'Nonsense': CNN's Daniel Dale fact-checks Stephen Miller's claim about mistakenly deported man
'Nonsense': CNN's Daniel Dale fact-checks Stephen Miller's claim about mistakenly deported man
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• Harvard under pressure: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is threatening to strip Harvard University of its ability to enroll international students if it doesn’t turn over records on “illegal and violent activities,” the agency said. Harvard is also facing a funding freeze and a potential loss of its tax-exempt status.
• Immigration showdown: A federal judge ruled that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his order to halt the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
• Mistakenly deported man: Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he was unable to meet Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. Abrego Garcia’s wife acknowledged she had filed a temporary protective order against him four years ago, but said they had worked through their issues.
Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.
President Donald Trump touted the “big progress” made with Japan during trade talks on Wednesday at the White House, as Japanese negotiators said the next round of negotiations will continue this month.
Trump unexpectedly joined the talks with Japanese officials, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and top economic advisers. Japan is one of the first countries to begin formal negotiations with the US over tariffs.
“A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!” Trump said on social media.
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan’s top trade negotiator, later told reporters:
“We are very grateful that President Trump met with us. The President never strongly stated, ‘This is what we are going to do,’ but rather said, ‘Japan is the top priority in the talks.’ We would like to continue to make concerted government efforts to give the highest priority and full force.”
Akazawa, who is Japan’s minister for economic revitalization, refrained from giving specifics of the negotiation.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told reporters Thursday in Tokyo that Akazawa told him from Washington that he had “very candid and constructive talks.”
“Of course the talks are not easy, but President Trump stated his intention to make this negotiation a top priority,” Ishiba said. “I believe we had talks that lead to a next step.”
When Trump announced the 90-day pause on some tariffs, Japan was spared from 24% across-the-board tariffs, but there continues to be a 10% baseline tariff and a 25% tax on imported cars, auto parts, steel and aluminum exports.
More than 840 international students and recent graduates at more than 130 schools in the US have had their visas or statuses revoked in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System this year, according to university statements and spokespeople.
The targeting of foreign nationals affiliated with prestigious American universities is part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.
CNN has reached out to over 100 universities, with many of them saying the government canceled visas or terminated SEVIS accounts without notice. Several universities told CNN that the government did not provide a reason or any details explaining why the terminations were made. In most cases, universities discovered the visa revocations by checking the system.
Only a handful of universities said they knew why their students’ visas or SEVIS accounts were terminated.
At Middle Tennessee State University, six students from countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East had their visas revoked, according to spokesperson Jimmy Hart.
“The University does not know the specific reason(s) for the visa status changes, only that they were changed within the federal database that monitors them.”
It is unclear if all the students whose visas have been terminated have to immediately leave the country or can stay to continue their education.
What we know about the students: Some of them have no criminal records. Others are facing the possibility of having to return home due to convictions on relatively minor offenses, which generally do not lead to removal, according to immigration attorneys.
CNN’s Jillian Sykes contributed reporting
Republican Rep. Morgan Luttrell hosted a town hall in Conroe, Texas, where some attendees were looking for clarity on the Trump administration’s policies on tariffs, immigration and federal workforce cuts.
“I get asked this question: are tariffs good or bad? They’re both. Absolutely. I looked at my 401K the other day. Buddy let me tell you something — I don’t want to look at it again. It’s not Republican or Democrat, it’s just, ‘hey, look, I took that hit,’” Luttrell said.
One attendee said that Sen. Ted Cruz has called tariffs a sales tax on the American public, but that President Donald Trump said they were not.
“It can’t be both,” the man asked. “Which one is lying?”
“They’re both right,” Luttrell said.
The congressman had the same response when asked contentious questions over his vote for the SAVE Act, a bill recently passed in the House, which would require documentary proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, even though it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
Critics have said that the bill will disenfranchise millions of voters, including married women who have changed their last name.
“Why you want to make it harder for women to vote?,” one woman said, referencing the bill, a question that led to loud cheers and applause in the room. Luttrell disputed the claim, saying, “it’s not harder to vote.”
“Protect our voting rights!” a woman yelled out. “Protect us!”
With Congress in recess, Democratic lawmakers are continuing to face criticism at town halls from attendees that the party is not doing enough to counter the Trump administration.
El Salvador’s leader has no plans to meet a visiting US Democratic senator, a high-level source close to President Nayib Bukele told CNN, as outrage grows over the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from Maryland.
While Abrego Garcia had not been legally in the US prior to his deportation, a 2019 court order said he could not be returned to El Salvador.
Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday in an attempt to see Abrego Garcia at the Cecot mega-prison.
The senator told reporters he met with Vice President Felix Ulloa, who told him El Salvador’s government had no evidence against Abrego Garcia.
Ulloa told CNN that Van Hollen’s characterization of their conversation was not fully accurate and that his remarks regarding there being “no evidence” were taken “out of context.”
The source told CNN that El Salvador does have criminal records of Abrego Garcia. He also said Abrego Garcia had tattoos that they say were gang-related and have since been covered up. CNN cannot independently confirm, and the source did not share any evidence.
CNN is reaching out to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers regarding the claims.
Last week, two government officials told CNN they have “further evidence of Abrego Garcia’s criminal ties and actions” in El Salvador — though they declined to provide evidence.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer told CNN at the time: “In the absence of transparency or due process for Kilmar, such vague accusations should not carry weight, especially when they contradict a U.S. immigration judge’s determination that he was credible and warranted protection from removal to El Salvador. “
“The government of El Salvador has not provided any convictions or substantiated evidence to support its claims, and it is deeply concerning that these unverified allegations are being used to retroactively justify a deportation that violated court orders.”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins today vigorously defended his agency’s plan to lay off tens of thousands of employees, and pushed back against claims by Democrats in Congress, and some veterans, that a brand-new VA health clinic in Virginia is vastly under-staffed.
“Since 2015, we’ve added hundreds of billions in money and we’ve also added hundreds of thousands of positions … but what we’ve added to is a bureaucracy and not, in many times, into the condition of handling patient care at the front end,” Collins said, when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper about the planned layoffs. “There’s a lot of jobs that no one would even know is at the VA that has nothing to do with our patient care, nothing to do with disability claims, that are frankly clogging up the system in many ways.”
CNN has previously reported the VA plans to terminate 80,000 jobs, although Collins has repeatedly pledged that veterans’ benefits will not be affected by the staffing cuts.
Tapper also asked Collins about concerns over staffing at the new Fredericksburg Health Care Center in Virginia, which officially opened in late February at a cost of over $300 million. The VA has touted it as a state-of-the-art facility that would serve tens of thousands of veterans each year and create hundreds of jobs.
But Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman who represents Fredericksburg, said in an April 10 letter sent to Collins and obtained by CNN: “To date, the new facility is only staffed at one third of its capacity.” Vindman and Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, have both publicly expressed concern that hiring freezes and layoffs could compromise staffing and service at the new facility.
Collins said he was at the facility this past week. “There’s a lot of that facility that’s not been built out,” he said. “But that is the way we build out these facilities. We do so in stages and in phases.”
The Trump administration is doubling down on defending its deportations of undocumented migrants, including the Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador.
The federal judge overseeing the case said yesterday she would allow for expedited fact-finding to help her figure out whether the administration is complying with her order that it “facilitate” his return from one of the country’s notorious mega-prisons.
Also, another federal judge ruled today that “probable cause exists” to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Here are the top immigration headlines:
@cnnSen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa to push for the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and is being held in CECOT, a maximum-security mega-prison. #elsalvador #immigration #congress
♬ original sound - CNN
This post has been updated with news of the Justice Department appealing Boasberg’s ruling.
CNN’s Elise Hammond, Lauren Fox, Hannah Rabinowitz, Kit Maher, Javon Huynh, Devan Cole, Katelyn Polantz, Alayna Treene, Samantha Waldenberg, Marshall Cohen, Donald Judd, Priscilla Alvarez and Michael Williams contributed reporting to this post.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon told CNN today that the Trump administration is “open to negotiation” with Harvard University as sources tell CNN that the Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the Ivy League university’s tax-exempt status.
While McMahon contended that she does not know whether the university’s tax-exempt status will be revoked, she argued that “it was certainly worth looking into.” She said her guess is that the IRS is looking to similar statuses held by other universities.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value at Harvard after the school said it would not follow policy demands from the administration, which included eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
CNN has reported that a final decision on rescinding the university’s tax exemption is expected soon, according to sources. If the administration moves forward in doing so, it would be an extraordinary step of retaliation.
Asked by CNN’s Kasie Hunt whether the university could do anything to prevent the funding cuts and possible revocation of the tax exempt status, McMahon said: “We’re open to negotiation and to talking to Harvard and to all universities.”
CNN’s Evan Perez, Alyana Treene and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
The wife of the Maryland man who the US government mistakenly deported to El Salvador acknowledged that she had filed a temporary protective order against him four years ago, but said it was out of an abundance of caution and that the couple had worked through their issues.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she sought a civil protective order after a disagreement with Abrego Garcia, noting that she had survived a previous relationship that included domestic violence. She did not appear at a court hearing and the matter did not proceed.
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process,” she said in the statement to CNN. “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect.”
“That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation,” Vasquez Sura said. “Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
Vasquez Sura released the statement after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a copy of a protective order on X that she requested against her husband in 2021. The DHS posted portions of the order on X Wednesday, describing Abrego Garcia as an “MS-13 gang member” who “is not a sympathetic figure.”
Abrego Garcia’s wife and lawyers have denied he is part of a gang.
The White House brought Patty Morin, the mother of murdered Maryland hiker Rachel Morin, as a “special guest” to today’s briefing with reporters.
The Trump administration has sought to draw attention to Morin’s murder this week as controversy has grown surrounding the administration’s handling of mistakenly deported Maryland man Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
A fugitive from El Salvador, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, was convicted on Monday in the 2023 slaying of Morin. She was killed along a hiking trail in Bel Air in August of 2023, according to authorities.
In an interview with Fox News last night, Patty Morin said that she believed “justice was served” after Martinez-Hernandez’s conviction.
Morin, along with her son, Michael and granddaughter Clementine, visited the White House in January for the signing of the Laken Riley Act, where Trump personally thanked her for attending the ceremony in remarks ahead of the signing.
The “angel mother” also joined Trump on campaign stops in Arizona and Pennsylvania, while Trump offered her a shoutout during his RNC acceptance speech in Milwaukee.
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is considering a run for governor of New York, according to a person familiar with her thinking — a decision that could once again scramble the House GOP leadership team.
Stefanik’s interest in challenging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul comes just three weeks after the congresswoman learned that President Donald Trump would no longer appoint her to her long-time dream role of United Nations ambassador. Since then, she has been struggling to regain her position of authority in the House.
Stefanik had been the No. 4 House Republican, but she left that leadership spot last fall in anticipation of joining Trump’s administration. Days after she was told she had to remain in the narrowly divided chamber, she and House Speaker Mike Johnson worked out a new position for her as the “chairwoman of House Republican leadership,” though her exact role was not defined in detail. It also wasn’t precisely clear whether she could remain on all of her committees — including her coveted seat on the House Intelligence Committee.
That internal jockeying caused some drama within Johnson’s leadership team, as some on his team privately said they were caught off guard by the announcement and were unsure what her new position would be.
Now, the New York congresswoman is offering her party another curveball as she eyes the governor’s mansion in Albany.
As evidence that she may have the state’s top job on her mind, Stefanik sent out a statement this afternoon commenting on Hochul’s low approval ratings.
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he met with El Salvador’s Vice President Félix Ulloa today to discuss the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to the Central American country.
Van Hollen said he was unable to visit Abrego Garcia in the maximum-security prison where he is being held in El Salvador nor did he meet with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele because he was out of the country. He vowed to “keep pressing” for answers and the man’s release.
Van Hollen, speaking to reporters from El Salvador, said the meeting started with a “point of agreement” that the countries should work together to “crack down” on gangs like MS-13. However, he said the case of Abrego Garcia “does not have to do with MS-13.”
Van Hollen said the Trump administration has not presented US courts with evidence that the man was part of the gang, but instead, it was a “lie to cover up what they did.”
The lawmaker said he specifically asked Ulloa if he could meet with Abrego Garcia or at least speak with him over the phone or via video conferencing. Again, Van Hollen said the request was denied. Pressed on whether he had concerns about Abrego Garcia’s health, Van Hollen said: “I don’t know about his health status which is why I wanted to meet with him directly.”
The lawmaker said he asked Ulloa why El Salvador was continuing to hold Abrego Garcia despite the absence of evidence that the man is connected to MS-13 or has committed a crime. He said the vice president echoed comments made by Bukele earlier this week at the White House that El Salvador “can’t smuggle” Abrego Garcia to the US and that the Trump administration is paying El Salvador to keep the man at the mega-prison CECOT.
“I said I am not asking him to smuggle Mr. Abrego Garcia into the United States, I am simply asking him to open the door of CECOT and let this innocent man walk out,” Van Hollen said.
Van Hollen said he anticipates other members of Congress will come to El Salvador in the future to discuss the case and plans to ask the United States embassy to ask the government of El Salvador to arrange a call with Abrego Garcia.
This post has been updated with additional details from Van Hollen’s trip.
A federal judge is closely scrutinizing the data-sharing deal between the Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which the Trump administration hopes will speed up deportations of undocumented immigrants.
At a hearing, District Judge Dabney Friedrich said she has concerns that, if she doesn’t step in to potentially rein in the policy, anyone who gets deported based on the “unprecedented” data-sharing “may never” have a chance to contest it in US courts.
But she also rigorously challenged lawyers for the immigrant rights groups who filed the lawsuit last month in hopes of blocking the IRS from turning over confidential taxpayer information, like home addresses, to federal immigration authorities.
Friedrich repeatedly pressed the Justice Department to explain how the arrangement complies with the federal tax code – which permits data-sharing to aid ongoing criminal investigations, but not to facilitate deportations, which is a civil enforcement mechanism.
She asked what legal recourse would be available to deportees “if all of this was pretextual to do civil enforcement proceedings.” She added, “If the larger endgame is to circumvent” the strict disclosure restrictions in the federal tax code, then “that would be a problem.”
“Is this not just a vehicle to execute removals?” she asked.
Justice Department lawyer Joseph Sergi said the deal was carefully crafted to comply with the law, and requests for private data will only target people under investigation for illegally defying orders to leave the country. But, he conceded that the government could, after they locate an undocumented immigrant, drop any criminal probe and quickly deport them.
“I’m just not seeing how this helps you,” Friedrich responded.
During the hearing, however, the judge also questioned whether the groups that filed the lawsuit even had standing to bring the case. And she seemed unimpressed with the limited evidence they put forward to back up their claims that the administration is trying to circumvent the law.
Democratic state treasurers from Colorado, Washington, California, New Mexico and Illinois expressed deep concerns about the impacts of President Donald Trump’s trade war on farmers and the agriculture industry during a press call today with Americans for Responsible Growth.
“Left unchecked Trump’s trade war will shutter mom and pop producers across the country. We must put an end to the chaos before it causes lasting damage,” Colorado Treasurer Dave Young said.
Minnesota Auditor Julie Blaha said that many farmers in her state are concerned about the uncertainty the administration has caused with its tariff policy.
Blaha said that one of the concerns farmers have is losing customers.
“They may lose Chinese customers going to say Brazil instead of Minnesota. Now, even if Trump reverses course … you still may not get that customer back, you know, it’s hard to get someone back once you’ve lost them,” she said.
Blaha noted that it’s unclear if the administration will use any revenue collected from the tariffs to “bail out farmers.”
“Now the kind of bailout we had in 2018 after tariffs, in agriculture, would not be big enough to balance out what we’re going through right now,” she said. “Not only do we need a plan for what the tariffs are going to be, I think we need a plan for what Trump is going do with the tariffs.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed foreign countries pay tariffs levied on them, but Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell noted that is not the case.
As a result of the tariffs that Trump has enacted, with likely more to come, “unemployment is likely to go up as the economy slows,” Powell said today at an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago.
“In all likelihood,” inflation is likely to go up as well, he said. That is to say that a portion of the burden of tariffs is going to be “paid by the public.”
It’s all but certain that prices will rise from tariffs, Powell said, but it’s still a question as to whether that will cause overall inflation levels to accelerate and to what extent.
All three major stock indexes moved lower as Powell spoke, with the Dow dropping by more than 700 points, or 1.7%, at one point.
Colin Carroll, the chief of staff of Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, has been placed on administrative leave amid an ongoing investigation, two defense sources said. He is the third such official reported to be placed on leave this week.
Carroll was escorted out of the Pentagon, one defense source told CNN.
“This is a purge of people who had disagreements with the Pentagon chief of staff,” the defense source added.
Carroll was sworn in earlier this year. His being placed on leave comes a day after two other senior political appointees of Hegseth’s — senior adviser Dan Caldwell and deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick — were also put on administrative leave. Caldwell is being investigated over an alleged unauthorized disclosure, CNN previously reported.
The White House intends to seek “immediate appellate relief” from Judge James Boasberg’s ruling today that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, an official said.
“The President is 100% committed to ensuring that terrorists and criminal illegal migrants are no longer a threat to Americans and their communities across the country,” White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote in a post on X.
Any challenge to take this decision to an appeals court has not yet been filed.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is bracing for a potentially ugly chapter ahead for the US economy, due in large part to monstrous tariff increases.
“The level of the tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated. The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said in prepared remarks for an event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago.
For months, Powell avoided sharing his assessment of how tariffs President Donald Trump proposed enacting would impact the economy, often conveying that central bankers would cross that bridge if or when it came to it. With 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and a baseline 10% tariff on most countries’ imports on top of 25% tariffs for cars and aluminum and steel, that bridge is very much here.
According to his prepared remarks, Powell said that despite looming uncertainty about the tariff landscape and how it will spill over into the economy, tariffs are “highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation. The inflationary effects could also be more persistent.”
The Fed head is set to take part in a moderated discussion after delivering his keynote speech.
The Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office are reviewing the viability, including the legal justification, of President Donald Trump’s stated desire to send American citizens who have committed violent crimes to El Salvador’s mega-prison, two White House officials familiar with the discussions told CNN.
The officials added that Trump is very serious when he says he wants to remove “homegrown” criminals from the US.
One of the officials said the president views this as a winning issue — and one that he was elected on. The official recalled Trump referring to it as an “eighty-twenty” issue, meaning he believes 80% of Americans are in favor of his proposed idea to send US citizens convicted of crimes abroad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today he’s shutting down the State Department’s initiative meant to counter disinformation, alleging it was censoring Americans.
The State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference initiative was previously known as the Global Engagement Center.
It was created by executive order in March 2016 to lead “interagency efforts to carry out U.S.-government-sponsored counterterrorism communications to foreign publics.” Its mandate was broadened by Congress to combat state and non-state propaganda and disinformation.
Congressional Republicans had raised concerns about the office and its affiliation with organizations that lawmakers argue were restricting free speech. In December 2024, Congress did not extend the GEC’s mandate, and the office shut down, with its activities transferred to the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation initiative.
“It is the responsibility of every government official to continuously work to preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech,” he said in the statement.
US District Judge James Boasberg ruled today that “probable cause exists” to hold Trump administration officials in criminal contempt for violating his orders in mid-March halting the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The judge is still deciding punishment and the next steps he may take and is given the Justice Department some opportunity to respond.
The situation has been a major political and legal flashpoint for the Trump White House in its efforts to carry out a historic deportation campaign, especially in mid-March when it sent three planes of migrants to a prison in El Salvador.
“The Court ultimately determines that the Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt,” Boasberg wrote in a lengthy ruling detailing his decision.
“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions,” he continued. “None of their responses has been satisfactory.”
China is open to trade negotiations with the United States but any talks should be based on “respect” as well as greater “consistency and reciprocity” from the Trump administration, according to a person familiar with the Chinese government’s thinking.
Before US President Donald Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, China had designated a point person for talks with the US, the person also said, adding that Beijing was unclear about the right contact on the US side. Trump may want to be his own negotiator, but this isn’t compatible with how China works, the source said.
Referencing hawkish or even hostile views on China expressed by Trump’s Cabinet members, the person said Trump’s failure to reject such views suggested he condoned them despite his public assertions about respecting and liking Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Earlier this month, China slammed US Vice President JD Vance for his comments about “Chinese peasants” in an interview that has drawn widespread ire and ridicule on China’s internet.
Defending Trump’s tariffs, which have sparked a global trade war and fueled economic anxiety across the world, Vance railed against “the globalist economy,” saying it was based on “incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make for us.” He added: “We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.”
China also wants its own concerns to be addressed by the US, especially on issues like Washington’s growing tech restrictions targeting China, as well as Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing, the source said.
China wants no more “provocation” from Washington, the person added, especially given what they described as Beijing’s efforts to address US concerns, such as the flow of fentanyl.
The second round of nuclear talks between Iran and the US are expected to be in Rome on Saturday, according to a person familiar with the planning. There had been earlier discussion of having them take place again in Oman.
This would mean Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will be traveling to Rome from Paris, where he will be later this week for talks on Ukraine with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Despite Rome being the planned location for the Iran talks, Oman is still expected to play a mediating role, the person familiar with the discussion told CNN.
Oman’s foreign minister acted as a mediator last weekend, shuttling between the two sides in indirect talks. At the end, Witkoff spoke directly with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. For now, a similar format is expected, the source said.
Iran will likely expect clarification from Witkoff after he appeared to flip flop on the US position this week. He told Fox News that Iran shouldn’t need to enrich uranium above 3.67% to run a civilian program, appearing to accept that Iran would maintain a nuclear program. Then on Tuesday he took a more maximalist position, posting on X that “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
Vice President JD Vance is traveling later this week to Italy and three cities in India, according to a news release from his office.
Over the course of the trip, which spans April 18-24, Vance will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Vance is expected to “discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders in each country” on visits to Rome, New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, according to the release.
This trip will mark Vance’s second to Europe, after first appearing in Paris for an annual AI summit and at the Munich Security Conference, where he delivered a fiery speech accusing Europe of turning away from “some of its most fundamental values,” like free speech, and warned about “the threat from within.”
The second family will also attend the trip and “participate in engagements at cultural sites.” Second lady Usha Vance is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
The Vances most recently were deployed to Greenland, where they visited the Pituffik Space Base after the second lady’s initial plans to visit a dogsled race were scrapped. The vice president slammed Denmark for not doing “a good job by the people of Greenland” and asserted that the territory would be far safer “coming under the United States’ security umbrella.”
In a post on X this morning, Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said he is traveling to El Salvador today to meet with “senior government officials to discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” who is his constituent and was mistakenly deported last month to a mega-prison in the Central American nation.
The Democratic senator said he also hopes to “check on his condition.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung called Van Hollen “a complete disgrace” for traveling to El Salvador to meet with officials about Abrego Garcia’s return.
More on the case: A federal judge said yesterday she would allow for expedited fact-finding to help her figure out whether the Trump administration is complying with her order that it “facilitate” his return from one of the country’s notorious mega-prisons.
The proceedings unfolded a day after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a meeting at the White House that while he has the power to release Abrego Garcia, he wasn’t willing to do so. Officials in the Oval Office meeting, including President Donald Trump, made no effort to ask for his cooperation in the matter.
US officials have alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. His attorneys, however, dispute the claim and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward it.
See the lawmaker’s social media post below:
I’m about to board my flight to El Salvador, where I hope to meet with senior government officials to discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
I also hope to see Kilmar and check on his condition — and remind him that we won’t stop fighting until he’s home. pic.twitter.com/dunE0lytIb
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 16, 2025
CNN’s Kit Maher, Devan Cole and Angelica Franganillo Diaz contributed reporting to this post. This post has been updated with comments from the White House communications director.
More than 600 international students, faculty and researchers across at least 90 universities in the United States have recently had their visas revoked by the Trump administration, according to a CNN review of court filings, statements from attorneys and announcements from schools around the country.
It is unclear if all the students whose visas have been terminated have to immediately leave the country or can stay to continue their education. The State Department offered no clarity on the process the administration is following to revoke the visas, but called the situation “dynamic” and “ongoing.”
A department spokesperson pointed to comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said the Immigration and Nationality Act states that immigrants “who endorse or espouse terrorist activity or persuade others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization – such as Hamas – are ineligible for U.S. visas” when asked to provide reasoning for the revocation of visas.
The US State Department is manually terminating records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) and has not informed the universities or students about their visa cancellations. In most cases, universities have discovered the visa revocations by checking the system.
What we know about the students: Some of them have no criminal records. Others are facing the possibility of having to return home due to convictions on relatively minor offenses — like years-old misdemeanors — which generally do not lead to removal, according to immigration attorneys.
Some universities are responding to these federal actions by speaking out and asking the government for clarity.
CNN’s Kylie Atwood contributed reporting.
The prospects for the global economy have taken a knock because of President Donald Trump’s trade war, according to a new report by the World Trade Organization.
The WTO said it expects global gross domestic product to expand by 2.2% this year. That growth would be 0.6 percentage points lower than the rate it would expect in a scenario with no additional tariffs.
In North America — an economic region dominated by the United States — the impact will be more severe still, with GDP growth expected to be 1.6 percentage points below what it would be otherwise.
The WTO also said its expectations for global trade this year have “deteriorated sharply” owing to a battery of new tariffs on goods and uncertainty around future trade policy. It now forecasts the volume of global goods trade to contract by 0.2%, compared with the 2.7% growth it would expect otherwise.
Attorney General Pam Bondi backed the Trump administration’s stance on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s deportation, saying he is “not coming back to our country.”
“If he wanted to send him back, we would give him a plane ride back,” Bondi said, referring to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. “There was no situation ever where he was going to stay in this country.”
Bondi added: “He’s in El Salvador, and that’s where the president plans on keeping him.”
President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social today that it’s his job to remove “killers and thugs” from the United States, in apparent defense of his administration’s tactics in deporting those who it says are undocumented foreign terrorists and criminals.
Vice President JD Vance more deliberately defended the deportations of undocumented immigrants and questioned calls for due process, while continuing to claim Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, in several posts on X last night. Vance is posting in a back-and-forth on the topic with two users this morning.
More context: US officials have alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. His attorneys, however, dispute the claim, and at least one federal judge has voiced skepticism toward it.
The Trump administration conceded in a court filing earlier this month that it mistakenly deported him to El Salvador “because of an administrative error.”
CNN’s Devan Cole and Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this post.
A second top Pentagon political appointee is under investigation and has been placed on administrative leave, a defense official confirmed to CNN.
The official confirmed the appointee, Pentagon deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, is under investigation but would not provide any more details.
Selnick briefly served as the acting under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness and was put on leave yesterday. Yesterday, a senior adviser to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Dan Caldwell, was placed on leave amid an investigation into an “unauthorized disclosure” of information, a defense official told CNN.
Politico first reported that Selnick was also placed on administrative leave.
Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kasper announced in March that the department would be carrying out a wide-ranging leak probe, complete with polygraph tests, after a planned classified briefing for Elon Musk at the Pentagon was leaked to The New York Times.
Prior to joining the Department of Defense, both Caldwell and Selnick worked at Concerned Veterans for America, a conservative veterans organization where Hegseth served as CEO from 2012 to 2015.
The Justice Department is suing Maine over its refusal to comply with a ban on transgender athletes in high school sports, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today.
The lawsuit, which alleges that Maine is violating Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal aid, is the latest action in a public feud between the Trump administration and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat.
“We have exhausted every other remedy,” Bondi said at a news conference in Washington.
How we got here: Early in his administration, President Donald Trump threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding should the state not comply with his directive. Bondi sent letters soon after to Maine, California, and Minnesota earlier this year, saying that the Justice Department “will defend women and does not tolerate state officials who ignore federal law.”
Last month, the US Department of Education concluded the Maine Department of Education violated Title IX by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ teams.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said earlier this month that the Department of Agriculture was pausing some funds for Maine educational programs because of what she described as Maine’s failure to comply with the Title IX law.
Still, the state has not backed down from its policies. State officials sued the administration to try to stop the government from freezing federal money.
Mills has also rebuffed threats of continuing lawsuits, telling the president: “See you in court.”
@cnnAttorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department is suing Maine over its refusal to comply with a ban on transgender athletes in high school sports. The lawsuit alleges that the state is violating Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal aid. In response, Governor Janet Mills said that her administration will "vigorously defend our state against the action." #cnn #news #maine
♬ original sound - CNN
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Paris today to discuss the war in Ukraine with their European counterparts, the State Department announced.
The travel comes days after a deadly Russian strike on Sumy on Sunday and less than a week after Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It is unclear if Ukraine will participate in these talks.
Rubio “will also discuss ways to advance shared interests in the region,” the State Department notice said.
President Donald Trump is stepping up his attacks on Harvard University and its faculty, after stripping the institution of federal funding over its rejection of policy changes from his administration. While Trump officials have said that the policy changes were aimed at combating antisemitism, the president’s attacks today are largely geared toward the university hiring whom he deems “woke.”
“Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,’” Trump said in a lengthy post on Truth Social.
Trump also criticized Harvard’s handling of former president Claudine Gay, who resigned after plagiarism and campus antisemitism accusations, but is still employed as a professor of government and African and African American studies.
“Many others, like these Leftist dopes, are teaching at Harvard, and because of that, Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges. Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” he continued.
Trump escalated his spat with Harvard yesterday, threatening its tax-exempt status after freezing billions in funding for the university this week over its refusal to end DEI programs, ban masks at protests, and ensure merit-based hiring practices. The White House has said the president is looking for the university to apologize for alleged episodes of antisemitism during protests against the war in Gaza.
David Hogg, a gun safety advocate and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, launched a push to primary “ineffective” Democratic incumbents in safe districts yesterday, a move that echoes complaints from the left but is sure to anger party leaders.
“I ran to be a Vice Chair at the DNC to help make the party better. Part of making the party better is electing better people,” Hogg said. “While [President Donald] Trump creates new existential crises every day, too many elected leaders in the Democratic Party are either unwilling or unable to meet the moment. We need a stronger Democratic Party that is ready to fight back.”
Hogg is running the effort in his personal capacity through his organization Leaders We Deserve. The group plans to spend $20 million to boost primary challengers running in safe Democratic seats. It also plans to help state legislature candidates 30 and under and congressional candidates 35 and under running in open and Republican-held seats.
Leaders We Deserve said it would not support challenges to Democrats running in competitive districts or against incumbents it believes are effective, such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is facing a primary challenge.
The primary push comes as Democrats face dismal approval ratings and continued pressure to push back harder against the Trump administration.
But those calls for new voices sound different, coming from a newly elected leader of the party. Hogg beat out a crowded field of party members to become one of three DNC at-large vice chairs in February. But even then, he ran on a platform of bringing younger voters into the party and pushing Democrats to confront why they lost in 2024.
Nvidia says it will take a $5.5 billion financial hit after Washington placed fresh restrictions on the export of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, in the latest escalation of a growing battle for AI dominance. Its shares plunged in response.
The H20 chip, released just last year, was specifically designed to accommodate stringent US export controls to China and allowed Nvidia to continue selling to the country. The model has less computing power than the more powerful H100 AI chip, which has already been banned for sale to China.
The H20 is believed to have contributed to DeepSeek’s successful development of its ChatGPT-like reasoning AI model, R1, which was said to be trained at a fraction of the cost of American equivalents. The development stunned the tech industry and sparked an AI revolution in China.
Nvidia said in a Tuesday regulatory filing that it was informed by the US government last week the H20 chips would now require a special license to be exported to China, which accounted for 13% of sales last year.
The chipmaker said it will report approximately $5.5 billion worth of charges in its first quarter’s earnings on May 28, associated with H20 products for “inventory, purchase commitments, and related reserves.” Its shares were 5% lower in pre-market trading.
Curbs rock markets: Tech stocks took a hit today after Nvidia announced it was subject to new export curbs and ASML, a major Dutch producer of semiconductor-making equipment, said tariffs had increased economic uncertainty.
In its first-quarter results, ASML said it expected this year and next to be “growth years” but that “recent tariff announcements have increased uncertainty in the macro environment and (that) the situation will remain dynamic for a while.”
Read more about how the trade war is hitting chips.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing President Donald Trump over his use of emergency powers to unilaterally enact sweeping global tariffs, which he argues have hurt Californian families and businesses.
The lawsuit, which is set to be filed in federal court today, argues Trump lacks the authority to enact tariffs against Mexico, China and Canada, or a 10% baseline tariff on imports from the rest of the world, according to a news release from the California government.
“President Trump’s unlawful tariffs are wreaking chaos on California families, businesses, and our economy — driving up prices and threatening jobs. We’re standing up for American families who can’t afford to let the chaos continue,” Newsom said in the release.
These tariffs, Newsom alleges, are creating “immediate and irreparable harm to California, the largest economy, manufacturing, and agriculture state in the nation,” as they “have disrupted supply chains, inflated costs” and “inflicted billions in damages” on the state.
The lawsuit argues that Trump’s invocation of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to enact tariffs was “unlawful and unprecedented,” and that such expansive action requires approval from Congress.
Some background: Through the IEEPA, in 1977, Congress granted the president broad authority to impose sanctions on countries, export controls, regulate financial transactions and freeze foreign assets under national emergency declaration, but it requires the executive to consult and report to Congress when exercising these powers.
California had nearly $675 billion in two-way trade in 2024, and it counts Mexico, Canada and China as its top three trade partners. Over 40% of California imports come from these countries, totaling $203 billion of the more than $491 billion in goods imported by California in 2024.
President Donald Trump said he is personally attending a meeting at the White House with Japanese officials to negotiate tariffs alongside his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
In addition to tariffs, Trump said they will be negotiating the “cost of military support” and what he called “TRADE FAIRNESS.”
“Hopefully something can be worked out which is good (GREAT!) for Japan and the USA!” Trump said on Truth Social this morning.
Remember: It comes as the Trump administration is working on negotiating “tailored” trade deals with several dozen countries, after Trump initiated a 90-day pause on so-called reciprocal tariffs and instituted a universal 10% rate in the meantime.
Japanese carmaker Honda will shift production of one of its models from Japan to the United States.
Honda plans to manufacture its US-bound five-door Civic hybrid in Indiana, a spokesperson told CNN today.
Production of the model in the Yorii factory in the Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo, is expected to end in June or July, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the move has not been prompted only by the Trump administration’s decision to slap a 25% tariff on imports of cars and car parts into America — and that Honda has long had a policy of manufacturing in locations where there is demand.
Americans rushing to buy goods ahead of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs likely gave March retail sales a boost. But economists warn that strength will probably fade as tariffs eventually fuel price increases.
The Commerce Department is set to release March retail spending data at 8:30 a.m. ET today, a potential glimpse into how Americans are reacting to the barrage of news on tariffs and other economic measures. Consumer spending powers the vast majority of the US economy, and retail sales make up about a third of that.
Americans probably raced to the stores in March, especially for big-ticket items that could see big price jumps because of Trump’s import taxes, economists said. And that could happen again in April. But those kinds of brief buying sprints make it harder to understand the financial situation of many Americans. This, in turn, makes it harder for economic stewards, such as the Federal Reserve, to plan their next move.
“In the near term, we could have some really strong consumer spending numbers, but that just makes things a little bit tricky for the Fed,” James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, told CNN. “That means that the Fed just sits and waits to see what happens.”
Economists polled by FactSet estimate that retail sales spiked 1.3% in March from the prior month, which would be the strongest monthly gain since January 2023. The figures are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation.
A federal judge said yesterday that there is no evidence that the Trump administration is complying with her ruling to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Both El Salvador’s president and the White House have made it clear they will not return Abrego Garcia.
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said he will travel to El Salvador today as he pushes for the return of Abrego Garcia, who is his constituent.
Here’s the latest on the administration’s deportation push:
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