With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans have sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage, a step toward delivering Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” The bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts, despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.
Meanwhile, Trump’s effort to suspend the system for resettling refugees in the U.S. is on hold after a federal judge in Seattle blocked it.
Here's the latest:
Federal employees may get more demands to justify their work at Elon Musk’s direction
The turmoil that enveloped the federal workforce over the last few days is unlikely to cease anytime soon as the U.S. government’s human resources agency considers how to fulfill Elon Musk ’s demands.
The Office of Personnel Management told agency leaders Monday that their employees did not have to comply with a Musk-inspired edict for workers to report their recent accomplishments or risk getting fired. But later that evening, OPM sent out another memo suggesting that there could be similar requests going forward — and workers might be sanctioned for noncompliance.
OPM originally sent employees an email over the weekend with the subject line “what did you do last week?” Recipients were asked to respond with “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished.”
President Donald Trump did little to clear up the situation while talking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
“It’s somewhat voluntary,” he said, but added that “if you don’t answer, I guess you get fired.”
▶ Read more about Musk’s demands for the federal workforce
House GOP’s passage of Trump’s ‘big’ budget resolution is a crucial step toward delivering his agenda
House Republicans Tuesday night sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage, a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had almost no votes to spare in his bare-bones GOP majority and fought on all fronts — against Democrats, uneasy rank-and-file Republicans and skeptical GOP senators — to advance the party’s signature legislative package. Trump made calls to wayward GOP lawmakers and invited Republicans to the White House.
The vote was 217-215, with a single Republican and all Democrats opposed, and the outcome was in jeopardy until the gavel.
▶ Read more about the passage of the budget resolution
Trump says he will offer ‘gold cards’ for $5 million path to citizenship, replacing investor visas
Trump said Tuesday that he plans to offer a “gold card” visa with a path to citizenship for $5 million, replacing a 35-year-old visa for investors.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the “Trump Gold Card” would replace EB-5 visas in two weeks. EB-5s were created by Congress in 1990 to generate foreign investment and are available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Lutnick said the gold card — actually a green card, or permanent legal residency — would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and “nonsense” that he said characterize the EB-5 program. Like other green cards, it would include a path to citizenship.
Trump made no mention of the requirements for job creation. And, while the number of EB-5 visas is capped, Trump mused that the federal government could sell 10 million “gold cards” to reduce the deficit. He said it “could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.”
▶ Read more about Trump’s “gold visa” plan
