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President Trump's pick for FBI director, Kash Patel, faces Senators' questions in his confirmation hearing.
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Watch live as Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, faces questions in her Senate confirmation hearing.
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We continue our conversation with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, who responds to President Donald Trump's freezing of trillions in federal funding this week, which the White House walked back just a day later. Wyden helped pressure the administration to abandon the plan after publicizing how it disrupted Medicaid payments in states across the country. "The credit deserves to go to the whistleblowers who brought it to us," he says. Wyden also discusses the confirmation hearings for former Democratic Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, as well as the growing influence of Big Tech oligarchs and the deadly air crash in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
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Rescue workers in Washington, D.C., have launched a massive recovery operation in the Potomac River after a regional passenger jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided midair late Wednesday, with both aircraft crashing into the water. American Airlines Flight 5342 had 60 passengers and four crew members on board and was en route to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport from Wichita, Kansas. The Black Hawk helicopter had three soldiers on board conducting a training flight. Officials believe there are no survivors. The deadly crash comes amid upheaval and staffing changes in the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Security Administration due to President Donald Trump's ongoing purge across federal government agencies. Journalist David Sirota of The Lever says the airport also recently had its air traffic increased by lawmakers despite objections. "There is a very deep safety concern at this airport because there had been a series of near misses," says Sirota. "These warnings about expanding the flight traffic at this airport came just a few months ago." He also discusses the first 10 days of the Trump administration.
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Follow President-elect Trump's progress filling over 800 positions, among about 1,300 that require Senate confirmation, in this tracker from The Washington Post and the Partnership for Public Service.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, three of President Trump's high-profile picks, on Thursday will make their cases for confirmation.
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A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily halted President Trump's attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, including university and nonprofit funding, food assistance, Medicaid, veterans' benefits and more. The Trump administration said the shocking move was a part of its assessment of whether various government programs align with its agenda. Since assuming office, Trump and his allies have launched a highly publicized purge of initiatives aimed at tackling historical and structural inequality within the federal government. "It's just been complete chaos" and "completely illegal," says our guest Sam Bagenstos, who explains that the policy is an attempt to raise a challenge to Congress's power of the purse and nullify "all the limitations that have been placed on the president's power." Bagenstos previously served as general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget, the agency that announced the freeze Monday night.
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A dramatic standoff between the U.S. and Colombia unfolded Sunday with Colombian President Gustavo Petro turning back two U.S. military planes that were carrying deported migrants in shackles, saying immigrants should be treated with dignity. The two countries then traded tariff threats before announcing a deal in which Colombia would begin accepting flights of deported migrants. Meanwhile, Trump has sent 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, further militarizing the region. "We're very, very concerned," says immigration activist Fernando García of the El Paso, Texas-based Border Network for Human Rights, whose organization is among those providing resources like Know Your Rights training to immigrants now living under a regime of "anxiety and fear."
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We host a roundtable on the planned Gaza ceasefire with former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy of the U.S./Middle East Project, Gazan analyst Muhammad Shehada of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News. We discuss how incoming President Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff pressured Israel to accept the deal and what it reveals about the outgoing Biden administration's refusal to use its own leverage for the same end. "Joe Biden could have ended this long ago," and that he chose not to "exposes the utter moral rot that existed within the Biden White House," says Scahill. Still, our guests say it's unlikely that the ceasefire announcement signifies true relief for Palestinians beset by Israel's genocidal violence. Levy says Netanyahu is already working to renege on the deal and continue a war that has helped him retain his political power, while Shehada warns that all signs point to the continued subjugation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in conditions "more painful than the war."
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