Trump announces White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stepping down

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued an endorsement in the Texas Senate primary, backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over Republican incumbent John Cornyn.

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(WASHINGTON) — Jay Clayton, President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as director of national intelligence, faced repeated questions from Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday about whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election — with Clayton saying Biden was certified as president, but stopped short of saying he won legitimately.

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee, asked whether Clayton denied that Biden won the 2020 election.

“I’m not an election denier,” Clayton said. “Joe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.

Independent Sen. Angus King later asked Clayton pointedly: “Who won the 2020 election?”

Clayton danced around the answer multiple times — refusing to say outright that Biden won, while reiterating that he believes Biden was certified.

“He went through our processes, and Joe Biden became the president of the United States,” Clayton said.

King responded that “saying Joe Biden was certified is not an answer.”

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff later said Clayton wasn’t being “honest or forthright” in his responses about Biden’s 2020 election victory.

“You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election. But you ask to lead America’s intelligence community,” Ossoff said. “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question? To have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to the question. Why can you not give it?”

Both Republicans and Democrats asked Clayton if he were involved in any way with Trump’s primetime address on Thursday that the president said will be a “very big announcement” that will touch on “free and fair elections.” The announcement is based on information he recently received from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence related to the 2020 election, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Clayton said he is “not involved in that,” affirming that doing so would violate that understanding that he would take no actions that would presume his confirmation as DNI.

Clayton did say that he thought there was room to improve elections and that he would like to work with the committee to do that.

Questions about subpoenas to journalists

Clayton also faced questions about the subpoenas he issued to several journalists at the New York Times last week after the news outlet reported on security concerns involving Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden questioned Clayton about the subpoenas he issued — as U.S. attorney in Manhattan — to the journalists, asking when he was directed to issue the subpoenas and who asked him to do so.

Clayton responded that the subpoenas are in connection with an “ongoing national security investigation” and reiterated that he respects the First Amendment and the role of the press. But he did not directly answer Wyden’s question.

“Those subpoenas are in connection with an ongoing national security investigation. I’m happy to talk to you and this committee about our approach to the First Amendment and our efforts in all cases to limit to the greatest extent possible, any intrusion into the operation of the free press,” Clayton said.

Clayton later added that he consulted with career prosecutors in his office before making the decision to issue the subpoeanas. He added that he is confident that the procedures in place to protect the First Amendment and journalists were followed.

Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said the committee was “deeply concerned” with how the process played out, that it “doesn’t sound like the proper independent legal process that we would normally expect for issuance of a subpoena.”

Clayton said that while he understood her concerns, “I want to tell you, I am comfortable with where we are, and I’m comfortable with how we are proceeding from here.”

In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

Clayton, prior to his role as the U.S. attorney, was also the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Apart from the national security cases he oversaw while serving as U.S. attorney, Clayton also lacks experience in intelligence-gathering and national security matters.

Clayton spent the bulk of his career as a corporate attorney, and prior to his appointment as U.S. attorney last year, lacked meaningful experience in criminal matters.

Clayton will replace the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Trump loyalist Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence. Clayton’s hearing came weeks after the president abruptly canceled his previously scheduled confirmation hearing.

Asked about why his hearing was postponed, Clayton said he was “not going to get into private conversations.”

Pulte has been serving as the acting director since June 19. The former DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, announced her intention to resign from the role in May, citing a desire to step away from public service to support her husband following his cancer diagnosis. Gabbard ultimately left the role on June 18, days earlier than planned.

The committee is expected to vote on Clayton’s nomination to be the next DNI some time next week.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can cancel the temporary protected status (TPS) for thousands of Haitians and Syrians, concluding that the Department of Homeland Security has broad discretion with little-to-no judicial oversight to decide when they must return home.

The ruling is likely to have a sweeping impact on the approximately 1.3 million people who rely on TPS to live and work in the United States legally, and advocates said they fear it will have devastating and possibly deadly long term costs for those refugees.

Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that courts cannot override the federal government’s determination about TPS status in most cases.

TPS status, established by the Immigration and Nationality Act, provides work authorization and protection from deportation — as long as the Homeland Security Secretary certifies that a foreign country is unsafe because of armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

Alito concluded that the law establishing the TPS program did not give courts the authority to second guess the DHS’s determinations about which countries merit the protected status, which was created to shield immigrants from countries ravaged by war or national disasters.

“The TPS statute plainly bars consideration of respondents’ non-constitutional claims. It allows ‘no judicial review of any determination … with respect to the … termination of a TPS designation,” Alito wrote.

Though the ruling centered on the TPS of Haitians and Syrians, the ruling effectively gives the Trump administration the green light to carry out similar terminations, which they have already done for 13 countries.

James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s General Counsel, praised Thursday’s ruling.

“The T in TPS stands for TEMPORARY, yet many of these designations became de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense,” he said in a statement.

Attorneys for the Haitian plaintiffs said in a statement Thursday that the ruling “will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths.”

“This decision will endanger Haitian TPS holders who fled their homeland in pursuit of what generations of immigrants yearned for when they made the painful decision to leave all they have known. to live in safety,” Geoffrey Pipoly and Andrew Tauber told ABC News in a statement.

“It’s a very sad day, not only for Haitian TPS holders but for anyone who believes, as we do, that immigrants are one of America’s greatest strengths,” they added. “The responsibility to save these lives is now with Congress–and we urge the Senate to pass the extension of TPS now pending in that chamber. “

It is unclear if Congress will vote on an extension, however, Trump has repeatedly called for the end of TPS protections and would not likely sign off.

The court’s liberals also lambasted the decision, arguing that the statements made by President Donald Trump about some of the countries whose status was cancelled — including making baseless claims that Haitians eat dogs and cats during the 2024 presidential race — demonstrate that race played a role in the decisions.

“The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print,” wrote Justice Kagan. “The references–of filth, disease, and primitiveness–are shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes.”

The court’s liberals also argued that the statute creating TPS does allow courts to review if DHS carried out legally-required procedures to cancel the status — something the plaintiffs allege did not happen.

“It does nothing to stop courts from reviewing things other than the Secretary’s ‘determination[s]’ concerning TPS designations,” Kagan wrote.

Immigrant advocacy groups have warned about the possible sweeping consequences of this ruling, saying it will open the door for an “astonishing human tragedy.”

Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010 and has since been hit by subsequent natural disasters, political unrest following a presidential assassination, and waves of rampant gang violence.

More than 113,000 Haitian TPS holders work in Florida alone, which is home to a high proportion of America’s seniors, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

Syria devolved into civil war around 2011 and has been considered by the U.S. government a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades. A major earthquake in 2023 plunged the country into a deeper economic and humanitarian crisis.

“This is an awful harbinger for what we expect this administration to try to do for other TPS designations. Hundreds of thousands of people who have lived here for decades now see heartbreaking chaos ahead,” FWD.us President Todd Schulte said in a statement Thursday.

Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in separate acts last year, moved to terminate TPS status for Haiti and Syria by certifying that, in her estimation, conditions on the ground in those countries were sufficiently safe for immigrants to return.

Those decisions were blocked by lower courts, which concluded that Noem did not follow proper procedures for cancelling TPS and may have also unlawfully discriminated against the immigrants on the basis of race.

Pastor Carl Ruby, a prominent community leader in Springfield, Ohio, who has sought to stand up for Haitians there after Trump’s false comments about them eating pets rattled the community and preceded numerous bomb threats.

“This is the worst possible outcome,” Ruby told ABC News through tears. “I had always held out hope that we would get a good decision and can’t believe that we’re here now.”

Ruby contended that there was racial motivation behind the administration’s actions.

“If you look at the history of the president’s comments about Haiti and Haitians, it’s clear that this wouldn’t be happening if these were refugees from Norway. I just feel like we have failed as a country and I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed in our country as I am right now,” he said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who has defended the Springfield community, said deporting Haitians “is a mistake.”

“As a result of today’s ruling, the over 10,000 Haitians who have been living in Ohio (mostly in the Springfield area) legally through TPS will now be here illegally and will be subject to immediate deportation,” the governor said in a statement.

“This also means that while these Haitians were working and contributing to our community and economy yesterday, today it is now illegal to employ them,” he added.

“The situation in Haiti could hardly be much worse. The violent gangs run most of the country. The government barely functions. And, the economy is in shambles,” DeWine said.

-ABC News’ Laura Romero, Armando Garcia and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.

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