Trump admin asks Supreme Court to block return of wrongly deported Maryland man

(WASHINGTON) — A group of bipartisan senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday morning ahead of the tense exchange between the Ukrainian leader, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Chris Coons, D-Del., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as other Democratic and Republican senators, gathered for an hourlong “encouraging” meeting with Zelenskyy ahead of his visit to the White House, the three lawmakers posted on their social media accounts.

“Just finished an encouraging meeting in Washington with President @ZelenskyyUa and a bipartisan group of Senators to discuss our ongoing partnership with Ukraine,” Coons wrote on X, accompanied by a selfie with Zelenskyy, Graham and Klobuchar.

“Really good bipartisan meeting before President Zelensky heads to the White House. We stand with Ukraine.🇺🇦” Klobuchar wrote in a post on X.

“So honored to take part in the hour-long discussion with President Zelensky and Senators Coons, Graham, and other Democratic and Republican Senators this morning. There is strong bipartisan support in the Senate for Ukraine’s freedom and democracy,” she added.

Graham, in a video, also said he met with Zelenskyy, adding that he was headed to the White House for the signing of the minerals deal.

“This is a half a trillion dollars that will enormously benefit the American economy. Ukraine is the richest country in Europe when it comes to critical minerals,” Graham said. “These minerals are necessary for us to compete and win the 21st century economy. President Trump was very excited, President Zelenskyy is very excited about this economic deal.”

However, the deal now appears to be in jeopardy after Zelenskyy, Trump and Vance sparred in the Oval Office and subsequently canceled the deal-signing ceremony.

Graham at the White House later Friday appeared to change his tune from his morning remarks, saying, “I have never been more proud of the president. I was very proud of J.D. Vance standing up for our country.”

“What I saw in the Oval Office was disrespectful, and I don’t think we can do business with Zelenskyy ever again,” he said.

“He made it hard for the American people to believe he is a good investment,” he added. “He either needs to resign and send somebody over that we can do business with or he needs to change.”

Still, Klobuchar and Coons came out with posts on X in defense of the Ukrainian president after his exchange in the Oval Office, particularly the moment in which Vance accused Zelenskyy of being “disrespectful” toward his American hosts.

“Answer to Vance: Zelenskyy has thanked our country over and over again both privately and publicly. And our country thanks HIM and the Ukrainian patriots who have stood up to a dictator, buried their own & stopped Putin from marching right into the rest of Europe. Shame on you,” Klobuchar wrote.

“Every time I’ve met with President Zelenskyy, he’s thanked the American people for our strong support. We owe him our thanks for leading a nation fighting on the front lines of democracy — not the public berating he received at the White House,” Coons wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — Democrats plan to target House Republicans in vulnerable districts by highlighting potential cuts to Medicaid and other federal spending in the budget blueprint GOP lawmakers hope to vote on this week, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee memo first obtained by ABC News.

The memo titled “Medicaid Cuts Prove Politically Perilous for House Republicans” outlines a plan to paint GOP members in swing districts as voting for a “budget blueprint that would inflict massive pain upon American families.”

The budget blueprint sets a goal of at least $2 trillion dollars in cuts to mandatory federal spending, which includes funding for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans and those with disabilities, is expected to face the brunt of the cuts. Some GOP members have discussed including new work requirements for the program and limiting how much the federal government pays each state.

Republican leadership has repeatedly promised not to cut other entitlement programs.

“Rather than delivering on their campaign promises to lower the high cost of living, [Republicans] are poised to pass an extreme budget scheme that would decimate affordable health care and take food off the tables of millions of American families,” the memo reads. “Republicans will find that a ‘yes’ vote doomed their reelection chances come November 2026.”

Vulnerable Republicans, several of whom represent swing districts with a significant number of constituents on Medicaid, have expressed serious concern that safety net programs could be on the chopping block.

“Slashing Medicaid would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and predominantly Hispanic communities where hospitals and nursing home are already struggling to keep their doors open,” Republican members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference wrote to Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter last week.

GOP leadership has stressed to members that, while the budget blueprint calls for substantial cuts, specific cuts have yet to be determined. And Republican members have disputed their budget will have a negative impact on low-income families, pointing to policies like “No Tax on Tips,” a signature Trump campaign promise included in the budget plan.

The Democratic memo also notes House Republicans in safe red seats are already facing what it calls “massive political blowback” at town hall meetings back home, as angry voters speak out about potential funding cuts and thousands of recent firings by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“We are all fricking pissed off about this, you’re going to hear it,” a constituent said to Rep Rich McCormick, R-Ga., at a town hall last week.

Johnson told ABC News the protests were an “ambush” organized by Democratic advocacy groups.

“I think the American people largely applaud what’s happening. We need to get government cut back to its size and scope the way it should be and make sure people are doing their work,” he said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Joe Murphy, whose position as a management and data analyst was eliminated when the Department of Education laid off nearly 50% of its workforce Tuesday evening, said on Wednesday that he and his colleagues are filled with a sense of “sadness” and “disbelief.”

“We got the sense that we were disposable in a certain sense, especially those of us in the data space,” he told ABC News.

According to Murphy, everyone he worked with directly had their positions terminated.

The 56-year-old from Dumfries, Virginia, said he has spent almost 20 years in education data, previously working for the National Center for Education Statistics, in addition to serving as a contractor for a formula grant data collection space in the Education Department.

In the Department of Government Efficiency’s latest efforts to cut federal costs, some 1,315 Education Department employees were affected by the “reduction in force” notices, leaving 2,183, according to senior officials at the agency.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the job cuts on Wednesday, referring to them as “a promise made and a promise kept.”

“There is no reason that we should be spending more than most developed countries in the world. And our education system is failing,” she added. “The president wants to return education back to the states, empower those closest to the people to make these very important decisions for our children’s lives. And this is a first step in that process.”

Though Murphy said the terminations were expected, he said the experience has still been disconcerting.

“Nothing surprises me anymore, but it’s still kind of shocking and impactful,” he said.

“I do not know where I go forward from here … I am suddenly belched out into a job market that has been at the very same time, severely constricted and also completely flooded with people who have a similar skill set to mine. I’m 56 years old,” Murphy continued, adding that he has spend “more than a third of [his] entire life” in this line of work.

“Felt really weird to wake up this morning and be like, wow, what am I gonna do?” he said.

Murphy emphasized how the most important and rewarding aspect of his job, which falls under the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, was serving the nation’s children.

“It’s really for the kids, and what we do is for the kids. And so many of us feel that way,” he said, adding that he “wish[es] things went differently.”

“That’s the thing I have the greatest sense of pride in. I would think, you know, doing a good job and getting the data to the programs in the right timely fashion — good, accurate data, so that they can make decisions on behalf of, you know, 100,000 schools in this country and 18,000 districts and 50-something state education agencies,” he explained.

When asked if he believes children will continue to receive needed educational benefits and services, Murphy projected a bleak outlook and expressed his belief that “we’re politicizing the department of education and the education of our students.”

He also expressed concern over whether his work will even be able to continue.

“So, all that work that we did for the programs, I don’t know who’s going to do it now or be able to do it. The folks in the programs were already overwhelmed. They were so grateful to us for the work that we did for them in distilling down this massive amount of data to a few answers with groundwork that they laid together with us,” he said. “So, I don’t know where that’s going to get done.”

Murphy is a member of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which he says he joined only recently due to the change in administrations from Biden to Trump.

“When it seemed to be going south and everybody was taking over after the inauguration, I said, okay, well, I’m gonna go ahead and sign up,” he said, explaining how he was affected by the “last two months of being led by threats and intimidation.”

“I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea that the federal government needed some improvements and some restructuring to some degree,” Murphy acknowledged. “But how you do it really matters, and you can’t just … the federal government is not a private business, and you can’t run it that way.”

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