House Republicans are making a strong push to vote on their multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks package, aiming for a vote as early as Wednesday. They are engaged in intensive last-minute negotiations to secure the support of wavering GOP members and fulfill Trump’s primary legislative objective.
On Wednesday, President Trump is scheduled to welcome South Africa’s leader to the White House. This meeting comes in the wake of Trump’s accusation against the South African government of permitting a “genocide” to be carried out against minority white farmers. However, Afrikaner farmers in South Africa have refuted this allegation, stating that there is no substantiated evidence to support such claims.
In a recent development, a federal judge issued a ruling on Tuesday evening mandating that U.S. officials maintain custody and supervision of migrants who were possibly deported to South Sudan. This decision was made pending a further ruling on the legality of their removal. Lawyers representing the immigrants have raised concerns about the Trump administration’s actions, suggesting that individuals from Myanmar and Vietnam have been deported to South Sudan, despite a court order prohibiting deportations to certain countries.
Here’s the latest:
Trump’s Wednesday schedule, according to the White House
1. 11:30 a.m. – Trump welcomes South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa
2. 11:45 a.m. – Trump and Ramaphosa will have lunch
3. 12:45 a.m. – Trump and Ramaphosa will have a meeting in the Oval Office
4. 4:00 p.m. – The NCAA men’s college basketball champions, the University of Florida Gators, will visit the White House
Trump drafts America’s business titans to burnish his image at home and abroad
With Trump back in the White House, a jaunt with the president or a stop in the Oval Office is now as routine for America’s business leaders as a speech to an industry conference.
Corporate titans are spending more time than ever working to curry favor with the administration as part of their effort to score relief from regulations — and tariffs — from the transactional president. He, in turn, is happy to use them as supporting cast members as he tries to project the economy as booming at a time when growth is slowing.
But putting in time with the U.S. president has not fully insulated companies such as Apple, Amazon, Walmart and others from Trump’s anger. It’s a sign that the public commitments they make to create U.S. jobs may be doing more to burnish the president’s image than to protect their own profitability.
▶ Read more about Trump’s relationship with business titans
South Africa’s leader aims to salvage relationship with Trump in White House visit
Trump will host South Africa’s leader at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting that might be tense after Trump accused the country’s government of allowing a “genocide” to take place against minority white farmers.
South Africa has strongly rejected the allegation and President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed for the meeting with Trump in an attempt to salvage his country’s relationship with the United States, which is at its lowest point since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994.
Trump has launched a series of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, including that it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy.
Ramaphosa said he hopes to correct what he calls damaging mischaracterizations during the meeting, which is Trump’s first with an African leader at the White House since he returned to office.
▶ Read more about Ramaphosa’s visit
Trump selects concept for $175 billion ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system
Trump has announced the concept he wants for his future Golden Dome missile defense program — a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put U.S. weapons in space.
Speaking Tuesday from the Oval Office, Trump said he expects the system will be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which ends in 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles “even if they are launched from space.”
It’s likelier that the complex system may have some initial capability by that point, a U.S. official familiar with the program said.
Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground- and space-based capabilities that are able to detect and stop missiles at all four major stages of a potential attack: detecting and destroying them before a launch, intercepting them in their earliest stage of flight, stopping them midcourse in the air, or halting them in the final minutes as they descend toward a target.
▶ Read more about the “Golden Dome”
House GOP grinds ahead with Trump’s big tax cuts bill, but new report says it will add to deficit
House Republicans are pushing to vote on their multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks package as soon as Wednesday, grinding out last-minute deal-making to shore up wavering GOP support and deliver on Trump’s top legislative priority.
Trump himself had instructed the Republican majority to quit arguing and get it done, his own political influence on the line. But GOP leaders worked late into the night to convince skeptical Republicans who have problems on several fronts, including worries that it will pile onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt.
A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.
Republicans hunkered down at the Capitol through the night for one last committee hearing processing changes to the package. Democrats immediately motioned to adjourn, but the vote failed on party lines.
▶ Read more about the upcoming vote
US must keep control of migrants sent to South Sudan in case removals were unlawful, judge rules
A federal judge has ruled that U.S. officials must retain custody and control of migrants who were apparently removed to South Sudan in case he rules their removals were unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts issued the ruling late Tuesday after an emergency hearing, after attorneys for immigrants said the Trump administration appears to have begun deporting people from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan — despite a court order restricting removals to other countries.
Murphy said the government must “maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful.”
While Murphy left the details to the government’s discretion, he said he expects the migrants “will be treated humanely.”
▶ Read more about the judge’s ruling
The revival of an old program delegates Trump immigration enforcement to local police
As part of the Trump administration’s push to carry out mass deportations, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement has aggressively revived and expanded a decades-old program that delegates immigration enforcement powers to state and local law enforcement agencies.
Under the 287(g) program led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, police officers can interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, ICE has rapidly expanded the number of signed agreements it has with law enforcement agencies across the country.
The reason is clear. Those agreements vastly beef up the number of immigration enforcement staff available to ICE, which has about 6,000 deportation officers, as they aim to meet Trump’s goal of deporting as many of the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally as they can.
▶ Read more about what these agreements are and what critics say about them
As many as a dozen migrants may have been deported to Africa, according to lawyers
Immigration authorities appear to have begun deporting migrants from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan, attorneys for the migrants said in court documents filed Tuesday.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return messages seeking comment. An immigration official in Texas confirmed via email that at least one man from Myanmar had been flown to South Sudan Tuesday morning, according to court documents.
A woman also reported to attorneys that her husband from Vietnam and up to 10 other people were flown to Africa.
Those removals would violate a court order from a judge in Massachusetts requiring that people have a chance to challenge removals to countries other than their homelands, attorneys from the National Immigration Litigation Alliance wrote.
They asked Judge Brian E. Murphy for an emergency order to prevent such removals. He previously said deportations to Libya would violate his ruling.
After Trump’s visit to the Capitol, some Republicans still oppose big bill
Speaker Mike Johnson says Trump’s “one, big, beautiful, bill will require one, big, beautiful vote”, but holdouts remain.
The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, said they’re still “a long ways away” from agreement. And other key Republicans said they were still a no vote.
Johnson headed to the Senate to update Republicans there on the path ahead.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
