Live Updates
The latest on Trump’s tariffs and Netanyahu meeting as Cabinet picks face key votes
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• Israeli leader visits White House: President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday he would like to see Palestinians relocated from Gaza, repeating a desire that has been flatly rejected by other Arab nations in the region. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “we’re going to try” when asked how how optimistic he is about reaching the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostages deal.
• Cabinet picks: Two Senate committees voted today along party lines to advance the nominations of some of Trump’s most controversial nominees: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. The nominees will next face a full vote in the Senate to be confirmed.
• Trump’s trade war: China has hit back after Trump imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese imports, announcing retaliatory duties and other economic measures targeting the US. Meanwhile, Trump paused tariffs on Mexico and Canada after the leaders of both countries made commitments to bolster security at their borders with the US.
• Departments in limbo: Trump said he wants his Education secretary to put herself “out of a job” as his administration begins taking steps to eliminate the Department of Education.
Some Head Start programs are still unable to access federal funds after the Trump administration announced the funding freeze last week.
Roughly 40 Head Start programs across about 20 states have not regained access to their funds, forcing at least two to shut down, Tommy Sheridan, deputy director of the National Head Start Association, told CNN Tuesday.
The others have been able to remain open by accessing state, local or other funds or by seeking loans or lines of credit. But at least one program told Sheridan it only has enough money to stay open the rest of this week.
The association has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, and other agencies about the issue but has yet to receive a response, Sheridan said. Head Start serves nearly 800,000 low-income children from birth to age 5 and their families.
The disruption not only hurts the programs, children and their families, it also causes problems for vendors and local communities if bill payments and purchases have to be delayed, he continued.
CNN has reached out to HHS for comment.
When asked how optimistic he is about reaching the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire and hostages deal, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We’re going to try.”
The Gaza ceasefire and hostages deal is currently in its first phase, which went into effect on January 19 and is supposed to last six weeks. A working-level Israeli delegation will head to Doha at the end of this week to discuss the “continued implementation” of the deal, Netanyahu’s office said earlier on Tuesday. A source familiar with the matter told CNN the discussions in Doha would be about phase one.
At the White House, Netanyahu said he stood by Israel’s war objectives, including the destruction of Hamas’ capabilities. He stressed that Israel would not give up on bringing all the remaining hostages back home, or on the other war aims.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked the chair, GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, to schedule another hearing with Kash Patel in part due to the recent removals and reassignments of FBI employees.
Patel is President Donald Trump’s pick to head the FBI.
The Senate Judiciary panel is scheduled to vote on Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI on Thursday.
Patel’s first confirmation hearing: Patel downplayed his past promotion of right-wing conspiracy theories and his pledges to pursue retribution against Trump’s opponents during his combative Senate confirmation hearing at the end of January.
In his written answers to lawmakers’ questions following the hearing, Patel declined to comment on recent firings. He said he could not weigh in on decisions without a chance to review them on a “case-by-case basis.”
“Personnel decisions should be based on performance and adherence to the law. If I’m confirmed, every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard,” Patel said.
CNN’s Paula Reid contributed reporting to this post.
President Donald Trump says it “sounds like” he will be winding down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday.
When a reporter said to Trump that it sounds like he was going to “wind down” the agency, Trump laughed and said “sounds like it.”
In the last two weeks, the Trump administration has made sweeping changes to the US agency responsible for delivering humanitarian aid overseas, sparking serious concerns among aid organizations about the future of critical programs, including nutritional support for malnourished infants and children.
Dozens of senior USAID officials have been placed on leave, thousands of contractors have been laid off and employees were told this week not to report to the agency’s Washington headquarters. In a further move, USAID’s website and its X platform account were both taken down.
Rubio has said that the administration’s aim is to conduct a thorough review of each program to determine which ones contribute to making “America safer, stronger, or more prosperous.”
These changes are part of a wider crackdown by the Trump administration across various federal agencies and their programs. However, USAID and foreign aid appear to be among the hardest-hit areas, facing significant disruption as a result.
The Trump administration is planning widespread layoffs among the federal workforce soon, leaving employees who don’t accept the administration’s deferred resignation offer at risk of losing their jobs, two Trump administration officials told CNN.
The layoffs, which are being referred to internally as sweeping “Reductions in Force” (RIFs), are expected to begin soon after the February 6 deadline that the Office of Personnel Management set for workers to accept the package, the officials said.
The package allows them to leave voluntarily and be paid through September 30 but not have to continue working.
The controversial offer, which unions have urged members not to accept, was unveiled in a mass email from the office to federal employees on January 28
More than 20,000 staffers have agreed to the deferred resignation offer, one of the administration officials said. That number is “rapidly growing,” according to the official, who noted that the 20,000 figure isn’t current.
The 20,000 figure represents about 1% of the roughly 2 million federal employees who received the offer. The White House has said its target is for between 5% and 10% of employees to resign.
However, the US Office of Personnel Management is continuing to warn employees that those who do not opt into the program could lose their jobs and, at the very least, will be required to return full time to the office.
Federal workers’ unions quickly lashed out at the deferred resignation offer, questioning its legality and stressing that the administration might not be able to follow through on it.
Read more about the layoffs here.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services was approved by the Senate Finance Committee this morning, 14-13.
The Senate Intelligence Committee also voted to advance Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence.
Both nominations now advance to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote.
Here’s what to know:
- Kennedy’s nomination: The Senate Finance Committee voted to advance Kennedy’s nomination on a party line vote. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN that he expects to hold the confirmation vote next week.
- What led up to the vote: GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who has expressed concerns about Kennedy’s vaccine views, said on the Senate floor that he and Kennedy would have an “unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship” if confirmed. He said Kennedy has agreed to meet with him several times a month. “He has also committed that he had worked within current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not establish parallel systems.” Still, despite his support, he said he would “watch carefully” for any effort to go back on these assurances.
- Gabbard’s nomination: Gabbard could not have afforded to lose a single GOP vote on the committee. The vote was 9-8. A source familiar with the matter says the vote was along party lines.
- What senators said: Before the committee vote, GOP Sen. Todd Young said he would support Gabbard’s nomination, giving her enough support to head to the floor. Young said he sought “firm commitments” from Gabbard that will “advance our national security.” He later said he consulted with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to get the reassurance he needed. He said the president told him to “vote your conscience.”
- Other votes this week: The Senate is expected to vote on the confirmation of Pam Bondi for attorney general late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The Senate also voted to confirm Rep. Doug Collins to be secretary of veterans affairs on Tuesday afternoon. Collins is Trump’s 10th nominee to be confirmed so far.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would like to see Palestinians relocated from Gaza, repeating a desire that has been flatly rejected by other Arab nations in the region.
“I would like to see Jordan. I’d like to see Egypt take some — look, the Gaza thing has not worked. It’s never worked. And I feel very differently about Gaza than a lot of people,” Trump said.
He added: “I think they should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land, and we get some people to put up the money to build it and make it nice and make it habitable and enjoyable.”
The foreign ministers of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt have previously rejected any efforts to resettle Palestinians from Gaza. Suggestions of relocation also carry painful historic context for Palestinians, hundreds of thousands of whom fled or were expelled from their homes by armed groups seeking to establish the state of Israel in the 1940s.
Later, during a bilateral meeting with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested that such relocation could be permanent, calling Gaza a “demolition site” that is “very dangerous.”
He said there could be “five or six areas” where “you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying.”
“I hope that we can do something where they wouldn’t want to go back — who would want to go back? They’ve experienced nothing but death and destruction,” he said.
This post has been updated with more comments from Trump during his meeting with Netanyahu.
President Donald Trump appears open to sending violent and dangerous American criminals to other countries, like El Salvador, as the nation recently offered to house them in exchange for a fee. Acknowledging questions about the legality of such a move, Trump said his administration is looking into whether it would be legal.
“I’d love to get them the hell out of our country,” Trump said. He told reporters that “numerous” other countries have offered to house violent US criminals, not just El Salvador.
“It would be all be subject to the laws of the land, and we’re looking at that to see if we can do it,” Trump said.
Guantanamo Bay: Trump also said that his administration intends to use Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to “accommodate a lot of people” as CNN has reported a military flight carrying migrants was headed to the area.
Trump previously signed a memorandum directing the federal government to prepare the US Naval base in Guantanamo Bay to house tens of thousands of migrants. The migrants will be housed at the detention facility part of Guantanamo, separate from the current detainees, according to a US official and a source familiar.
This post has been updated with Trump’s comments about Guantanamo Bay.
President Donald Trump shrugged off China’s retaliatory tariffs Tuesday, suggesting his plan to rebalance trade with the world’s second largest economy was still on track.
“That’s fine. It’s fine,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about Beijing’s reprisals to the 10% tariffs Trump announced Monday.
“We’re going to do very well against China and against everybody else,” he said.
A day after saying he would be “speaking to China within 24 hours,” Trump seemed to put off any new conversation with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
“I will speak to him at the appropriate time. I’m in no rush,” he said.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants Linda McMahon, his choice for the secretary of Education, to put herself “out of a job” as his administration begins taking steps to eliminate the Department of Education.
McMahon, who served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term, has yet to have a confirmation hearing for the top education post.
Trump, an advocate for the school choice policy in which the federal government makes it easier for families to spend taxpayer funds on private education, lamented US educational performance and cost.
“We spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and we’re ranked at the bottom of the list,” Trump said, adding that he wants to “let the states run schools.”
CNN has previously reported that the Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the department, the latest move by Trump to swiftly carry out his campaign promises.
The move would come in two parts, sources said, directing the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action, and pushing for Congress to pass legislation to end the department.
Asked Tuesday whether he had the authority to shift control of schools back to states, Trump said, “There are some people that say I could. I think I’d work with Congress.”
He added that his administration would also “have to work with the teachers’ union, because the teachers’ union is the only one that’s opposed to it. Nobody else would want to hold it back.”
President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended Elon Musk’s broad remit to slash federal funding by deploying staffers — some of whom outlets have reported are in their early 20s, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “they’re smart people.”
In the hours following Thursday’s plane crash, Trump claimed, without evidence, that diversity programs at the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame for lowering standards for air traffic controllers, contributing, in part, to the collision.
Despite Trump’s claims, the policies and standards for air traffic controllers had not gotten tougher under his administrations than under his two Democratic predecessors.
CNN has reported that Elon Musk — who is serving as a special government employee with an office on the White House campus but is not accepting a government salary — has brought on a small cohort of allies who have gained full access to the Treasury’s payments system. They have also threatened to shut down USAID, offered all federal employees a sort of “buyout” plan, and in several agencies, pushed aside career civil servants, in some cases locking them out of their offices or computers.
In an earlier exchange, Trump said Musk has “done a great job,” in his efforts to curb spending so far.
President Trump signed a directive Tuesday authorizing a tough approach to Iran that’s meant to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Trump said he has left directions for his team on how to respond should he fall prey to an Iranian assassination plot.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he was signing the memorandum only reluctantly, and hoped it might lead to a deal with Tehran.
“This is one that I’m torn about,” Trump said in the Oval Office, calling the document “very tough on Iran.”
Some context: Trump, during his first presidency, withdrew the United States from the six-nation agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action meant to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He followed up with what was described as a “maximum pressure” strategy of withering sanctions, intended to convince Iran both to abandon the nuclear program but also to end its support for regional proxy militias.
His successor, President Joe Biden, maintained the sanctions applied on Iran during the first Trump administration, though Tehran became more skilled during the intervening four years in evading the restrictions, particularly in terms of its oil exports. The Biden administration also loosened certain enforcement mechanisms in an attempt to lure Iran back to the negotiating table, though did not lift the sanctions completely.
Ultimately attempts to renew the talks fell apart.
Trump said Tuesday he would be willing to engage in talks with his Iranian counterpart to reach a deal, but said he would hold firm on preventing the country from pursuing nuclear arms.
Morgan Stanley trimmed its interest rate cut forecast on Tuesday, blaming the volatile trade environment after President Donald Trump hit China with tariffs.
Before this week, Morgan Stanley projected quarter-point rate cuts at the Federal Reserve policy meetings in March and June. Now, the Wall Street bank only “tentatively” expects one rate cut this year, at the June meeting, and said the path for monetary policy remains “highly uncertain.”
Morgan Stanley noted that Trump’s planned tariffs on both Canada and Mexico have been paused for a month. However, there is a cost to the threats of further tariffs ahead. Morgan Stanley said that even if tariffs are avoided, “we think their potential keeps uncertainty” about key inflation metrics “elevated.”
After keeping interest rates steady last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that it remains very unclear how the trade situation will play out.
CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald contributed reporting.
The nonprofit advocacy group Doctors for America filed a lawsuit Tuesday against several federal agencies over the removal of health-related data and resources from government websites.
The complaint is against the Office of Personnel Management, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Health and Human Services. Doctors for America has asked the court to order the agencies to restore the web pages and datasets that were removed or modified as agencies started to comply with executive orders from President Donald Trump.
More on the removal: Some sites from HHS’s Office of Civil Rights and the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Research on Women’s Health had been removed or emptied. Several CDC websites and datasets related to HIV, LGBTQ people, youth health behaviors and more also had been removed or replaced, as well as treatment guidelines for certain infections. As of Tuesday afternoon, the CDC’s website has a note added to the top that reads: “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
In the new lawsuit, Doctors for America allege that the “removal of the webpages and datasets creates a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprives physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and takes away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.”
CNN contacted the US Department of Justice, OPM, FDA and HHS for comment the lawsuit. In an emailed statement, the CDC said it does not comment on pending litigation.
Within the first two weeks of the Trump administration, federal officials have arrested more than 8,000 immigrants and deported nearly 6,000 people, according to statistics released Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security.
In the numbers posted to X, DHS said President Donald Trump has “delivered on his promise to the American people to begin mass deportations of violent criminals within our borders.”
The administration has arrested 8,768 “immigration violator(s)” and deported or removed 5,693 people who come from 121 countries, according to the post. It also lists some of the criminal charges the alleged violators faced, including drug offenses, drug trafficking, forgery, homicide and human trafficking.
Putting these numbers in context: In the last fiscal year, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations conducted 113,431 administrative arrests, according to an agency report, amounting to about 310 arrests a day across all field offices.
According to the DHS data, there have been about 626 arrests per day on average within the past two weeks under the new Trump administration. That’s a slight decline from the end of January 2025, when ICE said it had an average of nearly 800 arrests daily.
Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana said Tuesday that he decided to vote to advance Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination out of the Senate Intelligence Committee after consulting with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance to get the reassurance he needed.
Young said Trump did not try to pressure him into supporting Gabbard. He added that he asked how significant the nomination was to Trump, and the president had told him, “it’s important.”
“But he said, ‘You know what, Todd, we’re going to work together on all kinds of other things to make America great again.’ And I told him I need reassurances and those were delivered,” he said.
Young told reporters that Vance had helped him get answers from Gabbard to assure him that “national security gaps would be filled” when he had outstanding questions after Gabbard’s confirmation hearing.
“This is how the process is supposed to work. It’s supposed to be a consultative process, and we got the reassurances we needed,” he said.
Young was the last Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee to announce how he would vote on Gabbard’s nomination. The panel voted 9-8 on Tuesday to approve the nomination, advancing it to the full Senate floor.
The son of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shared an image of the Israeli leader standing alongside Elon Musk.
The image, posted to Instagram Tuesday, shows Netanyahu’s son Yair, Musk and Netanyahu standing next to each other in a room with ornate cream walls. Musk and Netanyahu had previously met in Israel in November 2023, when the pair visited one of the kibbutzim targeted in Hamas’ deadly October 7 attacks a month earlier.
Netanyahu is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House later Tuesday.
“So grateful to spend time with these two geniuses,” Yair Netanyahu wrote alongside the picture.
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence.
The vote was 9-8. A source familiar with the matter says the vote was along party lines.
Next, she’ll get a full vote in the Senate.
Some context: Gabbard could not have afforded to lose a single GOP vote on the committee. People close to Trump and those helping to confirm his nominees had been most concerned about Gabbard’s confirmation chances.
Earlier today, GOP Sen. Todd Young said he would support Gabbard’s nomination. Young said he sought “firm commitments” from Gabbard that will “advance our national security.” He also said he had extensive conversations with Vice President JD Vance, who worked with Gabbard to give assurances to win over his critical vote, according to a source familiar with the matter.
This post was updated with details about the vote.
President Donald Trump is signing executive actions from the White House.
Trump has vowed to enact a sweeping agenda and reshape the federal government, saying in his inaugural address that “the golden age of America” was starting and naming priorities such as immigration, trade and national security.
The president will meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this afternoon.
Track all of the executive actions already singed by the president here.
Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, does not believe the turmoil at the bureau will impact his chances for confirmation, according to multiple sources familiar with his thinking.
Patel is currently in Nevada waiting for his nomination to proceed over the next week. Patel met with dozens of lawmakers ahead of his confirmation hearing last week and is confident his nomination will pass along party lines despite the recent upheaval over personnel decisions at the FBI, sources said.
In his written answers to lawmakers’ questions following the hearing, Patel declined to comment on recent firings. He said he could not weigh in on decisions without a chance to review them on a “case-by-case basis.”
“Personnel decisions should be based on performance and adherence to the law. If I’m confirmed, every FBI employee will be held to the absolute same standard,” he added.