Trump supports higher taxes for the rich, but says GOP ‘should probably not do it’ in bill
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump offered some mixed messaging as Republicans put the final touches on their tax proposal, saying Friday that he would support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to help pay for his sweeping legislative agenda while adding in the same breath his belief that Republicans “should probably not do it.”
“The problem with even a ‘TINY’ tax increase for the RICH, which I and all others would graciously accept in order to help the lower and middle income workers, is that the Radical Left Democrat Lunatics would go around screaming, ‘Read my lips,’ the fabled Quote by George Bush the Elder that is said to have cost him the Election. NO, Ross Perot cost him the Election! In any event, Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Trump’s position on raising taxes for the rich “very honorable” during Friday’s White House press briefing.
“The president himself has said he wouldn’t mind paying a little bit more to help the poor and the middle class and the working class in this country,” Leavitt said. “These negotiations are ongoing on Capitol Hill and the president will weigh in when he feels necessary.”
The ambiguous presidential declaration has thrown negotiators into a frantic scramble — with the House Ways and Means committee expected to mark up their legislation next week.
The inclusion of a tax hike in the “big, beautiful bill” would be a major reversal for House GOP leaders, who have argued that allowing the current tax rates to expire would amount to a tax increase.
“I’m not in favor of raising the tax rates because that’s — our party is the group that stands against that, traditionally,” Speaker Mike Johnson said in an interview on Fox News in late April.
During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 1992, incumbent President George H.W. Bush uttered the infamous line, “read my lips: no new taxes.” Voters ultimately rejected Bush at the ballot box after he broke his vow and signed legislation crafted by congressional Democrats that increased tax revenues to address the growing budget deficit.
(WASHINGTON) — Two law firms — Jenner and Block and WilmerHale — filed suit against the Trump administration on Friday to block executive orders signed by President Donald Trump last week that targeted their attorneys’ security clearances and bring to a halt any interactions they may have with the federal government.
“The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” Jenner and Block said Friday in its lawsuit. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”
Jenner and Block and WilmerHale are the latest firms seeking to counter what has been a rapid onslaught by the White House seeking to target individual firms that have hired or otherwise represented Trump’s political enemies.
“The President’s sweeping attack on WilmerHale (and other firms) is unprecedented and unconstitutional,” the lawsuit said. “The First Amendment protects the rights of WilmerHale, its employees, and its clients to speak freely, petition the courts and other government institutions, and associate with the counsel of their choice without facing retaliation and discrimination by federal officials.”
The firms’ legal challenges against what they have described as blatantly “unconstitutional” executive orders come on the heels of successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie, which earlier this month secured a court order blocking similar executive action signed by Trump.
The lawsuits, filed in federal court in D.C. on Friday, accuse Trump of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms who have represented plaintiffs currently suing the administration, or who have represented or at one point employed those he dislikes.
“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the Jenner and Block suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”
Both lawsuits were initially assigned Friday to D.C. District judge Beryl Howell, who previously enjoined the Trump administration from enforcing its executive order against the law firm Perkins Coie — and described it as very likely unconstitutional. But on Friday afternoon, Howell ordered them to be randomly reassigned to a different judge — noting they raise separate factual and legal questions than the Perkins Coie case.
Earlier this week, Howell rejected an effort from the Trump administration to have her removed from overseeing the Perkins Coie lawsuit after they argued she showed clear bias against Trump.
(WASHINGTON) — Several U.S. Agency for International Development staffers cleared out their offices at the agency’s Washington headquarters on Thursday, saying they were disheartened after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency laid them off or placed them on leave.
“The more I talk about it, the more I want to cry,” said Amanda, who worked in science and technology at USAID and did not want to share her last name out of fear of retribution, as she waited to enter the building to get her things. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Many staffers said they received an email late Sunday informing them they were placed on administrative leave and were later assigned 15-minute windows to enter the building and gather their belongings. Worldwide, 4,080 USAID workers were placed on leave on Monday, and there was a “reduction in force” of an additional 1,600 workers, a State Department spokesman told the Associated Press.
Those picking up their belongings on Thursday were cheered on by hundreds of friends, family and supporters outside as they exited the building with bankers boxes, reusable bags and suitcases.
“It feels profoundly disrespectful to workers, to people who are dedicating themselves to making things better globally, making things better elsewhere so that they don’t come here, so the problems don’t come here,” Melissa, who also did not share her last name, said of the short time they were allotted.
She previously worked on democracy programs in Ukraine and anti-corruption efforts.
“I mean and we’re all people, right,” she added. “We have kids to take care of, we have parents to take [care] of who are aging and we’re all struggling with that as well.”
Caitlin Harwood, a mother of a 4-year-old girl and a 9-month-old, said she is “worried” about her next paycheck and is unsure what is next for her.
A country desk officer with USAID for Mozambique, she told ABC News that while she believes the government could be made more efficient, she takes issue with the way Musk’s team has done it.
“I think there’s a way to go about that. I don’t think anybody would have been as terrified as they are now if they had come through and said we are going to have a program review,” Harwood said.
“So, this is not efficiency, and it’s actually costing the American people billions in dollars in wasted food, wasted medicine,” Harwood added.
Ben Thompson worked in communications prior to being laid off by USAID and said he had been under a “communications freeze” since the early days of the Trump administration.
“Powerful, evil men are targeting a lot of good people who have dedicated their lives to something bigger than themselves, which is something that somebody like Elon [Musk] can’t relate to,” Thompson told reporters. “This clearly isn’t about government waste, fraud and abuse. He’s not going through with a fine-toothed comb — he’s tearing down our institutions for fun.”
Samantha Power, the USAID administrator under former President Joe Biden, went inside the Ronald Reagan Building, which houses the agency’s headquarters, and spoke with workers Thursday morning.
“What is being done is one of the biggest blunders in American foreign policy history. It is one that generations of Americans will look back on in horror,” Power told ABC News. “But the way it’s being done, the cruelty, the savagery, the mercilessness, is an outrage, and it should, whatever you think about foreign assistance — to treat American public servants who want to do nothing more than serve their country, serve the American people, to treat them in the way they are being treated should chill and horrify all of us.”
Power said she hoped USAID workers “remember the lives you’ve touched.”
Some supporters gathered outside had traveled hours to be in Washington to cheer on workers as they exited the building.
Diana Putman told ABC News she drove 3 1/2 hours to get to Washington from Pennsylvania that morning “because I needed to be here to support my colleagues.”
Putman retired from USAID in 2022 after spending her entire decadeslong career with the agency. She followed in the footsteps of her father, who had begun working with USAID in March 1962 — just five months after it was founded.
“USAID literally is the preeminent development agency of the world, and our soft power has meant so, so much around the world for the last 60-plus years,” Putman said. “The positive face of the American people will no longer be seen around the world.”
When supporters arrived, black tape had been placed over the name of USAID on the signs outside of the Ronald Reagan Building. Kate Parsons, a worker who was laid off last week from the the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, ripped the tape off. She said she’d come out to support her colleagues.
“I don’t know who put that tape up, but I know that USAID is still here. We are still here,” Parsons told ABC News.
“Only Congress can shut down USAID — it’s a government agency. The current leadership is trying to dismantle it. They’re trying to do it so quickly and so sloppily that people don’t notice or people can’t stop it, but they haven’t fired us all yet,” Parsons added. “This fight is not done yet.”
USAID workers said they want the public to be proud of the work they did.
“We love the American people. We’re here to serve. That’s what bureaucrats are,” Harwood, the mom of two young children, said when asked about her message to the public. “We are nonpartisan. We had a mission. We were so proud to serve it. And we hope we did you proud.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to visit the Justice Department on Friday — a move that comes as he has sought to assert control over the nation’s top law-enforcement agency that brought two historic prosecutions against him, which were thwarted by his 2024 election victory.
The rare visit will mark Trump’s first time inside the walls of the Robert F. Kennedy building as president, and follows nearly a decade’s worth of conflict that have proven to be the ultimate stress test for the Justice Department’s post-Watergate norms intended to preserve independence from the White House.
The opening weeks of Trump’s presidency have been a time of unprecedented upheaval for the DOJ, as Trump’s political leadership immediately moved to reassign or oust career officials who served in senior criminal and national security roles across multiple administrations.
Dozens of prosecutors who worked on investigations stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were fired, as well as DOJ and FBI officials who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump.
An effort by the department to drop its criminal corruption case against New York Mayor Adams resulted in a dramatic standoff leading to multiple resignations by prosecutors and other top officials who described the arrangement as a clear “quid pro quo” to secure Adams’ cooperation with the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.
In remarks Thursday to reporters at the White House, Trump said his speech at DOJ would “set out” his “vision” for the department through the rest of his tenure.
“I think we have unbelievable people, and all I’m going to do is set out my vision. It’s going to be their vision, really, but it’s my ideas,” he said. “We want to have justice, and we want to have — we want to have safety in our cities as well as our communities. And we’ll be talking about immigration. We’ll be talking about a lot of things.”
Nearly every top appointee for the department previously represented Trump as a defense attorney in either an official or personal capacity, a reflection of Trump’s expectation for loyalty from a department that he has said he believes stymied his first term and was later “weaponized” against him after leaving office.
While Attorney General Pam Bondi told senators in her confirmation hearing she would “not politicize” her office, her opening weeks, critics argue, have been marked with politically-charged statements repeatedly emphasizing her loyalty to Trump.
“I’ve never seen this before, and we all adore Donald Trump and we want to protect him and fight for his agenda,” Bondi said in an interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
In another interview early this month, Bondi said she was still working to “root out” officials at the department who she said “despise Donald Trump.”
In one of her first directives following her confirmation, Bondi ordered DOJ officials to “zealously defend” the interests of the presidency, and threatened discipline or termination for any attorney who refused to sign onto legal arguments put forward by political leadership.
“When Department of Justice attorneys, for example, refuse to advance good-faith arguments by declining to appear in court or sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” the directive stated.
Trump’s visit to DOJ is his first to any government agency since taking office, though it’s not without precedent. The last visit by a sitting American president to the building was by former President Barack Obama, who attended a departure ceremony in 2015 for Eric Holder — for a retirement ceremony honoring his time as attorney general.
