Trump to deliver rare speech at Justice Department today amid turmoil over firings and case dismissals: Live updates

The Fox News host has once more been bemoaning cuts made by Elon Musk’s outfit now that they affect him personally, having previously been an enthusiastic cheerleader.

“I just saw some news that Trump took some grants away from Johns Hopkins where my sister works and now my mom is upset,” Watters complained on his show last night.

“She’s texting me. It’s going to be a whole family thing, so we’re going to have to deal with that over the weekend.”

If you missed the president’s Truth Social post a little earlier he championed his team’s opening discussions in Moscow over a prospective ceasefire in the war and and claimed that he asked the Russian leader to order his troops not to commit a massacre of Ukrainian soldiers who they are attempting to dislodge from the Kursk region after months of occupation by Kyiv’s forces.

Here’s Andrew Feinberg’s report.

Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has arrived for his job interview with the Senate Finance Committee.

Howard Lutnick has rejected recent projections that the American economy is contracting and perhaps heading for a recession, telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that the forecasts were “ridiculous” while reassuring her that everything is “awesome” right now.

“It’s not that bad!” Lutnick exclaimed, adding that nobody is feeling any “deep pain” at the moment.

With the stock market in freefall and entering correction territory over Trump’s chaotic and scattershot trade war, the president’s allies have begun to focus their ire on Lutnick as polls show Americans are increasingly rejecting the administration’s economic agenda.

Justin Baragona has more.

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is reportedly in talks to have the Trump family buy a stake in his firm and have the White House offer him a pardon related to a 2023 money-laundering case against his company.

Josh Marcus has this one too.

The defense secretary is reportedly planning an overhaul for the military’s lawyers to relax the rules of combat engagement and change how charges are brought against service members.

Hegseth wants sweeping changes among the judge advocate general’s corps, pushing for more aggressive battlefield actions and more leniency against soldiers accused of offenses, which could include war crimes.

Dr Mehmet Oz “significantly underpaid” his taxes for some of the programs he intends to oversee, Democrats claimed ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing on Friday.

The TV doctor has been nominated by the president to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and is expected to be grilled by Democrats during the hearing over his significant wealth and dubious past medical advice.

A memo from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee reportedly claims that Oz, 64, underpaid Medicare and Social Security taxes in 2022 and 2023.

Here’s more from Rhian Lubin.

The latest from the president on social media finds him thanking the top Senate Democrat for his pragmatism, saying the failure of the Republicans’ spending bill would have been a “Country destroyer.”

This is what AOC thinks about Schumer’s decision, for contrast:

Trump has also been talking up the Russia-Ukraine peace talks while stressing what’s at stake for Ukrainians troops in an attempt to exert pressure on Vladimir Putin.

Here’s one for all you irony fans out there.

The U.S. is asking Denmark to export more eggs to help it tackle an ongoing shortage caused by avian flu, which has caused prices to nearly double in the year to January and soar beyond $8 a dozen by late February.

But the timing of the request is mighty awkward, given the president’s repeated threats to annex Greenland, which is, after all, a Danish territory.

New York City’s 5th Avenue turned into a short-lived scene of chaos on Thursday when protesters “occupied” the president’s infamous skyscraper, Kelly Rissman writes.