ procedural protections to limit the use of compulsory legal process to obtain information from or records of members of the news media, which include enhanced approval and advance-notice procedures.”

“These procedural protections recognize that investigative techniques relating to newsgathering are an extraordinary measure to be deployed as a last resort when essential to a successful investigation or prosecution,” Bondi said.

The 2022 Biden-era policy was formalized following extensive negotiations between news outlets and Justice Department leadership under Garland. It restricted prosecutors from using “compulsory process” such as subpoenas, search warrants or other court orders to seize reporters’ records with very limited exceptions.

It was implemented after the department disclosed several instances during the previous Trump administration where prosecutors secretly obtained records from several journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN as part of criminal leak investigations.

“Because freedom of the press requires that members of the news media have the freedom to investigate and report the news, the new regulations are intended to provide enhanced protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools and actions that might unreasonably impair news gathering,” Garland said in a statement announcing the revised media guidelines.

Last month, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the opening of a criminal investigation into the leak of an intelligence document reported by The New York Times related to the Tren de Aragua gang that he described as “inaccurate, but nevertheless classified.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also said her department and the FBI are pursing criminal charges against officials who she said have leaked details about pending deportation operations to members of the media.

Prior to his confirmation as FBI director, Kash Patel said in several media appearances that the Trump administration would “come after” journalists who reported on President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel said in a 2023 podcast interview with Steve Bannon. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”

The policy shift also comes as DOJ and FBI leadership have downplayed recent revelations of senior Trump officials sharing sensitive details about military operations in Yemen over the encrypted app Signal, which national security experts have argued likely included classified information that would normally prompt some kind of federal investigation.

Bondi signaled late last month that any criminal investigation into the matter was unlikely.

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(WASHINGTON) — Seven in 10 Americans think President Donald Trump’s tariffs on international trade will drive up U.S. inflation, outweighing hopes that they’ll boost manufacturing employment and fueling a 64% disapproval rate of how he’s handling the issue.

Even nearly half of Republicans — 47% in the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Friday — said they think tariffs will negatively impact inflation. That jumps to 75% among independents, a swing group in national politics.

The tariffs admittedly are a moving target. The administration has paused some (albeit not those on China) pending negotiations.

And there is a perceived positive: 59% said they think the tariffs will have a positive impact on creating manufacturing jobs in the United States, including 90% of Republicans and 60% of independents. That, along with bringing prices down, were some of Trump’s key campaign promises.

But — given the current state of play — the scale tips negative again on a third factor: 56% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by Ipsos, think Trump’s handling of tariffs will negatively impact America’s economic leadership in the world vs. 42% who see a positive impact.

Democrats, for their part, are roundly opposed to the tariffs. Nine in 10 think they will negatively impact inflation (90%) and U.S. economic leadership in the world (89%) alike, and a near-unanimous 96% disapprove of Trump’s handling of them. Democrats aren’t sold on tariffs creating manufacturing jobs, either: 68% think they’ll hurt, not help.

Given inflation fears, Trump’s overall rating for handling tariffs is a broad 30 percentage points underwater, 34%-64%. That’s far worse than his 7-point deficit in approval on handling immigration (as reported here), demonstrating that public sentiment is especially prickly when economic well-being is on the line.

Indeed, in his own party, 25% of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, as do 30% of conservatives. And disapproval reaches 48% among non-college-educated white men and 47% of rural Americans, two of Trump’s core support groups.

Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

Results have a margin of error of 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine published Friday, claimed he’s already “made 200 deals” on tariffs and said he’s spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

In the cover story, in which Trump’s discussed his first 100 days in office, the president was asked about White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s prediction of “90 deals in 90 days.”

“I’ve made 200 deals,” Trump said. When asked to confirm that number, Trump said “100%.”

Trump, though, would not elaborate on what countries he’s solidified deals with or the terms. He’s met with various foreign officials at the White House in recent weeks on tariffs and other economic issues, but had not yet announced any agreements.

“I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way,” Trump told Time. “We’ll be finished.”

On the issue of China — which faces the highest tariff rate from the administration — Trump said President Xi has called him.

“He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf,” Trump said,

The White House in recent days has softened its stance on China, telling reporters that talks with Beijing were moving in the right direction. But Chinese officials, before Trump’s Time interview was published, disputed the White House’s characterization.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun on Thursday called the administration’s claims active discussions were happening “fake news.” On Friday, the Jiakun said “China and the United States have not consulted or negotiated on the tariff issue” and “the United States should not confuse the public.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Americans hold mixed views on President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

Voters are divided on sending migrants living in the United States lacking legal status who are accused of gang membership to an El Salvador prison without a court hearing but mainly oppose deporting international students who criticize U.S. policy in the Middle East, according to the poll.

In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was deported to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting it, more respondents said he should be returned to the U.S. rather than remain imprisoned in El Salvador, 42-26%. There’s room for movement; 3 in 10 in an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Friday said they don’t know enough about the case to say.

Overall, 46% said they approve of the way Trump is handling immigration, while 53% said they disapprove. On one hand, that’s a 4-point drop in approval from a Washington Post/Ipsos poll in February. On the other, it’s Trump’s best rating across seven issues tested in this survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with fieldwork by Ipsos.

See PDF for full results.

There’s about an even division, moreover, on Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants in general. Forty-eight percent said Trump is “going too far” in this regard, while 50% said he’s either handling it about right (34%) or not going far enough (16%).

There’s also a close split on the deportation of suspected gang members to an El Salvador prison without a court hearing: Forty-seven percent said they support this action, while 51% said they opposed.

That result underscores animosity toward undocumented immigrants, as seen in contrast to views on deporting international students who have criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East: In this case, support for deportation drops to 39%, with 59% opposed.

Partisans

Partisanship is a strong factor.

About 9 in 10 Republicans said they approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 1 in 10 Democrats said they approved. Among independents, 45% said they approve.

Trump also wins approval on immigration from 93% of his 2024 voters, compared with 8% of those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris. However, he falls well short among those who didn’t vote for president in the 2024 elections, who disapprove of Trump on immigration by 59%-40%.

In another broad partisan gap, 85% of Democrats said they think Trump is “going too far” with deportations. Sixty percent of Republicans said they think he’s handling this about right — and 27% said he’s not going far enough. Independents again fall in between.

Republicans’ attitudes are not monolithic. Eighty-two percent said they support sending suspected gang members to a prison in El Salvador without court hearings. Fewer, but still 70%, said they support deporting international college students who are critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Fewer still, 53%, said Abrego Garcia should remain in El Salvador, though just 14% said they favor his return, with the rest unsure.

Hispanic people said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration overall, by 67%-32%. Men divided about evenly on the issue, while most women said they disapprove, 58%-41%. Approval on the issue ranges from 65% of people in rural areas to 45% in suburbs and 36% in cities, with sizable rural and suburban gender gaps.

And there’s a gap by age: Fifty-nine percent of those younger than 40 said disapprove of Trump on immigration, while 48% of those age 50 and older said they disapprove.

Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Ipsos. See details on ABC News survey methodology here.

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(WASHINGTON) — ABC News has confirmed that in at least two separate meetings Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused top-ranking military officers of leaking to the media and threatened to polygraph them.

According to one person familiar with the exchanges, Hegseth was upset by media reports that he had planned a briefing for Elon Musk on China.

In a meeting with Adm. Christopher Grady, who was serving as then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth yelled “I’ll hook you up to a [expletive] polygraph!”

Hegseth then made a similar threat in a separate meeting with Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, according to the person.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the exchanges.

A spokesperson for the Joint Staff declined to comment.

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(WASHINGTON) — In federal courthouses across the country Thursday, President Donald Trump’s administration faced a series of legal setbacks to implementing the president’s agenda.

On issues ranging from education policy and voting rights to congestion pricing, the series of rulings and developments marked the latest legal setbacks for an administration battling nearly 200 lawsuits in court.

Three separate judges — including two appointed by Trump — blocked the government from withholding federal funds to schools with DEI programs.

In California, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions where local police refuse to help with enforcement of federal immigration policy.

After Trump attempted to reshape elections with an executive order last month, a federal judge blocked the government from requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, saying only Congress has the power to institute such a change.

On immigration issues, the Trump administration is in hot water with multiple judges. A Boston judge is probing whether the Trump administration violated a court order when it removed four alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, and a judge in Maryland appointed by the president ordered Wednesday the return of a man deported to El Salvador whose deportation violated a court settlement.

In New York, DOJ lawyers accidentally revealed an internal document acknowledging the shortcomings in their plan to kill congestion pricing.

Friday is set to bring a new legal issue to the forefront, with a federal judge in Boston taking up whether the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education are lawful. The hearing will mark the first time a federal judge has considered the issue since Trump issued an executive order last month directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to shrink the department.

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(WASHINGTON) — In federal courthouses across the country Thursday, President Donald Trump’s administration faced a series of legal setbacks to implementing the president’s agenda.

On issues ranging from education policy and voting rights to congestion pricing, the series of rulings and developments marked the latest legal setbacks for an administration battling nearly 200 lawsuits in court.

Three separate judges — including two appointed by Trump — blocked the government from withholding federal funds to schools with DEI programs.

In California, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions where local police refuse to help with enforcement of federal immigration policy.

After Trump attempted to reshape elections with an executive order last month, a federal judge blocked the government from requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, saying only Congress has the power to institute such a change.

On immigration issues, the Trump administration is in hot water with multiple judges. A Boston judge is probing whether the Trump administration violated a court order when it removed four alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, and a judge in Maryland appointed by the president ordered Wednesday the return of a man deported to El Salvador whose deportation violated a court settlement.

In New York, DOJ lawyers accidentally revealed an internal document acknowledging the shortcomings in their plan to kill congestion pricing.

Friday is set to bring a new legal issue to the forefront, with a federal judge in Boston taking up whether the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education are lawful. The hearing will mark the first time a federal judge has considered the issue since Trump issued an executive order last month directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to shrink the department.

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(WASHINGTON) — For years, President Donald Trump has blasted politically damaging reporting by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as fake, made-up.

His most recent criticism has been over Goldberg’s bombshell story about a Signal chat he was accidentally invited to, one that included top members of Trump’s national security team, conversing about an impending military attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.

Now, in a surprise twist, Trump said he would speak face-to-face with Goldberg on Thursday after claiming on Truth Social that Goldberg, along with The Atlantic writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, would sit down with him for an interview.

“The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, “The Most Consequential President of this Century,” he said.

Goldberg and The Atlantic have not commented about Trump’s post or the alleged meeting as of Thursday afternoon.

Although the president claimed Goldberg was “responsible for many fictional stories about me,” he said he is looking forward to the meeting.

“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,'” Trump posted. “Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad.”

Goldberg and Trump have had a contentious back-and-forth going since the president’s 2016 campaign, when the journalist criticized Trump’s rhetoric.

“At the very least, he traffics in racial invective knowingly. To me, that’s a threshold question. If you do that and if you know what you’re doing then, yes, you’re a racist. I think he’s a racist,” he said in a 2016 NPR interview.

Trump criticized The Atlantic’s coverage of his campaign and first term, but things heated up in 2020 after Goldberg wrote an article that described a 2018 incident in which president reportedly refused to visit an American cemetery in France where World War I service members were buried.

“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump told his advisers, according to the article. It also said Trump called fallen Marines “suckers.”

The president heatedly denied he had used those terms on what was then Twitter and went after Goldberg’s sources. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, later confirmed Goldberg’s account in an interview with CNN.

In Trump’s Thursday post, he brought up that story and claimed it was a “made-up HOAX.”

Goldberg became the target of the president’s ire again last month after he revealed he was inadvertently invited to the Signal chat that consisted of several top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, in which they discussed plans for the March 15 military attack against Houthis in Yemen ahead of the airstrike occurring.

Trump and White House officials slammed Goldberg, claiming his reporting was biased.

“He is, as you know, is a sleaze bag, but at the highest level. His magazine is failing,” Trump said of Goldberg on March 26 during an appearance on the “VINCE Show” podcast.

Goldberg has repeatedly defended his reporting on the scandal.

“They’ve decided to blame the guy who they invited into the conversation. It’s a little bit strange behavior,” he told ABC News in March. “Honestly, I don’t know why they’re acting like this except to think that they’re — they know how serious a national security breach it is. And so they have to deflect it and push it onto the guy, again, they invited into the chat — namely me.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape election processes is an attempt to “short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order,” a federal judge in Washington, D.C. wrote Thursday afternoon.

In a 120-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked the Trump administration from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and ordering that election officials “assess” the citizenship of anyone who receives public assistance before allowing them to register. She also barred the Election Assistance Commission from withholding federal funding from states that did not comply with the order.

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections,” she wrote. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

After Trump issued an executive order last month “preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections,” three separate lawsuits were filed in the D.C. federal court to challenge the policy, including lawsuits filed by the Democratic National Committee (with New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries), the League of United Latin American Citizens and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“These consolidated cases are about the separation of powers,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

She concluded that Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape elections exceeds his own authority, noting that the Department of Justice “offered almost no defense of the President’s order.”

If Trump wishes to reform election processes, she wrote, Congress would be the appropriate branch to do so, adding Congress is “currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Ed Martin, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the next U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., apologized in a new interview for his past praise of a Jan. 6 rioter who had a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and infamously posted photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler.

“I’m sorry,” Ed Martin said in an interview with the Jewish publication Forward. “I denounce everything about what that guy said, everything about the way he talked, and all as I’ve now seen it … At the time, I didn’t know it.”

Martin’s comments come as his nomination faces headwinds in the Senate over his public praise for Jan. 6 rioter Timothy Hale-Cussanelli at a 2024 event at Trump’s Bedminster club in 2024.

At the event, one of several fundraisers held at Trump’s private clubs to benefit Jan. 6 rioters, Martin described Hale-Cussanelli as an “extraordinary man” and “extraordinary leader.”

It’s unclear how Martin, vying to be the top prosecutor in one of the nation’s most important U.S. attorney’s offices, could claim to be unaware of Hale-Cussanelli’s past anti-Semitic statements and praise for Hitler — much less as late as 2024.

A Google search of Hale-Cussanelli’s name turns up the series of now-infamous selfies that surfaced following his arrest that show him donning a Hitler mustache and holding his hand over his chest.

Hale-Cusanelli’s antisemitic views made him one of the more prominently covered Jan. 6 defendants. At his sentencing hearing, the Trump-appointed judge overseeing his case, Trevor McFadden, said, “Statements and actions like yours make [Jewish people] less safe and less confident they can participate as equal members of our society.”

Prosecutors further surfaced antisemitic statements he made to his coworkers at a naval weapons station that “Hitler should have finished the job” and “babies born with any deformities or disabilities should be shot in the forehead.”

Martin was also previously asked about Hale-Cussanelli’s antisemitic views in a recently posted interview with the Washington Informer, and didn’t denounce him directly.

“When someone says, ‘Hey, do you understand that of the January 6 defendants, there were some really rotten actors, and there were people that said terrible things in their lives, or even did terrible things?’ then, fair enough,” Martin said in that interview. “But I feel pretty good about the fact that we try to make ourselves better every day, and we try to get people give people a break, going forward, and I’ve got a pretty long career of fighting, I think for the right causes.”

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