Mayors from ‘sanctuary cities’ testify before Congress
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(WASHINGTON) — The Mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City are testifying on Wednesday in front of the House Oversight Committee during a blockbuster hearing on sanctuary cities.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and New York City Mayor Eric Adams are all set to defend their actions on immigration enforcement in their respective cities as Republicans on the committee have already warned they won’t be holding back.
“The mayors here today each lead so-called ‘sanctuary cities,’ and let’s be clear, these policies only create sanctuary for criminals,” Chairman James Comer, a Republican, said in his opening remarks.
“Today, mayors Wu, Johnson, Johnston and Adams will be publicly accountable for their failure to follow the law and protect the American people.”
Sanctuary cities often have limited cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which enforces U.S. immigration laws around the country. Sanctuary cities often have policies that are welcoming to illegal immigrants.
Wednesday’s committee hearing comes as President Donald Trump’s administration officials have ramped up their immigration enforcement efforts with Attorney General Pam Bondi shutting down federal grants to sanctuary cities and multiple threats “border czar” Tom Homan has issued toward these mayors if they refuse to comply.
On Tuesday, Bondi said efforts to crack down on immigration enforcement would increase in Boston, citing a lack of effort from Wu to prosecute undocumented immigrants.
“As a result of the Mayor’s decision to side with public safety threats over law-abiding citizens, DOJ will have no choice but to increase efforts in the city of Boston. Criminals will be prosecuted, illegal aliens will be arrested, and justice will be served,” Bondi posted on X.
Democrats immediately criticized the Trump administration, arguing the overreach of federal officials has led to unlawful detentions and created fear in communities.
“Republicans have hauled before us the mayors of four major American cities to frame them as lawless, because those cities have some limits on how intrusively and aggressively their own officials can conduct federal immigration operations and responsibilities,” Ranking Member Gerry Connolly said.
“Let’s be clear, the state and local laws that Republicans have issue with today are in full compliance with federal law. They do not obstruct ICE from carrying out its duties, and they are backed by evidence demonstrating that they keep people safe.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar backed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday after the volatile White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday, saying she “just couldn’t believe” how Friday’s meeting unfolded..
The Minnesota Democrat told ABC News’ “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos she was “appalled by what happened in the Oval Office,” and thinks the fallout of the exchange “is not in President Trump’s best interest.”
“We stand with our friends, not our enemies,” Klobuchar said. “The great country of America goes into negotiations with strength, not surrender.”
Klobuchar said she — along with other senators from both sides of the aisle — had been with Zelenskyy before he left for the White House, and said he had been in “great spirits.”
Watching video of the explosive meeting, Klobuchar said she “just couldn’t believe it.”
“It was Vice President Vance, particularly, who was on the offense, who was berating President Zelenskyy, who simply was trying to explain that … we needed a strong security commitment from all of our allies to be able to have a lasting peace, which is something that President Trump says that he wants to see.”
Klobuchar speculated on how the meeting so quickly became caustic when asked by Stephanopoulos if it had been an ambush.
“Either it was an ambush setup, or they just got so hotheaded, the president and the vice president, that what happened happened,” she said. “It’s the chaos of this presidency.”
Meanwhile, British ambassador to the U.S. Lord Peter Mandelson said the U.S.-Ukraine relationship needs a “reset” after the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting.
“I think that Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow,” Mandelson told Stephanopoulos. “And then, as part of the unfolding plan for this negotiation, the Europeans and perhaps some other countries too, have got to consider how they are going to put forces on the ground to play their part in providing enduring security and deterrence for Ukraine.”
European leaders were meeting in London on Sunday to discuss a UK-French peace plan they’re working on with Zelenskyy that they plan to present to the U.S.
Mandelson said it will be important to “create the circumstances in which enough pressure is brought on” to “force [Russia] to the negotiating table.”
“And then we will see the true color of their intentions and what they’re prepared to agree and to stand by,” he said. “But if it goes wrong, we must be there on Ukraine’s side, continuing to arm them to make sure that they have the capacity to withstand any further Russian attack with ourselves lining up behind them in that eventuality.”
(WASHINGTON) — Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio is no stranger to grilling nominees during confirmation hearings, but on Wednesday he’ll be the one in the hot seat as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the top U.S. diplomat moves forward.
Rubio is appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which he’s served since 2011 and is expected to sail through the confirmation process with bipartisan backing, potentially becoming the 72nd secretary of state as soon as Inauguration Day.
But that doesn’t mean his testimony and questioning before his colleagues in the Senate won’t produce any fireworks.
Here’s what to watch for:
New territory
Rubio’s well-documented public record, along with support from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, may clear the way for lawmakers to ask the nominee more targeted questions about the foreign policy of the president he’ll serve under.
In recent weeks, Trump has made international waves by refusing to rule out using the U.S. military to fulfill his goals of acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal and saying he’ll use economic force to make Canada the 51st state.
Wednesday’s hearing is set to be the first time Rubio faces extensive questioning about Trump’s territorial ambitions — and whether he would work to make them a reality as secretary of state.
“I would imagine he’s going to be deferential to the president-elect,” said Richard Goldberg, a former official at the National Security Council and Senate foreign policy adviser. “These are his policy decisions, these are the president-elect’s statements.”
“[Rubio] will hopefully articulate what the American interest is in all of these places in a circumspect way,” Goldberg, who is also a senior advisor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, added.
On the Panama Canal, Trump has used overblown claims about China’s involvement in its operations to justify his interest in overtaking it — falsely claiming earlier this month that the waterway, which is operated by the Panamanian government, is actually run by Beijing.
But Rubio — a son of Cuban immigrants who has paid close attention to Latin America during his political career — has expressed fact-based concerns about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence over the Panama Canal that may resurface during the hearing.
“The Panama Canal is as an important transit route to intercept illicit activities, yet the canal is surrounded by #CCP enterprises,” he tweeted in 2022. “We must continue to make clear that Panama is an important partner & warn against CCP attempts to establish a foothold in our region.”
In early 2024, Rubio also led a bipartisan group of senators in urging the government of Panama to investigate tankers accused of smuggling Iranian through the canal.
“I think he has the experience, the depth of knowledge, and the political expertise to take any question and handle it pretty well,” Goldberg said.
Converging and contrasting views
Rubio — long known as a Russia and China hawk in the Senate — has been accused of dialing back his interventionist foreign policy approach to align with Trump’s positions and may face fresh criticism from opponents who believe he might prioritize serving as a yes man to president over serving the country.
In the early phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rubio was a staunch supporter of Kyiv’s war efforts. But over time, as Trump became a more outspoken critic of continuing American aid to Ukraine, Rubio appeared to change course — eventually calling for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.
There are still many foreign policy topics where there’s still plenty of distance between Rubio and Trump. While the president-elect is a near-constant critic of NATO, Rubio co-sponsored legislation with Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine aimed at preventing any commander in chief from exiting the alliance.
But ultimately, Goldberg says, Rubio’s role in the incoming administration will be advising the president on foreign policy matters and then carrying out what Trump decides.
“That’s the job he’s signing up for,” Goldberg said. “Ultimately, this President Trump’s secretary of state — no one else’s.”
In his prepared opening statement, Rubio says, “Ultimately, under President Trump, the top priority of the United States Department of State must be and will be the United States.
“The direction he has given for the conduct of our foreign policy is clear. Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?” he’s expected to say.
The ‘deep State’ Department?
Rubio’s confirmation may also present an opportunity to gain insight into how he intends to lead the State Department’s roughly 77,000 employees — and whether he might attempt to purge its ranks of those he or the president-elect view as political enemies, as incoming national security Adviser Mike Waltz reportedly plans to do at the National Security Council.
In an opinion piece published in The Federalist in April 2024, Rubio said there were many government employees who “do good work, day in and day out, but expressed concern about “others who act as self-appointed “protectors” of institutions against politicians they don’t like.”
“Looking ahead to another Trump administration, it’s clear why liberal elites want to protect the “deep state.” They hate Donald Trump and everything he stands for,” Rubio wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump will meet with Senate Republicans Wednesday to try to get lawmakers “on the same page” on how to advance some of his major policy initiatives after he takes office on Jan. 20.
Trump will meet with Senate leadership and the rank and file after paying his respects to former President Jimmy Carter, who lies in state in the Capitol before his funeral on Thursday.
The president-elect wants to deliver on campaign promises, but how to move them forward has divided congressional Republicans.
Trump has pitched one massive bill that would include several of Trump’s top priorities: Immigration reform and energy production, and extending the tax cuts passed during his first term and other spending cuts. He’s also suggested that the bill should raise the debt ceiling or eliminate it altogether.
With small majorities in each chamber and little to no support expected from Democrats, Republicans plan to push “reconciliation” — a fast-track process limited to spending and revenue legislation that needs only a majority rather than the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to pass legislation.
House Speaker Mike Johnson faces resistance to the one-bill approach from fiscal conservatives in his conference. And some Senate Republicans are advocating for two bills — one on border issues and a second to deal with fiscal policy.
One of the key objectives in Wednesday’s meeting will be “how we get on the same page with the House,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Tuesday.
Barrasso said the “goal is the same,” whether it’s done with one or two bills, but he said a two-part plan would allow Trump to deliver on some of his promises and allow more time to address tax policy that doesn’t expire until the end of the year.
“It was a suggestion by [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune — this was before Christmas — he said, ‘Let’s get an early win on the border,'” Barrasso, R-Wyo., said. “It was an issue in the election and it is a big issue for the American people and it is a big issue for national security, and we just thought we could get that done in a quicker fashion with a focus on that, on taking the handcuffs off of American energy as well as military strength, and then have the longer time to work on the financial component of this.
“These issues and the urgency of the tax issue doesn’t really come into play until the end of the year to the level that these other issues have the higher urgency right now,” he said.
Trump reiterated his preference for one bill when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, but said he could live with two.
“Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will, he said. But if two is more certain [to pass], it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early,” he said.
In the House, Johnson said he remains convinced that the one-bill strategy is the “best way to go,” but conversations with Thune are continuing.
“Yes, Leader Thune and I are on exactly the same page with regard to the objectives, and we’re determining right now the final sequence of the play call, so to speak,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “This is not some sort of, I feel like sometimes the media tries to make this an existential threat to the objectives or to what we’re doing with the legislation. It’s not that, this is two chambers deciding the best sequence of events, and we’ll get to a perfect alignment here in the next I think a couple of days.”
Johnson said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week in April, but it remains to be seen if he can get fiscal conservatives in his conference, who have long opposed all-in-one bills like the one Johnson is proposing, on board.
The speaker pushed back on Tuesday about the one-bill approach being a kitchen sink approach.
“This is not an omnibus spending bill, but appropriation,” Johnson said. “This is reducing spending, which is an objective we talked about. I’ll keep reiterating this: that just because the debt limit is raised, to give stability the bond markets and to send a message around the world that we will pay the nation’s debt. We are doggedly determined to decrease the size of scope of government and to limit spending, cut spending so you can you’ll see both of those things happen simultaneously.”
Johnson also intends to handle the debt limit in the reconciliation bill — without Democratic support.
“That way, as the Republican Party, the party in charge of both chambers, we again get to determine the details of that. If it runs through the regular order, regular process… then you have to have both parties negotiating. And we feel like we are in better stead to do it ourselves,” he said Tuesday.
But it remains to be seen whether Johnson can sell the fiscal conservatives in his conference on that idea. They nearly derailed the short-term government funding bill to avert a shutdown last month after Trump demanded that it dealt with the debt ceiling.
After his meeting with senators, Trump will meet with groups of House Republicans at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida this weekend.
“He’s bringing in big groups of House Republicans to Mar-a-Lago over the weekend three days in a row to meet with and talk with all of our team members about what’s ahead of us and the challenges and how we can accomplish all this together,” Johnson said, though the speaker is not expected to attend.
