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President Donald Trump said he held a “very good conversation” with his new Canadian counterpart Mark Carney earlier Friday.
The phone call, which came 14 days after Carney was sworn in as prime minister, comes amid a darkening of relations between Washington and Ottawa over Trump’s threat of tariffs and his desire to annex Canada.
Trump revealed little contention, however, describing his call with Carney as a “very, very good talk.”
Earlier, Trump wrote on Truth Social he would meet Carney after Canada’s April 28 general election.
“He’s going through an election now, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
“We’re going to end up with a very good relationship with Canada and a lot of the other countries,” he said.
“We had a very good talk, the prime minister and myself, and I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States,” he went on.
The State Department on Friday formally notified Congress it is effectively dissolving the US Agency for International Development and moving some of its functions under the department.
The reorganization will be done by July 1, the State Department said, sounding a death knell for USAID, a multibillion-dollar agency that fought poverty and hunger around the world.
The Trump administration has accused USAID of mismanaging taxpayer dollars and funding overseas programs that aren’t in US interests. Current and former USAID employees and aid experts argue the agency, while imperfect, meets vital humanitarian needs and bolsters America’s soft power.
We have updates today on two closely watched immigration cases for university students detained by Trump administration immigration officials.
As a reminder, several foreign nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities have been arrested for alleged activities related to terrorist organizations, as President Donald Trump moves ahead with his immigration crackdown. The arrests have sparked outrage from campus protesters and rights groups who say the students are being targeted over their speech.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and Tufts University PhD student, has an initial hearing on removal proceedings set for April 7 in Louisiana, according to an amended petition filed Friday. Her attorneys have asked a federal court in Massachusetts to take jurisdiction over her case and release her on bail in the meantime.
The new court filing says that after Ozturk’s arrest by plainclothes officers in Boston on Tuesday, she was not given access to her medications or legal counsel as she was moved to a facility in southern Louisiana, where she’s currently being held.
The Turkish embassy has been trying to engage with ICE and the US State Department about Ozturk’s case.
Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian citizen and Columbia University graduate student who played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests, was in court Friday. A federal district court judge declined to immediately decide whether Khalil’s case should be heard in New Jersey.
Trump administration lawyers argue the case should be transferred to Louisiana, where Khalil is being held in an immigration detention facility, but his lawyers say that would cause undue hardship for his attorneys and family.
About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse during Khalil’s hearing to protest the Trump administration’s actions.
Democrat Josh Weil, who is facing state Sen. Randy Fine in the race for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, said he “absolutely” believes that Republicans are now taking his campaign seriously.
“We saw it in the rescinding the appointment for Elise Stefanik today. If you were scared that Randy Fine might lose this race, you’d call up Representative Stefanik and you say, ‘Hey we might have to have a talk on Wednesday.’ But when you know that you’re losing this race, you pull the trigger on Thursday before the election,” Weil told CNN’s Laura Coates on Thursday evening.
The White House earlier Thursday pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be US ambassador to the United Nations amid concerns over slim margins in the House.
CNN has reported that Republicans are bracing for a closer-than-expected result Tuesday in Florida’s deep-red 6th Congressional District. Top Republicans grew so concerned about the lackluster performance of Fine that President Donald Trump’s team and members of House GOP leadership decided to personally intervene.
Asked if he has what voters think it will take to win the special election, Weil said, “Absolutely, and I’m not running against Donald Trump or Mike Waltz. I’m running against Randy Fine.”
“13 years working in Title I schools. You know, in our public schools, we serve every child, every family, every day. And that’s what people expect from their representative,” Weil, a teacher, said.
The 6th District seat became vacant after the president tapped former Rep. Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser.
Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance have arrived in Greenland.
The Vances were greeted on the tarmac by Col. Susan Meyers and Chief Master Sgt. Holly Vaught of the Pituffik Space Base.
Vance is expected to receive briefings on Arctic security and deliver remarks to US service members on the US base, according to a spokesperson for the vice president.
“We’re going to get a briefing, of course, about, you know, what you guys do every day. And then we’re going to talk just about, as you’ve heard, we have some interest in Greenland from the Trump administration,” Vance said at the base.
“The Trump administration, the president, is really interested in Arctic security. As you all know, it’s a big issue, and it’s only going to get bigger over the coming decades,” he added.
Remember: The visit comes as President Donald Trump pushes to annex the semiautonomous Danish territory. Greenland’s leader has called the US officials’ visit “highly aggressive.”
White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Republican Sen. Mike Lee, a vocal supporter of Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland, are also set to accompany the Vances on the trip, a senior White House official told CNN earlier this week.
CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed reporting to this post. This post has been updated with more details on the Greenland trip.
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell sharply criticized the Trump administration’s Ukraine policy and pivot toward isolationism Thursday night, accusing President Donald Trump’s advisers of showing “their embarrassing naivete” in dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
McConnell, a staunch supporter of Ukraine who delivered remarks while being awarded the US-Ukraine Foundation’s highest honor, warned “some of the president’s advisers” are urging Trump to pull back from supporting the war-torn nation, and argued such a move would be a sign of “weakness.”
“This war is a reminder that what happens in one region has implications in another. That weakness in the face of one adversary would invite aggression from another even closer to home,” McConnell said. “Allies half a world away in Asia have told us the same — that Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression matters to those who live in China’s shadow,” he added.
The pointed remarks from McConnell come as Trump has spoken with Putin twice since taking office — breaking a sustained period of silence between the White House and the Kremlin — and follow the US president and vice president admonishing Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in a fiery Oval Office meeting late last month.
President Donald Trump will meet with Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa in Florida this weekend, the White House told CNN.
The two leaders are expected to meet Saturday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The Latin American leader may also join the president for golf earlier in the day, according to a White House official.
President Donald Trump said he had an “extremely productive call” with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Friday morning and that the two will be meeting after Canada’s upcoming elections.
“I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada. It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately after Canada’s upcoming Election to work on elements of Politics, Business, and all other factors, that will end up being great for both the United States of America and Canada,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
The conversation marks the first call between the US president and the prime minister since Carney became Canada’s new leader and comes amid tensions over Trump’s tariffs.
Trump’s readout of the call struck a different tone from the way he described conversations with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which the president had called “partially cordial” and “somewhat friendly.” Trump also often referred to Trudeau as “governor” as part of his messaging about making Canada the 51st state.
But Carney has been vocal about deteriorating US-Canadian relations amid an ongoing trade war. Earlier this week, he warned that Canada will have to “dramatically reduce” its reliance on the US, saying the old bilateral relationship was “over.”
President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to wade into the fraught legal battle over enforcing the Alien Enemies Act, the 18th-century wartime authority he used to rapidly deport alleged members of a Venezuelan gang.
The emergency appeal, which asks the justices to overturn an order from US District Judge James Boasberg blocking more deportations under the act, further thrusts the Supreme Court into Trump’s whirlwind.
It is perhaps the most significant matter now pending on the court’s docket dealing with the president’s second term, and it sits at the center of an explosive confrontation between the White House and judiciary.
Americans remain uneasy about the economy, with President Donald Trump set to announce a sweeping spate of tariffs in just a few days.
Consumer sentiment tanked 12% this month, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday. That was a slightly steeper decline than the one reported in a preliminary reading earlier this month. Respondents blamed Trump’s erratic trade war for their jitters, the survey said.
“Consumers continue to worry about the potential for pain amid ongoing economic policy developments,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a release. “Notably, two-thirds of consumers expect unemployment to rise in the year ahead, the highest reading since 2009.”
On Wednesday, Trump is set to announce duties that match the ones foreign countries impose on the United States, so-called reciprocal tariffs, which he has referred to as “the big one.” Trump this week already escalated his trade war by announcing 25% tariffs on all car imports, taking effect on April 3. So far, Trump has slapped tariffs on metals and doubled duties on China to 20%.
President Donald Trump plans to speak with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday morning amid a historic rupture in US-Canada ties, according to a person familiar.
Their call comes 14 days after Carney was sworn in, well longer than it would typically take a US president to speak by phone with his new counterpart to the north.
On Thursday, Carney said the old US-Canada relationship was “over” and that Canadians must rethink their economy in the face of Trump’s tariffs.
Current and former US officials have told CNN they believe two texts sent by national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the now-infamous group chat involving senior US officials discussing battle plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, may have done long-term damage to the US’s ability to gather intelligence on the Iran-backed group going forward.
Although messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth detailing the sequencing, timing and weapons to be used in a March attack on the Houthis have drawn the most scrutiny because they could have endangered US servicemembers if revealed, the messages from Waltz and Ratcliffe, in the chat Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was added to, contained equally sensitive information, these sources said.
In one of the messages, Ratcliffe told other Cabinet members who were discussing whether to delay the strikes that the CIA was in the act of mobilizing assets to collect intelligence on the group, but that a delay might offer them the opportunity to “identify better starting points for coverage on Houthi leadership.”
That text, according to the current and former officials, exposed the mere fact that the US is gathering intelligence on them — bad in and of itself — but also hinted at how the agency is doing it. The language about “starting points,” these people said, suggests clearly that the CIA is using technical means like overhead surveillance to spy on their leadership. That could allow the Houthis to change their practices to better protect themselves.
Then, in a later message, Waltz offered an extremely specific after-action report of the strikes, telling the thread that the military had “positive ID” of a particular senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — offering the Houthis a clear opportunity to see who the US was surveilling and potentially figure out how, thus enabling them to avoid that surveillance in the future, the sources said.
Read more on what the US officials said here.
Only days after second lady Usha Vance’s trip to Greenland was announced, a visit to see the dogs and mushers is out.
Instead, she will visit a US military installation miles away from any civilian population center – with her husband, Vice President JD Vance, tagging along and expected to take aim at the island’s Danish government, according to a senior White House official.
The Vances, who departed Washington early Friday aboard Air Force Two and were planning to return home the same day, will visit the US Space Force outpost at Pituffik, on the northwest coast of Greenland 1,000 miles from the capital of Nuuk, forgoing Usha Vance’s original plans and any semblance of a cultural exchange.
What the White House initially characterized as a visit by the second lady to learn more about the culture of the island, which President Donald Trump openly talks about annexing, quickly became contentious – with the leader of the semiautonomous Danish territory Múte Egede describing it as “highly aggressive.”
As JD Vance watched the outrage over his wife’s trip grow, he decided to join her, the senior White House official told CNN.
Read more about the Greenland trip here.
Elon Musk announced early Friday morning that he would travel to Wisconsin this weekend to campaign for the state’s blockbuster Supreme Court race, escalating his involvement after he and his allies have spent more than $20 million on the contest.
“On Sunday night, I will give a talk in Wisconsin,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform that he owns. “Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election. I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote. This is super important.”
The tech billionaire has assumed a key role in the race, which is set to decide ideological control of the battleground state high court on April 1 and serve as a referendum on the opening sprint of the second Trump administration.
The super PAC that Musk formed to support President Donald Trump in 2024 has disclosed more than $12 million in spending on messaging and field operations so far – and this week ramped up its activity with the million-dollar giveaways referenced in Musk’s post, reprising a controversial tactic that the group used in the run-up to the 2024 election to collect voter data and boost turnout.
Musk has also personally contributed $3 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party for the contest, while another group with links to the DOGE leader has spent more than $7 million on waves of sharp attack ads targeting the liberal candidate in the race.
The call centers that America’s military veterans rely on to schedule appointments and arrange medical care may no longer have a live voice on the other end of the line because the agents who handle the calls are set to be laid off, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans for cutbacks at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The agency is expected to move to automation, reducing the need for live agents.
President Donald Trump ordered mass layoffs across the federal government in February, telling agency heads in an executive action to submit their proposals to the Office of Management and Budget. While many of those agency proposals remain under wraps, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins acknowledged in an interview with Fox News earlier this month that laying off 80,000 VA employees was “a goal, our target.”
Such a reduction would represent nearly 20% of the VA’s workforce. About 2,400 employees at the department have already been fired.
The layoff plan at the VA would also affect medical and health care support staff, administrative roles including HR personnel, and regional and central office staff including those in strategic planning and procurement, according to sources in the agency and on Capitol Hill. The VA also is working with the Department of Government Efficiency to cut costs and identify contracts to cancel.
“This is heartless and dangerous,” said a Democratic congressional staffer who had been briefed by multiple VA officials about the layoff plan at the call centers.
Read more on the slashing of VA call centers here.
The Justice Department’s decision to invoke the rarely used state secrets privilege in a bid to avoid giving a federal judge details on two deportation flights has opened a complicated new front in the government’s ongoing resistance to turning over the information.
The department’s invocation of the privilege earlier this week is the latest dramatic turn in the legal saga over President’s Donald Trump’s contested use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to quickly deport migrants the US has accused of being affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
It comes as US District Judge James Boasberg, who is overseeing a challenge to the legality of Trump’s use of the sweeping wartime authority, moves closer to deciding whether the government violated his command to immediately halt deportation flights carrying some of the alleged gang members when it allowed two such planes to continue earlier this month.
But the administration has repeatedly stymied the judge’s fact-finding efforts, with the state secrets invocation representing its most audacious move yet to avoid giving Boasberg any more information.
“This is a bolder assertion than what the Executive Branch normally takes,” said Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who has litigated state secrets privilege cases and whose security clearance was recently pulled by Trump. “I see this as an effort to use the privilege as a shield instead of a sword, because they have run out of options.”
Read more about the state secrets privilege.
