Trump met with national security team in Situation Room amid Israel-Iran strikes
Michelle Farsi/Zuffa LLC
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump met with advisers in the Situation Room on Tuesday afternoon, a White House official confirmed, as Israel and Iran continue to trade strikes.
The meeting came some nine hours after Trump arrived back at the White House after abruptly leaving the G7 summit in Canada early, citing tensions in the Middle East and instructing his national security team on Monday night to be ready in the Situation Room upon his arrival. Pool reporters received word that the meeting was taking place just after 2:20 p.m. ET, though the exact start time was unclear.
A White House official confirmed that he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the day.
But early on Tuesday, he denied having had contact with leaders in Iran, saying he hadn’t reached out about a potential ceasefire and that he was “not too much in the mood” to negotiate with Iran.
“I’ve been negotiating. I told them to do the deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “They should have done the deal. The cities have been blown to pieces, lost a lot of people. They should have done the deal. I told them do the deal, so I don’t know. I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”
He appeared to dismiss a recent assessment from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had said in March that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon. Trump said on Tuesday he thought Iran was “very close” to having such a weapon.
Trump in a post on his Truth Social network also said that he hadn’t reached out to Iran “in any way, shape or form,” calling reports that he had done so “fabricated.”
“If they want to talk, they know how to reach me,” Trump said in a social media post early on Tuesday. “They should have taken the deal that was on the table — Would have save a lot of lives!!!”
Israel on Friday began an attack on Iran, launching a series of aerial strikes that Israeli officials described as a preemptive strike. Israeli leaders and Trump have separately called for Tehran to put an end to efforts to create nuclear weapons.
Diplomats from the United States and Iran held a series of talks in Muscat, Oman, beginning in April, with the sixth round due to begin last Sunday. Those talks were cancelled as the conflict between Israel and Iran began.
Trump was asked on Tuesday about Gabbard’s testimony in March before the Senate Intelligence Committee, where she said Iran was not building a nuclear weapon.
When pressed about Gabbard’s comments, Trump dismissed them.
“I don’t care what she said, I think they were very close to having one,” Trump said.
Trump has not ruled out American participation in the conflict, although the U.S. has remained on the sidelines so far. Trump has issued, however, a stern warning to Iran on Tuesday over U.S. troops and assets in the region, instructing Tehran “not to touch our troops.”
“We’ll come down so hard if they do anything to our people,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Maiker Escalona and his family were separated after entering the U.S. in 2024. (Raida)
(WASHINGTON) — After being in a detention center for several months in Texas, Yorely Bernal Inciarte got the news she had been praying for: She was going to be deported back to her home country.
But when she boarded her deportation flight to Venezuela last week, her worst nightmare came true, she said: Her two-year old daughter was not on the flight.
“I started yelling at the officers asking where my baby was,” Inciarte told ABC News. “[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers ignored me.”
When Inciarte, her partner Maiker Espinoza Escalona and their child entered the U.S. last year and surrendered to authorities, the three were separated, Inciarte told ABC News.
Inciarte and Escalona were placed in separate detention centers in Texas and their daughter was placed in government custody, Inciarte said. She told ABC News she was able to speak with her daughter on video calls and with Escalona over the phone.
The two adults were placed in asylum proceedings but they eventually asked for a deportation order to be reunited with their child, who is not a U.S. citizen, one of their attorneys told ABC News.
But that would never happen. Escalona was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and then sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador on March 30 under Title 8 authorities, according to the family and their attorney.
“When I saw him in a video in El Salvador, I was in shock,” Inciarte said. “I couldn’t stop crying and yelling.”
Last week, Inciarte was deported to Venezuela without her daughter, a move that has outraged government officials in Venezuela. The Department of Homeland Security over the weekend labeled Inciarte and Escalona as “Tren de Aragua parents,” alleging the two are members of the Venezuelan gang.
“The child’s father, Maiker Espinoza-Escalona is a lieutenant of Tren De Aragua who oversees homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house,” DHS said in a statement over the weekend. “The child’s mother, Yorely Escarleth Bernal Inciarte oversees recruitment of young women for drug smuggling and prostitution.”
“The child remains in the care and custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and is currently placed with a foster family,” DHS added.
Inciarte, her attorney and the family deny the accusations by DHS.
“If it’s true, release the evidence,” Inciarte told ABC News. “Release the proof that we are Tren de Aragua. They took a child away from their mother and they’re telling lies about us.”
According to Inciarte, she and Escalona were never released from detention in the U.S. A DHS document obtained by ABC News shows that Inciarte entered the U.S. on May 14 and did not present a valid entry document.
Venezuelan documents provided by their family appear to show the two do not have criminal records in their home country.
When asked about the evidence the agency has on Escalona and Inciarte, DHS sent ABC News the statement posted over the weekend.
An ABC News review of county and federal records found no cases associated with Escalona. ABC News located a federal criminal case against Inciarte for improper entry into the U.S. in 2024. According to the documents, Inciarte pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served and one business day.
Over the weekend, a top official in the Venezuelan government accused the U.S. of “kidnapping” the child.
“The U.S. government is robbing Venezuelan children,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said on a radio show.
Inciarte’s family previously told ABC News they believe the couple was accused of being members of Tren de Aragua because of their tattoos.
“My daughter has a tattoo of the year I was born and the year her dad was born,” Inciarte’s mother told ABC News. “She also has the name of her son and some flowers on her chest. Maiker is a tattoo artist and he would do her tattoos.”
Marly, who is Escalona’s sister, said her brother was also a barber and traveled to the U.S. for a better life.
“My brother is a 25-year-old guy, a dreamer, like all Venezuelans,” Marly said in Spanish. “He loves cutting hair. He finished high school, he took courses in barbering and set up his barbershop in Venezuela. But things got a bit tough in Venezuela, so he emigrated to have a better life.”
The Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that has custody of the 2-year old, referred ABC News to DHS for questions about the child.
Inciarte told ABC News she does not know who to contact and what to do to get her daughter back.
“I wouldn’t wish this on any mother,” Inciarte said.
ABC News’ Jared Kofsky contributed to this report.
(L-R, Standing) Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice David H. Souter, (L-R, Seated) Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and Associate Justice John Paul/ Mark Wilson/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a lifelong public servant, judicial moderate and advocate for humanities and civics education, has died. He was 85 years old.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said of Souter: “Justice David Souter served our Court with great distinction for nearly twenty years. He brought uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service. After retiring to his beloved New Hampshire in 2009, he continued to render significant service to our branch by sitting regularly on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than a decade. He will be greatly missed.”
Souter was nominated in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, who praised him as “a remarkable judge of keen intellect and the highest ability.”
In more than 19 years on the bench, he authored notable opinions on abortion, religion and property rights.
His moderate positions surprised and disappointed many Republicans, who had hoped Souter would solidify as conservative the seat vacated by Justice William Brennan, a longtime leader of the court’s liberal wing.
Just five years after his appointment, the conservative Weekly Standard branded Souter a “stealth justice,” excoriating his position as “one of the staunchest liberals on the court.”
For many conservatives, Souter became a symbol of what future Republican presidents should avoid in a nominee.
His most controversial opinion came in 1992, jointly authored by Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy, reaffirming the right to abortion under Roe v. Wade and creating an “undue burden” standard for judging state restrictions on the procedure.
“To overrule under fire, in the absence of the most compelling reason to re-examine a watershed decision, would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question,” the three justices wrote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Souter’s defenders have long denied he was a secret liberal, emphasizing his respect for precedent and the philosophy of “originalism,” which emphasizes the historical meaning behind constitutional clauses and federal laws.
“The original meaning of conservatism was reluctance to embrace radical change,” Ernest Young, a former clerk of Souter’s and Duke law professor, told ABC News in 2009.
Souter, who was Episcopalian, was also known for advocating strict government neutrality in matters of religion and consistently opposing religious displays in public spaces.
During his confirmation hearing, he called it an “appalling fact” that Jewish children felt excluded when Christian prayers were recited in public schools.
In 2005, he authored a 5-4 decision blocking three Kentucky counties from displaying framed copies of the Ten Commandments in courthouses and public schools. He also voted against allowing organized prayers at high school graduation ceremonies and football games.
“He had no predisposed answer. He really relied on an analysis of [historical] materials to decide how he would come out in that case,” Stuart Benjamin, former clerk to Souter and Duke law professor, said in 2009.
Souter was one of four justices who strongly dissented from the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore, which ended the contested Florida ballot recount and effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush.
“To recount these manually would be a tall order, but before this Court stayed the effort to do that the courts of Florida were ready to do their best to get that job done,” Souter wrote. “There is no justification for denying the State the opportunity to try to count all disputed ballots now. I respectfully dissent.”
He was reportedly so distraught over the decision he contemplated resigning from the court, sources familiar with his thinking told Jeffrey Toobin, author of “The Nine, Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.” Some of the justice’s friends strongly rejected the notion.
In 2005, Souter joined the court’s more liberal members to expand the ability of local governments to seize private land for public use. His vote drew fierce protests and even prompted a ballot measure to seize his 200-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse as payback. It failed.
In testimony during his confirmation hearings, Souter also surprised conservatives with a robust defense of affirmative action. “There will be a need — and I am afraid for a longer time than we would like to say — a need for affirmative action which seeks out qualified people who have been discouraged by generations of societal discrimination from taking their place in the mainstream of America,” he said at the time.
Souter’s rejection of political ideology has been celebrated among his former clerks and friends.
“He was a classic frugal Yankee Republican,” former Souter clerk and Harvard law professor Rebecca Tushnet told ABC News in 2009.
“The Republican Party now has moved considerably to the right,” University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt, who clerked for Souter in 1999 and 2000, told ABC News. “He doesn’t look like a modern Republican; he’s not a modern person in a lot of ways.”
Souter rarely spoke publicly about his jurisprudence, but when he did he pointedly rejected what he considered a simplistic approach to constitutional interpretation embraced by some of his Republican-appointed peers.
“Constitutional judging is not a mere combination of fair reading and simple facts,” Souter said in a 2010 commencement address at Harvard University.
“Judges have to choose between the good things that the Constitution approves, and when they do, they have to choose, not on the basis of measurement, but of meaning,” he added, rejecting the strict textualism endorsed by conservative icons Justice Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
Retiring at just 69 years old, the never-married Souter quickly escaped Washington to return to his native New Hampshire and beloved two-centuries-old farmhouse.
To admirers, Souter brought a sense of compassion to the high court.
“He urged all judges to recognize the human aspect of their decisions, and to use all the power of their hearts and minds and beings to get their decisions right,” said Subra Suresh, former president of Carnegie Mellon University, where Souter spoke in October 2014.
Announcing Souter’s retirement in 2009, President Barack Obama hailed the justice as a “fair-minded and independent” judge who combined a “feverish work ethic” with a good sense of humor and integrity.
“He consistently defied labels and rejected absolutes, focusing instead on just one task — reaching a just result in the case that was before him,” said Obama, who later appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor to fill his seat.
“He really was someone who saw himself as someone working in Washington but not being of Washington,” Meir Feder, one of Souter’s clerks from the 1990 term, told ABC News in 2009.
For years, he had shied from the Washington social scene when the court was not in session, retreating to the White Mountain woods where he loved to hike and read by the fire. Souter famously had no television or access to email.
“Far from being out of touch with the modern world, he has simply refused to surrender to it control over aspects of his own life that give him deep contentment,” said David McKean, former CEO of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation, at a joint appearance with the retired justice in 2010.
Born in Massachusetts an only child, Souter spent most of his life in the rural town of Weare, New Hampshire. He enrolled in Harvard University as an undergraduate, studying philosophy, and later attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
He returned to Boston to complete his law degree at Harvard, where he graduated in 1966. He quickly climbed the ranks of the legal world, rising to attorney general of New Hampshire and, later, associate judge in the state’s Supreme Court.
When Souter was plucked out of New Hampshire by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, he was little known outside of the state. The U.S. Senate confirmed Souter to the Supreme Court by a vote of 90-9.
“I loved my colleagues. I liked the work that I was doing. There were days when I wished things had turned out differently, but I still loved the court and just about everybody in that building,” Souter said in 2010, during a rare public appearance at the JFK Presidential Library. “But I feel liberated to do things that I couldn’t do on that court.”
For years after leaving the high court bench, Souter continued to be a judge, hearing more than 300 cases by designation for the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston and authoring dozens of opinions.
While he stayed largely out of the limelight, Souter spoke passionately about the need to bolster the humanities and civics education across America.
“I don’t believe there is any problem in American politics or American public life which is more significant today that the pervasive civic ignorance of the Constitution of the United States and the structure of government,” Souter said in a speech at the University of New Hampshire Law School in 2012.
“Some of the aspects of current American government that people on both sides find frustrating are in part a function of the inability of people to understand how government can and should function,” he said.
Asked in 2010 to name the most important part of the U.S. Constitution, Souter singled out the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Ultimately, it is the golden rule,” he said. “Treat others the way you want to be treated with the corollary that if you don’t, you are not going to be treated that way either.”
Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Student Borrower Protection Center
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio returned to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, appearing before his former colleagues for the first time since his confirmation to defend the president’s foreign policy and the administration’s budget priorities for the year ahead.
Rather than a warm homecoming, Rubio was quickly on defense, with several Senate Democrats pressing the secretary on the State Department’s reorganization and spending cuts, as well as Middle East policy and El Salvador detentions.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., spent much of his allotted time criticizing Rubio on a number of issues, including his coziness with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and the Trump administration’s failure to “facilitate” in returning Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was erroneously deported to El Salvador, to the United States. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland at the time he was deported.
“In the case of El Salvador, absolutely, absolutely, we deported gang members, gang members — including the one you had a margarita with. And that guy is a human trafficker, and that guy is a gang banger, and that and the evidence is going to be clear,” Rubio asserted, referring to Van Hollen meeting with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador in April.
“Mr. Chairman, he can’t make unsubstantiated comments like that,” Van Hollen protested. “Secretary Rubio should take that testimony to the federal court of the United States because he hasn’t done it under oath!”
Van Hollen has said neither man drank from the glasses that he said officials put on the table during the meeting that appeared to have liquid inside with salt or sugar rims.
“No judge and the judicial branch cannot tell me or the president how to conduct foreign policy,” Rubio shot back. “No judge can tell me how I have to outreach to a foreign partner or what I need to say to them, and if I do reach that foreign partner and talk to them, I have under no obligation to share that with the judiciary branch. Diplomacy doesn’t work that way.”
“You’re just blowing smoke now,” Van Hollen said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, had to intervene in the at-times contentious conversation as Van Hollen compared Rubio’s policy on deportations and the El Salvador detentions of migrants to the “shameful era” of McCarthy-era witch hunts and the red scare, saying the administration’s “campaign of fear and repression is eating away at foundational values of our democracy.”
“Back then, it took one voice, attorney Joseph Welch, to cut through the hysteria with a simple question that marked the beginning of the end of that shameful era: ‘Have you no sense of decency?'” Van Hollen said as he concluded his line of questioning. “And I would ask you the same, Secretary Rubio. You have shown, with your words and your actions what your answer is. I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you as secretary of state.”
