Democratic senator Cory Booker holding marathon speech to highlight ‘recklessness’ of Trump policies – US politics live
Democratic senator Cory Booker holds marathon speech to highlight ‘recklessness’ of Trump policies
Senator Cory Booker has been giving a marathon speech on the Senate floor that has lasted into the early hours of Tuesday morning, highlighting what he described as the “recklessness” of the Trump administration.
The New Jersey Democrat began his address on Monday night and said he would continue to speak for as long as he could “physically endure”. By 7.30am ET, Booker was still going.
The focus of his remarks are concerns over president Trump’s proposed cuts to programs like Medicaid.
At the start of his speech, Booker said:
I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.
He went on:
In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people for – from our highest offices – a sense of common decency.
These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.
Key events
Senator Cory Booker thanked his Minnesota colleague Tina Smith for her question, saying she “weighs into some difficult waters”. He said he had read “horrible stories, painful stories” about people “trapped” in the immigration system that were a “betrayal of American values”.
Booker said the Trump administration was “violating the very first words” of the constitution. He said:
[Donald Trump] wants to take power from our Congress. And the thing that is killing me, that is actually breaking my heart, is that we’re letting him take our power.
On the subject of foreign policy, Booker said Trump had left US allies feeling “abandoned”, “degraded” and “insulted” while leaving its adversaries “emboldened”.
In the short time President Trump has been in office for his second term, Americans have already been put in harm’s way because of the reckless approach of the administration.
Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, accused Donald Trump of using the immigration system “as a tool to restrict first amendment freedoms, to subvert due process and to further weaken America’s global standing”.
Smith, speaking as Senator Cory Booker yielded for a question on the Senate floor, said Trump was “seek(ing) to emulate the authoritarian regimes that he so openly admires”.
She noted the number of international students targeted for arrest and deportation in recent weeks because of their participation in protests in support of Palestine.
“These are young people who play by all the rules,” Smith said.
Their views on the war in Gaza may differ sharply from mine or others, but I believe that the first amendment guarantees them the right to express those views without facing punishment or reprisal from our government.
She said the arrests had been carried out in a manner “that seems calculated to maximize fear and intimidation in immigrant and activist communities”. Smith said:
Does punishing people for their political speech seem consistent with American democratic values? I can’t believe that.
Senator Cory Booker, who is now more than 13 hours into his marathon speech on the Senate floor, accused the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress of “putting profits over people”. Booker said:
They are trying to gut Medicaid and Medicare, programs on which nearly a third of our country rely – all to pay for tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.
Booker also said social security “is not the government’s money to spend” but the “hard-earned savings of working Americans that belongs to Americans,” adding:
[Donald] Trump and [Elon] Musk need to keep their hands off of money that isn’t theirs to take.
Staff at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have started receiving notice that their jobs are being cut, Reuters reports.
The news agency, citing an FDA employee, reports that staff on Tuesday morning had to present their badges at the building entrance and those who had been fired were given a ticket and told to return home.
Fired staff at the CDC worked for the National Center for Environmental Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), it says.
Mass layoffs begin at federal health agencies
Some employees at federal health agencies began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday morning, according to reports, days after the US department of health and human services (HHS) announced it planned to cut 10,000 full-time jobs.
An email addressed to an employee at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obtained by CNN, reads:
This action does not reflect directly on your service, performance or conduct.
The email states that the person would be placed on administrative leave and would no longer have access to building as of Tuesday, the outlet reports.
HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy announced the planned cuts as part of a sweeping organization of the department which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country, Associated Press reports.
The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff – 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers, according to the news agency.
Eric Berger
Rightwing groups around the US are pushing legislation that would place new limits on what books are allowed in school libraries in a move that critics decry as censorship often focused on LGBTQ+ issues, race or imposing conservative social values.
Caught up in the attempts at suppressing books are classics like The Color Purple and Slaughterhouse-Five.
Opponents of such bills argue that they would actually hinder individual rights because the proponents would be imposing their beliefs on parents and children who do not share their views. Those campaigning for the restrictions say it would prevent children from being exposed to what they label sexually explicit and obscene content and increase parental rights.
There are at least 112 proposed state bills concerning school – and public – libraries that seek to expand the definition of what is deemed obscene or “harmful to minors” and to limit librarian staff’s ability to determine which books are in their collections, according to the American Library Association.
Democratic senator Cory Booker holds marathon speech to highlight ‘recklessness’ of Trump policies
Senator Cory Booker has been giving a marathon speech on the Senate floor that has lasted into the early hours of Tuesday morning, highlighting what he described as the “recklessness” of the Trump administration.
The New Jersey Democrat began his address on Monday night and said he would continue to speak for as long as he could “physically endure”. By 7.30am ET, Booker was still going.
The focus of his remarks are concerns over president Trump’s proposed cuts to programs like Medicaid.
At the start of his speech, Booker said:
I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.
He went on:
In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people for – from our highest offices – a sense of common decency.
These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.
Sam Levine
US voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday in Wisconsin and Florida in elections that some see as a test of Donald Trump’s popularity and the political clout of his billionaire ally Elon Musk.
The most closely watched contest is a battle for a seat on Wisconsin’s seven-member supreme court. Conservatives are trying to flip ideological control of the court, which currently has a 4-3 liberal majority. The contest, which features liberal judge Susan Crawford facing off against conservative Brad Schimel, will have huge consequences in the state.
The supreme court is set to determine the future of abortion and collective bargaining rights. The court could also ultimately require the state legislature to redraw the state’s eight congressional districts, which are heavily distorted in favor of Republicans, who control six of them.
A Cornell University student who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and was asked to surrender by United States immigration officials has said he is leaving the US, citing fear of detention and threats to his personal safety.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana studies and dual citizen of the UK and the Gambia, has participated in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza after the October 2023 Hamas attack. His attorneys said last month that he was asked to turn himself in and that his student visa was being revoked.
Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters and accused them of supporting the militant group Hamas, being antisemitic and posing foreign policy hurdles.
Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the Trump administration wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism and support for Hamas.
Last year, Taal was in a group of activists who disrupted a career fair on campus that featured weapons manufacturers and the university thereafter ordered him to study remotely. He previously posted online that “colonised peoples have the right to resist by any means necessary”.
Taal filed a lawsuit in mid-March to block deportations of protesters, a bid that was denied by a judge last week.
The reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood said the Trump administration would cut federal family planning funding as of Tuesday, affecting birth control, cancer screenings and other services for low-income people.
Planned Parenthood said that nine of its affiliates received notice that funding would be withheld under a program known as Title X, which has supported healthcare services for poor people since 1970.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week the US Department of Health and Human Services planned an immediate freeze of $27.5m in family planning grants for groups including Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood says more than 300 health centers are in the Title X network and Title X-funded centers received more than 1.5m visits in 2023. It did not say how much funding would be halted by the Trump administration.
Large majority of Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against US, poll finds
Jon Henley
A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has shown, if Donald Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.
The US president appears likely to unleash a range of tariffs, varying from country to country, on Wednesday, which he has called Liberation Day. He also said last week that a 25% levy on cars shipped to the US would come into force the next day.
Many European firms are likely to be hit hard. Some, including Germany’s car manufacturers and France’s luxury goods firms and wine, champagne and spirits makers, rely on exports to the US for up to 20% of their income.
The EU has already pledged a “timely, robust and calibrated” response to Washington’s plans, which experts predict are likely to depress output, drive up prices and fuel a trade war. Global markets and the dollar fell on Monday after Trump crushed hopes that what he calls “reciprocal tariffs” – arguing that trading partners are cheating the US – would only target countries with the largest trade imbalances.
A YouGov survey carried out in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found that if the US tariffs went ahead, large majorities – ranging from 79% of respondents in Denmark to 56% in Italy – favoured retaliatory levies on US imports.
As Donald Trump prepared to unveil a swathe of reciprocal tariffs, global markets braced and some Republican senators voiced their opposition to a strategy that critics warn risks a global trade war, provoking retaliation by major trading partners such as China, Canada and the European Union.
The US president said on Monday he would be “very kind” to trading partners when he unveils further tariffs this week, potentially as early as Tuesday night.
The Republican billionaire insists that reciprocal action is needed because the world’s biggest economy has been “ripped off by every country in the world”, promising “Liberation Day” for the US.
He could also unveil more sector-specific levies.
Asked for details, he told reporters on Monday: “You’re going to see in two days, which is maybe tomorrow night or probably Wednesday.”
But he added: “We’re going to be very nice, relatively speaking, we’re going to be very kind.”
Trump aides draft proposal for at least 20% tariffs on most imports to US, Washington Post reports
White House aides have drafted a proposal to impose tariffs of about 20% on most imports to the United States, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Donald Trump’s team is mulling using trillions of dollars in new import revenue for a tax dividend or refund, the report said, citing sources.
Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to overhaul the nation’s elections faced its first legal challenges on Monday as the Democratic National Committee and a pair of non-profits filed two separate lawsuits calling it unconstitutional.
The Campaign Legal Center and the State Democracy Defenders Fund brought the first lawsuit Monday afternoon. The DNC, the Democratic Governors Association and Senate and House Democratic leaders followed soon after with a complaint of their own.
Both lawsuits filed in the US district court for the District of Columbia ask the court to block Trump’s order and declare it illegal.
“The president’s executive order is an unlawful action that threatens to uproot our tried-and-tested election systems and silence potentially millions of Americans,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the DC-based Campaign Legal Center.
“It is simply not within the president’s authority to set election rules by executive decree, especially when they would restrict access to voting in this way.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Control of the Wisconsin supreme court at stake in race that broke records for spending
Majority control of the Wisconsin supreme court will be decided Tuesday in a race that broke records for spending and has become a proxy battle for the nation’s political fights, pitting a candidate backed by President Donald Trump against a Democratic-aligned challenger.
Republicans including Trump and the world’s wealthiest person, Elon Musk, lined up behind Brad Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats like former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID.
The first major election in the country since November is seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers, AP reported. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out $1m checks to two voters.
On Monday, Trump hinted as to why the outcome of the race was important. The court can decide election-related laws and settle disputes over future election outcomes.
“Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the supreme court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so therefore the supreme court choice – it’s a big race.”
Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Trump and Musk, referring to “Elon Schimel” during a debate.
Oliver Stone to testify at John F Kennedy assassination hearing
Film director Oliver Stone will testify at a US House of Representatives hearing on Tuesday that is considering thousands of pages of documents related to the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy released this month at the direction of President Donald Trump.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna, chair of the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, said that lawmakers will hear from witnesses about the value of the documents.
“By investigating the newly released JFK files, consulting experts, and tracking down surviving staff of various investigative committees, our task force will get to the bottom of this mystery and share our findings with the American people,” Luna said.
Shortly after taking office for his second term in January Trump signed an executive order directing national intelligence and other officials to quickly come up with a plan for the full and complete release of all records relating to President Kennedy’s assassination.
The archives’ Kennedy assassination collection has more than 6m pages of records, the vast majority of which had been declassified and made public before Trump’s order. Kennedy’s murder has been attributed to lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald.
Special elections to deliver voters’ verdict on Trump’s chaotic first months
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We start with news that several elections today will be a crucial test of the popularity of the chaotic and extremist first two months of Donald Trump’s second term and the clout of his close ally, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who has been tasked with radically reforming the US federal government.
They could also offer a glimmer of hope to Democrats – fresh off a surprise upset win in a local race in Pennsylvania last week – that their divided political party could be seeing a resurgence in its fortunes.
Or, if they fail to land further blows on Republicans, it will be yet another sign that the party is destined for a long period in the wilderness amid historic lows of its popularity in recent polls.
Many eyes are focused on two previously Republican-held congressional seats in Florida, where its sixth and first congressional districts are vacant and up for grabs.
Mike Waltz left to take up a cabinet job for Trump and Matt Gaetz resigned to pursue a failed bid to become attorney general. House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin majority over Democrats, 218 to 213, with four seats vacant, in the lower chamber of Congress.
Republican nerves about how tight the House could become were emphasized last week after Trump pulled the nomination of New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be United Nations ambassador – a move widely seen as admitting that marginal Republican districts are at risk of being lost.
It is the old district of Waltz, Trump’s embattled national security adviser, that is most at risk. State senator Randy Fine has lagged behind his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, in fundraising amid concerns that he could lose the district – though such a defeat is far from certain.
Read my colleague Richard Luscombe’s full report on the elections here:
In other news:
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Trump said Wednesday will be “Liberation Day” when he announces reciprocal tariffs on nearly all US trading partners. Global stock markets were a sea of red on Monday and investors fled to gold amid recession fears.
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The Trump administration has announced a review of federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations of antisemitism.
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Senate majority leader John Thune said he believes Donald Trump is “probably messing with you” with his remarks on Sunday that there are “methods” by which he could run for a third term.
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A coalition of civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block portions of Donald Trump’s executive order that would require voters to prove their citizenship in order to vote.
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Trump took aim at ticket scalping in a new executive order signed today, which directs the Department of Justice and the FTC to crack down on ticket resellers who price-gouge.
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Tens of millions of dollars is being withheld for Planned Parenthood chapters across the US in an attempt by the Trump administration to force the clinics to change their operations.
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A federal judge has put the Trump administration plans to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants on pause, ruling Monday that protections struck down by officials should be reinstated while lawsuits continue.
