Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been “diagnosed with early stage breast cancer” and has decided to start treatment immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at a ‘Shield of the Americas’ Summit on Saturday in Doral, Florida, an event that is billed by the White House as a ‘historic’ grouping of over 17 Latin American countries that are committed to cooperating with the U.S. in taking on the cartels and securing the American border following the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Trump will host heads of state from 12 nations across the Western Hemisphere, according to a White House official.
They are:
Argentinian President Javier Milei,
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira,
Chilean President-elect Jose Antonio Kast
Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles
Dominican Republic’s President Luis Rodolfo Abinader Corona
Ecuadorian President Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa Azín
El Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele Ortez
Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali
Honduran President Tito Asfura
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino Quintero
Paraguayan President Santiago Peña; and the
President of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar
“On Saturday, the point of this newfound Latin America Summit is to promote freedom, security and prosperity in our region,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing this week.
“The President will be speaking with the leaders of this country who have really formed a historic coalition to work together to address criminal, narcoterrorist gangs and cartels encounter illegal and mass migration into not only the United States but the western hemisphere, which remains a key and top priority of this President,” she added.
Trump’s relationships with some Latin American leaders have turned tense at times and his policies have drawn criticism. Some leaders criticized the U.S. raid that captured Maduro as an attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty. Trump has also been critical of Mexico’s efforts to fight drug cartels and traded barbs with the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. However, following the Jan. 3 Venezuela raid, the two leaders appeared to have patched up their differences. Trump invited Petro to the White House and the two issued complimentary statements.
The summit has shifted in prominence after Trump announced he was removing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from her post and shifting her to a new role as a special envoy for “The Shield of the Americas.”
Noem emailed DHS staff overnight on Thursday, informing them that her official final day at the department will be March 31 and writing, “In my new role, I will be able to build on the new partnerships and national security expertise I forged over my time as Secretary of Homeland Security.”
The summit also comes amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has resulted in major movements in the U.S. energy markets.
To combat the spikes in crude oil prices, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Friday on Fox that the U.S. was “drilling expeditiously here at home” and tapping into the new markets in Venezuela.
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(WASHINGTON) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is not happy with the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, multiple sources told ABC News, warning it creates an unnecessary distraction.
Bessent conveyed those concerns directly to President Donald Trump in a call on Sunday, sources said.
Sources added Bessent was not advocating for Powell or questioning the investigation when he spoke to the president, but he did make clear his concerns.
Axios was the first to report the call. The White House has not responded to a request for comment.
When ABC News reached out for comment about the Axios report, a Treasury Department spokesperson said, “There is zero daylight between Secretary Bessent and President Trump, and the ‘sources’ in this story do not speak for the Secretary.”
Powell announced the Justice Department probe in a rare video message on Sunday night. The news sparked backlash from former Federal Reserve and Treasury officials as well as current members of Congress, including several Republicans who typically support the administration’s actions.
The investigation is related to Powell’s testimony last June about the multiyear renovation of the central bank’s buildings in Washington. But Trump has made Powell a frequent target of his attacks and push to cut interest rates, and Powell said he believes the probe is politically motivated.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said Trump has “every right” to criticize Powell’s leadership but said he didn’t direct the Justice Department to investigate.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — More renderings of President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom were made available in a 31-page report submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts, which is set to meet on Thursday.
The report showed the proposed 90,000-square-foot addition in the location of the demolished East Wing from several new angles, including the view from Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Commission of Fine Arts was formed by Congress as an independent agency to weigh in on major capital-area building projects.
Thursday’s meeting, which will take place via videoconference, will feature new members recently appointed by Trump after the president dismissed all six of its members last fall.
The new members include James McCrery, the architect who previously led the ballroom project before being replaced; Roger Kimball, a critic and conservative columnist for The Spectator who has written favorably about the president; and Chamberlain Harris, a 26-year-old White House Deputy Director of Oval Office Operations who worked in the first Trump White House.
In a statement to ABC News, the White House called Harris a “loyal, trusted, and highly respected advisor to President Trump” who will be “a tremendous asset to the Commission of Fine Arts.”
“She understands the President’s vision and appreciation of the arts like very few others, and brings a unique perspective that will serve the Commission well,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in the statement.
The commission wrote on its website that “upon the completion of President Donald J. Trump’s first term, [Harris] continued her work in Florida at the Office of the 45th President, managing President Trump’s Presidential Portrait Project in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the White House Historical Association.”
The Commission of Fine Arts is one of two panels tasked with reviewing projects in Washington. The report was also submitted with the National Capital Planning Commission ahead of its March meeting.
The administration has faced legal pressure to submit the plans to both panels for review after the initial demolition of the East Wing.
The White House first announced the ballroom construction project, a longtime goal of Trump, last July.
Trump at first said the project would not interfere with the existing White House structure. But then in October, the entire East Wing was razed to make way for the ballroom, which Trump said would cost $400 million.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to stop the project. The judge in the case has expressed skepticism of the government’s arguments that the president has the power to build a ballroom with private donations and without express authorization from Congress, and said he hoped to issue a decision this month.
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