Live updates: Mayors testify in Congress as Republicans take aim at “sanctuary cities” – The Associated Press

Mayor Brandon Johnson says immigrants help prevent and solve crimes, and that threatening to deport them makes American cities more dangerous.

“Scapegoating entire communities is not only misleading, it is unjust and beneath us,” the first-term Democrat said.

The city’s immigrant protections are decades old, said Johnson, adding that he’s the mayor of all people in Chicago, whether they have legal status or not. Chicago has spent more than $600 million on migrant services and shelter.

More than 50,000 asylum seekers were sent on buses and planes to the nation’s fourth-largest city, many by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Pete Marocco, the Trump political appointee overseeing dismantling of USAID, told a closed-door meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday that he would review the court’s ruling reinstating an order to release frozen foreign aid.

That’s according to Committee Chairman Brian Mast. Committee members noted that Marocco did not directly answer when asked by Democrats if he would obey the high court and unfreeze the funding.

Trump called the spending wasteful and out of line with his foreign policy goals.

In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that he’s stunned that the ruling “imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”

▶ Read more about the Supreme Court’s ruling on USAID funding

Musk is headed to Capitol Hill to meet privately with Republicans among growing questions about his government-slashing DOGE effort.

The billionaire Trump aide planned a private huddle with Senate Republicans at lunch and a separate meeting with House GOP lawmakers.

The blowback from constituents to government cuts has prompted Speaker Mike Johnson to advise Republicans to skip holding town hall meetings where they are being confronted by protesters.

Two hours into the hearing, Democratic lawmakers grilled Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, over his cooperation with Trump’s immigration officials and the subsequent dropping of corruption charges against him.

“Are you selling out New Yorkers to save yourself from prosecution?” asked Rep. Robert Garcia, of California.

Using a giant printout of a document, Garcia pointed out that a prosecutor resigned rather than dropping the charges.

“There’s no deal, no quid pro quo. And I did nothing wrong,” Adams said.

Republican Rep. James Comer went out of his way to thank Mayor Eric Adams for embracing the idea of working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the few compliments doled out by Republican lawmakers at the hearing.

Unlike the other panelists, Adams has flown to Florida to meet with Trump, praised him publicly and appeared jointly with his federal immigration officials.

Adams’ critics say the collaboration is part of an effort to wriggle out of federal corruption charges. But even before Trump was elected, Adams called on city lawmakers to allow the NYPD to collaborate even more with ICE.

Ten Chinese hackers have been charged alongside two Chinese law enforcement officers in a global hacking campaign that targeted dissidents, news organizations and U.S. agencies, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

The hacking by workers of I-Soon was done in some cases at the direction of China’s Ministry of Public Security, which received the stolen information and selected targets for the intrusions as part of what U.S. officials say was a massive intelligence-gathering operation.

Among the targets of the hacking was the U.S. Treasury Department, which disclosed a breach by Chinese actors late last year.

I-Soon is part of a sprawling industry in China, documented in an Associated Press investigation last year, of private hacking contractors are companies that steal data from other countries to sell to the Chinese authorities.

▶ Read more about the cyberespionage campaign

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning an “aggressive” reorganization to cut staff across the sprawling agency that provides health care for retired military, according to internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top agency officials that it’s objective is to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000, before the VA expanded to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said “It’s a shameful betrayal, and veterans will pay the price for their unforgivable corruption, incompetence, and immorality.”

Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.

▶ Read more about planned cuts at the Veterans Administration

The U.S. sanctioned seven Houthi militants on Wednesday for allegedly procuring weapons from Russia and smuggling military-grade weapons into areas they control in Yemen.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control also sanctioned on a Houthi-affiliated operative and his firm accused of recruiting Yemeni civilians to fight on behalf of Russia in Ukraine.

“Houthi leaders have shown their intent to continue their reckless and destabilizing actions in the Red Sea region,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a news release. “The United States will use all available tools to disrupt the Houthis’ terrorist activities and degrade their ability to threaten U.S. personnel, our regional partners, and global maritime trade.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ open letter Wednesday urges the state’s Republican congressional delegation “to do more than offer vague concern” and to stand up to “reckless, chaotic decisions and disastrous cuts to our federal programs and workforce.”

The Democratic governor also called on the state’s six GOP House members and one Republican senator to reject cuts to Medicaid and other federal assistance programs, which he said “would almost certainly blow a devastating hole in our state budget.”

Evers’ state budget plan would hold $500 million in reserve to deal with potential federal cuts, but he said that may not be enough.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said that crime is down in his city as well, and noted that a Haitian immigrant, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, is recognized as a founding settler.

“Chicago is and always has been a proud city of immigrants. Generations of new arrivals, including the descendants of the enslaved during the Great Migration, created a vibrant city where 1 in 5 residents is foreign born,” Johnson said.

“Last year, Boston saw the fewest homicides on record in the last 70 years,” Michelle Wu told the committee, citing a figure backed up by local reporting that mirrors trends across U.S. cities.

“This federal administration is making hard-working taxpaying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” said Wu, a self-described “daughter of immigrants” and Roman Catholic who testified with an ash cross on her forehead in acknowledgement of Ash Wednesday.

Mayor Mike Johnston said Texas forced the city to provide for busloads of immigrants.

“The question Denver faced was, what will you do with a mom and two kids dropped on the streets of our city with no warm clothes, no food, and no place to stay?” Johnston said.

He also noted how Colorado police officer Julian Becerra, a Mexican immigrant, died pursuing a carjacking suspect. “If we want to tell the story of what impact immigrants have in America, we must tell the full story,” Johnston said.

They’re challenging the idea that such policies mean they’re protecting criminals.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, said “If an undocumented individual witnesses a crime but is afraid to call 911 for fear of being turned over to federal authorities, criminals will roam free.”

Adams described first-hand experience with this dilemma — he and other officers caught the suspect of a crime, but the witness was was “an undocumented man from China” who wouldn’t file a police report because he feared putting “a target on his back with federal immigration authorities.”

Trump suggested that eliminating persistent U.S. trade deficits is the goal of the 20% tariffs he’s imposed on imports from China.

Beijing immediately responded with 15% tariffs on U.S. farm exports and more export controls on U.S. companies.

“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” China’s embassy posted on X on Tuesday night.

In response Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” that “those who long for peace must prepare for war.”

▶ Read more on the brewing US-China trade war

“Canada wants the tariffs removed,” Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not willing to lift Canada’s retaliatory tariffs if Trump leaves any tariffs on Canada, a senior government official told The Associated Press. The official confirmed the stance on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Trudeau said Tuesday that Canada will reluctantly respond by plastering tariffs on over $100 billion (U.S. dollars) of American goods over the course of 21 days.

Trudeau spoke during a fiery news conference, saying Trump is launching a trade war against the closest friend of the U.S. while “appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”

▶ Read more on US-Canada reaction to tariffs war

Protesters shouted condemnations of Trump’s leadership of USAID Wednesday outside a Capitol briefing on the agency’s shutdown.

Deputy USAID head Pete Marocco was giving a closed-door briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on cuts eliminating thousands of U.S. foreign assistance programs and dismantling the agency.

“Marocco has blood on his hands! Unfreeze aid now!” the roughly 20 protesters yelled, sitting cross-legged in front of the room doors. Capitol police carried them away one by one.

Marocco and ally Elon Musk have presided over Trump’s foreign assistance funding freeze, terminating 90% of USAID programs and taking all but a fraction of agency workers off the job through firings and forced leaves.

The list of more than 440 federal properties to close or sell initially included the FBI headquarters and the main Department of Justice building. The General Services Administration deemed them “not core to government operations.”

Hours later on Tuesday, the administration issued a revised list with only 320 entries — none in Washington, D.C. The GSA didn’t immediately respond to questions about the change.

In a follow-up meeting, GSA regional managers were told their goal is to terminate as many as 300 leases per day, according to an employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The canceled office leases raise questions about services provided from these offices. The properties include federal courthouses and Internal Revenue Service centers in West Virginia, Utah, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Massachusetts and New York.

▶ Read more about the closure of federal buildings

Latino leaders said Trump’s address to Congress prioritized division instead.

Trump had the opportunity to address the nation’s economic challenges but decided instead to emphasize policies that make life more difficult for working families, said a statement by Voto Latino.

And UnidosUS president Janet Murguía said Trump repeated campaign rhetoric and blamed the previous administration instead of focusing on what is being done to help working class Americans.

“The focus of the Latino community continues to be the economy and inflation, and we heard very little,” Murguía said.

Eric Adams stressed the importance of separation of powers ahead of an expected grilling by House Republicans. He said city lawmakers limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs and Enforcement but allow collaboration on serious criminal matters.

“The law is very clear in New York City that we are not allowed to collaborate with federal authorities — with ICE — on civil enforcement. That is the law. But I also want to share with the congressional leadership here how we collaborate every day with our federal partners at going after those who are dangerous in our city,” Adams told reporters.

Some veterans speaking to The Associated Press are in favor of Trump’s proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, while others are strongly opposed.

Stephen Watson is a former Marine who lives in Jesup, Georgia — he says everyone, including veterans, needs to share in the sacrifice to bring the nation’s spending under control.

But former Marine Gregg Bafundo, of Tonasket, Washington, disagrees — he says Trump’s cuts are only about “hurting people and breaking things.”

The Republican administration’s plans to cut $2 billion in VA contracts are currently on pause over concerns that critical health services for veterans would be harmed.

▶ Read more on proposed cuts to Veterans Affairs

Carveouts could be coming to Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said. That would be a softening of the U.S. position after Tuesday’s tax hike hurt the stock market, worried consumers and started a trade war.

Lutnick told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday that Trump would announce an update to his tariff plans on Wednesday afternoon, possibly sparing sectors such as autos from the import taxes.

“There are going to be tariffs, let’s be clear,” Lutnick said. “But what he’s thinking about is which sections of the market that can maybe — maybe — he’ll consider giving them relief until we get to, of course, April 2.”
That’s the date when Trump said he would impose broad “reciprocal” tariffs to match other countries’ tax rates and subsidies.

▶ Read more about Trump’s fast-changing tariff policies

Mayor Michelle Wu just gave birth in January and now her baby daughter has come to Congress.

Wu is going to be subject to questioning by Republicans over the city’s policies limiting cooperation with immigration enforcement.

She appeared in the committee hearing room with her baby daughter — Mira, wearing a pink onesie — in her arms.

The baby is Wu’s third. The mayor returned to work just a few weeks after giving birth.

Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois is among the representatives speaking out at a news conference ahead of the hearing where Republicans are expected to grill four Democratic mayors.

Ramirez spoke of the economic contributions of immigrants in Illinois and Chicago. And she said it would be illegal to withhold federal funds from cities that limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement.

“Our communities will not be bullied into compliance with their illegal unconstitutional authoritarian agenda,” she said.

▶ Read more on Congress examining ‘sanctuary cities’

The president and his wife, Melania, offered best wishes to Roman Catholics and Christians observing Lent, which began with Ash Wednesday.

Christians worldwide spend the next 40 days praying and fasting. On Wednesday, they wear crosses of ash on their foreheads as a reminder of their mortality.

“We offer you our best wishes for a prayerful and enriching Lenten season,” the Trumps wrote.

Trump told Religion News Service in 2020 that he considers himself to be a nondenominational Christian and no longer identifies as Presbyterian.

In a New York Post op-ed published Tuesday night, New York Mayor Eric Adams said the nation’s most populous city does and will comply with federal immigration laws, and denied that “sanctuary” policies make it a haven for violent criminals.

Immigrants who are in the country illegally, yet are otherwise are law-abiding pay taxes and do needed work, the Democrat noted.

New York City will suffer if these people stay in the shadows for fear of being deported, he said.

“I cannot have a city where parents are afraid to send their children to school,” or where immigrants won’t report crimes and delay seeking medical care until they end up in emergency rooms, he wrote.

Mayors from Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York are preparing to testify about their so-called sanctuary cities before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Wednesday’s hearings come hours after Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, focusing often on immigration and people living illegally in the U.S.
“We are getting them out and getting them out fast,” Trump said.

▶ Read more on Congress examining ‘sanctuary cities’

The French government spokesperson said Wednesday that Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could travel together with Ukraine’s leader.

“It is envisaged that President Macron could eventually travel again to Washington with President Zelenskyy and his British counterpart,” spokesperson Sophie Primas told reporters. She did not elaborate. No trip is being planned yet, Macron’s office later said.

Macron plans a televised address to his nation Wednesday about what he called the “great uncertainty” in global affairs.

The U.S. has paused its sharing of intelligence with Ukraine following Trump’s decision to withhold military aid for the Ukrainian defense against Russian invaders.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said Wednesday that the U.S. has “taken a step back” in its relationship with Ukraine. CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the suspension a “pause” and that American intelligence and military aid could begin flowing again soon once Trump knows that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is serious about peace.

▶ Read more on Russia’s war in Ukraine

Greenland’s prime minister says “Greenland is ours” and cannot be taken or bought, in defiance of the claim by President Donald Trump that the United States will acquire the territory “one way or another.”

Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede said the island’s citizens are not American nor Danish because they are Greenlandic.

The United States needs to understand that, he wrote in a Facebook post in Greenlandic and Danish on Wednesday, adding that Greenland’s future will be decided by its people. His post came hours after Trump made a direct appeal to Greenlanders in his speech to Congress.

▶ Read more about Greenland’s reaction to Trump

A Minnesota farmer worries about the price of fertilizer. A San Diego entrepreneur deals with an unexpected cost increase of remodeling a restaurant. A Midwestern sheet metal fabricator bemoans the prospect of higher aluminum prices.

Businesses knew that Trump’s import taxes — tariffs — on America’s biggest trading partners were scheduled to take effect Tuesday. But many of them assumed they’d get a reprieve. After all, the unpredictable president had delayed the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days right before they were originally supposed to kick in on Feb. 4.

No such luck this time.

The longer the tariffs stick, the more damage they can do, forcing companies to decide between eating higher costs and passing them along to inflation-weary consumers.

▶ Read more about the impact of tariffs

Futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq ticked up slightly in premarket trading Wednesday as Trump’s imposition tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China roil global markets.
But these moves are far from recouping the losses that have erased all the gains made since Election Day.
Three major U.S. banks were among Tuesday’s biggest losers, but shares in Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Bank of America are rising now that the Trump administration has dropped the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s lawsuit charging them with failing to protect consumers from fraud via Zelle.

▶ Read more about stock market reactions to Trump administration moves

First-term Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin accused Trump of driving up costs while pushing for an “unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends” in Tuesday night’s Democratic response to his first joint congressional address of his second term.

Slotkin, just months into her first term in the U.S. Senate after winning an open Michigan seat despite Trump carrying the state, said Trump “has not laid out a credible plan” to address rising everyday expenses for Americans. She said tariffs that went into effect early Tuesday would only worsen the economy.

Slotkin spoke from Wyandotte, Michigan, a working-class community south of Detroit, after Trump delivered the longest address to Congress by a president in U.S. history. In her opening, Slotkin acknowledged that “America wants change. But there is a responsible way to make change, and a reckless way.”

In her rebuttal, which lasted a little more than 10 minutes, Slotkin told Americans that “change doesn’t need to be chaotic or make us less safe” and warned of the dangers of Trump’s economic approach.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz says he spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday and that they are discussing dates and locations for opening negotiations over ending the war with Russia.

Trump sees the deal as a precursor to getting Russia and Ukraine to start negotiating over ending the war. Trump paused aid to Ukraine after a blowup with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week.

Waltz, appearing on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, said Trump “will take a hard look” at lifting the pause “if we can nail down these negotiations.”

This item has been corrected to show Walz’s comments focused on peace negotiations, not the minerals deal.

The president has long viewed the stock market as a lodestar. But he ignored Wall Street losses that wiped out gains since the November election during his joint address.

The stock market has been tumbling as Trump enacts tariffs on Canada and Mexico, critical trading partners that have been retaliating with their own levies. The dispute threatens to increase costs for American consumers even as the president promises to bring down prices.

Trump showed no interest in backing off, describing tariffs as integral to his political agenda.

“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening and it will happen rather quickly. There will be a little disturbance, but we’re ok with that.”

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said she plans to announce retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. on Sunday.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier on Tuesday diagnosed Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports as simply “a very dumb thing to do.”

Trump lavished praise on Elon Musk, the billionaire who he has tasked with overhauling the federal government and work force. Democrats tried to verbally fact check the president by shouting “false” at some of his assertions of success.

Musk, seated in the gallery above, stood when Republicans applauded him. Democrats held signs that said “Musk steals.”

The president said that Musk has found “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud,” vastly overstating his team’s accomplishments. For example, many canceled contracts were already fully paid, meaning the government received no savings.

He was dressed more formally than usual, wearing a dark suit with a blue tie rather than a black t-shirt that says “tech support.”

Musk has vast influence as a presidential adviser, leading Trump’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government. Thousands of workers have been laid off, with many more expected to follow.

Trump has been unsparing in his criticism of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

But towards the end of his address to Congress Tuesday, Trump read from a letter from Zelenskyy he had received earlier in the day.

“The letter reads Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” Trump said. “Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians … My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

It remains to be seen if the letter will mark a detente in the long-complicated Trump-Zelenskyy relationship.

Late last week, Trump and Vice President JD Vance used an Oval Office meeting to rip Zelenskyy for being insufficiently grateful for the billions of dollars in U.S. aid poured into Ukraine. Trump then abruptly ended the White House meeting where the deal —designed to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s deposits of titanium, lithium, manganese and more — was supposed to be signed.

On Monday, Trump ordered a “pause” in U.S. assistance to Ukraine as he looked to dial up the pressure on Zelenskyy to engage in negotiations to end the war with Russia.

A president’s speech to Congress — even without the formal gloss of a State of the Union address — is typically a time for a call to national unity and predictable claims about the country being strong.

But that wasn’t President Donald Trump’s plan. His speech on Tuesday night was relentlessly partisan, boasting about his election victory and criticizing Democrats for failing to recognize his accomplishments.

The hard edge reflected Trump’s steamroller approach to his second term, brushing aside opposition and demanding loyalty throughout the federal government.

Trump set a tone of division almost from his first words, calling his predecessor Joe Biden the worst president in history and chiding Democrats as so stinting in their praise of him they would not even grant him perfunctory applause.

He also gave voice to the frustration of many Americans over rising costs of groceries — particularly the skyrocketing cost of eggs, but blamed Biden instead of the bird flu.

▶ Read more of the takeaways from Trump’s address to Congress