Trump administration live updates: Pam Bondi testifies in House Epstein investigation – NBC News

The Situation Room meeting on Iran that began this morning wrapped up after two hours, according to a White House official, but Trump has yet to say how he’ll proceed in the ongoing conflict.

Trump said earlier today that he would make a “final determination” in the meeting on a proposed agreement to extend the ceasefire with Iran.

U.S. officials said yesterday that the White House was reviewing an agreement to start 60 days of discussions with Iran about its nuclear program, but neither side has signed off on the deal.

Trump has said any final deal must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and reopen of the Strait of Hormuz.

Calling her an “America First Patriot,” Trump today endorsed South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette in the state’s Republican gubernatorial primary.

“She never wavered, never let me down, and was the only South Carolina Gubernatorial Candidate to Endorse me as soon as I launched my 2024 Presidential Campaign,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “She crisscrossed South Carolina and other States for me, and I said, at the time, that this is truly something which I cannot forget!”

Evette was a prominent voice in Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.

A crowded slate of six candidates have jockeyed for Trump’s endorsement for months.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent today went further than his previous statements on a proposed $250 bill featuring Trump’s face, saying the department should roll out the currency.

“I think that if you are the president, just like Calvin Coolidge was for the 150th, if you’re the president for the 250th, President Trump should be on there,” Bessent said, referring to the half-dollar coins minted with Coolidge’s face for the nation’s 150th anniversary in 1926.

Bessent spoke at the annual Reagan National Economic Forum in Simi Valley, California.

His comments come a day after he confirmed the Treasury Department was preparing for legislation that would allow it to print a $250 bill emblazoned with Trump’s face, meant to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary. At the time, though, he did not say the government should roll out the limited currency.

A federal judge in Washington has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from closing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for repairs and found the board’s decision to add President Donald Trump’s name to the center was unlawful and ordered that it be removed from the building and its website.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper found the center’s board vote to shutter the facility for two years while repairs are carried out was the result of an “ill-informed and seemingly preordained decision.”

Read the full story here.

Trump this afternoon posted an endorsement of Rep. Randy Feenstra’s gubernatorial bid, just days before Iowans head to the polls.

It’s an important shot in the arm for Feenstra, who has been stuck in a crowded and competitive GOP primary field. And its especially important given a key rule in Iowa primaries: If none of the Republican gubernatorial candidates get 35% of the vote, the nominee gets chosen at the state party convention.

So one big question for next week will be whether the Trump nod can help Feenstra put the election away on Tuesday.

The commander of a terrorist organization is alleged to have discussed wanting to target Ivanka Trump, the president’s oldest daughter, as part of a series of attacks, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The commander, Mohammad Al-Saadi, was indicted yesterday on eight counts over allegations that he helped carry out nearly 20 attacks — and attempted attacks — across Europe, Canada and the U.S.

Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national, was extradited to New York this month to face trial, including over allegations of a plot to target a New York City synagogue. He was also charged with ordering attacks on U.S. bank branches, as well as against Jewish people in several cities across Europe.

Read the full story here.

Nancy Pelosi did not plan to endorse anyone in the race to succeed her in Congress. But after she noted how many women who used to represent California have been replaced by men, Pelosi, the former House speaker, felt she had to step in for a female candidate, she told NBC News in an exclusive interview.

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Louisiana Republicans approved a new congressional map today, eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black districts and drawing an additional Republican-leaning district in its place. 

The map, which is expected to elect five Republicans and one Democrat to Congress, was passed out of the state Senate this afternoon after being tweaked in the state House earlier in the week. Republicans currently have a 4-2 advantage in Louisiana’s House delegation.

Read the full story here.

The House Oversight Committee’s transcribed interview with former AG Pam Bondi has ended.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division and who was in the interview with Bondi, spoke to reporters after it concluded.

Asked if she directed Bondi not to answer questions about Trump, Dhillon said, “there were ground rules laid with the committee before we walked in there, and we simply wanted to stick to those, the temporal limitations as well as subject matter limitations.” 

When asked if Blanche is open to appearing before the committee as Democrats said they wanted, Dhillon replied: “That is not something that we’re prepared to address here today.” 

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told reporters outside Bondi’s closed-door hearing that the former attorney general “continues to push all the investigation and the blame on acting AG Todd Blanche” and maintains that “he’s responsible for all the mistakes we saw” in terms of how the files were handled.

Garcia said that Democrats would ask Chairman James Comer to have Blanche come in before the committee and added that “if he doesn’t do it, we’re gonna force a subpoena and try to get votes.” 

Bondi again said she was not aware of or involved in Maxwell’s prison transfer, Garcia said. She also would not respond to any questions about Trump, he added.

“I personally asked the former AG five times in five different questions about her conversations with President Trump, whether he directed her at any given time on the Epstein files, what he knew, what he asked her to redact or not, and she refused to answer any questions about President Trump,” Garcia said. “In fact, she said she would not speak to or respond to any questions having anything to do with President Trump.”

In an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Jill Biden said finding out about former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis, “it was just, it was shocking.”

Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the cancer in May of last year — about four months after he left office.

The former first lady was asked if doctors should have discovered his condition while he was still in the White House.

“The doctors said that according to the American Urological Association that men over 70 don’t need a PSA, a blood test, anymore because it’s a slow growing cancer,” she said. “I do feel we had amazing care in the White House, but somehow that was missed.”

Biden, who’s now 83, completed a course of radiation therapy in October.

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Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., announced today in remarks at an event to unveil a street named after her that she would not seek another term in Congress.

“I want you to know that this has been a journey, but it’s time, it’s time,” Wilson, 83, told the crowd, which included her children and many longtime supporters. “And I know all of you are wondering, ‘What is the congresswoman going to do?’ Well, the congresswoman is going to not seek another term. Even leather wears out.”

Wilson, who was first elected to Congress in 2010, added, “I want to thank all of you for trusting me, for giving me the honor of serving you all of these years. It has been a blessing to meet all of you, to help so many people.”

Before running for Congress, Wilson was a long-time educator and champion of students in South Florida, something she reflected on during her speech. The street named after her will include a school also named for her.

“We’re here today because this is a grand occasion, and I want little children to be able to say, ‘What school do you attend?’ … Thanks to the school board, and thanks to Miami Gardens, they’ll say, ‘I attend Frederica Wilson Elementary,’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, where is that?’ ‘It’s on Frederica Wilson Boulevard,’” the congresswoman said.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he’s meeting in the White House Situation Room now to make a decision on a proposed deal with Iran.

“Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions,” Trump wrote in his post.

The president said any mines placed in the strait will be “terminated” or Iran will remove them, and the naval blockade would end.

“Ships caught in the Strait due to our amazing and unprecedented Naval Blockade, which will now be lifted, may start the process of ‘heading home!’” he wrote.

He also said that “enriched material” that is “buried deep underground” would be “unearthed by the United States” in coordination with Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency and would be destroyed.

Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., seemed to give conflicting answers about what to do about the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster rule during a wide-ranging Senate Democratic primary debate yesterday.

“The filibuster must go so that we can codify health care,” Stevens said, while adding: “We should use the filibuster to not allow the big ugly bill to pass that increased our debt.”

It was a reference to Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill that extended his 2017 tax cuts. Republicans passed it on a party-line basis last year without Democrats because certain tax and spending bills are exempt from the 60-vote rule.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., a former teacher and principal known in Congress for her colorful outfits and matching hats, said in an interview with the Miami Herald she will not seek re-election this fall.

Wilson, 83, is expected to make a formal announcement today at a ceremony, where a street in the Miami area is being named in her honor. The street is next to a school that is also named after her.

Read the full story here.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” created as part of an unprecedented settlement with the president, his family and the Trump Org. 

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia entered the order this morning after a Jan. 6 prosecutor and others sued to block the fund last week.

Read the full story here.

Vice President JD Vance is unlikely to take any “formal” parental leave when his fourth child arrives this summer, but he said this week that he will spend more time at home as his family navigates the transition and demands of the office.

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Democrats on the House Oversight Committee criticized the panel’s Republican chairman for choosing not to film Bondi’s closed-door testimony this morning, although the interview will be transcribed. 

In a statement last night, a spokesperson for panel’s Democrats, Sara Guerrero, alleged Bondi “was at the heart of a White House cover-up and Oversight Chairman James Comer is working to hide her testimony from the American people.”

“The survivors and the American people deserve to see her respond to real questions about her mismanagement and cover-up of the Epstein files,” Guerrero said.

The committee did choose to film its interviews with former President Bill Clinton and former fist lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in February, which it released publicly.

Bondi just entered the room where she will have her closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee.  She did not answer reporters’ questions after entering the Rayburn House Office Building at 8:30 a.m.

The transcribed interview, which is off camera, is set to begin at 9 a.m.

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Former Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives to testify today. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

The White House has launched an extraterrestrial-themed “aliens” webpage that is really aimed at tracking undocumented immigrants.

“For 60 years, the U.S. government has kept a closely guarded secret. Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives,” the webpage says. “They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences. With one exception — they do not belong here.”

The site accuses former presidents, lawmakers and senior officials of covering up the “invasion.”

“Until one man finally had the courage to tell the truth. Bold. Unapologetic. Unafraid,” it says. “President Trump was the first to call out the real danger Aliens pose to every American family, every community.”

The site features a searchable map for tracking arrests of undocumented immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and provides an ICE tip line to report “suspicious aliens.”

An apparent “swatting” incident targeted the residence of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Wednesday night, police confirmed to NBC News.

Police in Fairfax County, Virginia, said yesterday that the call was received through the police department’s nonemergency line just after 9 p.m. ET the night before.

“Officers immediately coordinated with Supreme Court Police personnel assigned to the residence and quickly determined that the report was fictitious,” Fairfax County police said in a statement. “No additional police resources were utilized.”

The Supreme Court’s public information office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full story here.

Bret Michaels, the front man for the pop metal band Poison, said in a social media post today that he was backing out of his scheduled appearance at an upcoming event on the National Mall in D.C. to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Michaels that what he thought was going to be an event to honor military service members, veterans, first responders, teachers and other working Americans had “evolved into something much more divisive than I agreed to be part of.”

The Poison front man also said the safety of his fans, band, crew and family had entered into his decision, referring to threats that he called “completely unfounded and unforgivable.”

Several other artists have also cited concerns about the politicization of the event in announcing they would not be appearing. The others who have bowed out of performing include Morris Day and the Time, Young MC, Martina McBride and The Commodores. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for a “new partnership” with the United States to “help make America great again,” in a speech delivered yesterday in New York.

Amid an ongoing trade war with the U.S., Carney has vowed to double Canadian exports to other markets in the next decade and signed more than 20 economic and security deals in the last year. As Carney spoke in New York, U.S. trade officials were in Mexico City in talks with officials there about overhauling the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade. The discussions for now exclude Canada.

Read the full story here.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said yesterday she does not plan to run for president in 2028, rebuffing assumptions that she would join what’s expected to be a crowded Democratic primary race.

“There will be a robust group of people running for president,” Whitmer told WJBK-TV of Detroit in an interview Thursday, adding, “I will not be one of them in 2028, I can tell you that.”

But just hours later, Whitmer softened her stance.

Read the full story here.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi will give closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee this morning about her role in handling the release of the Epstein files.

The Justice Department has been heavily criticized by some lawmakers, Epstein survivors and right-wing media figures for how it has handled the release of the Epstein files under Bondi’s leadership.

Five Republicans joined all the Democrats on the Oversight Committee in March to vote to subpoena Bondi for her testimony.

Read the full story here.