Trump fuels rumors about impending Epstein files release with major announcement: Live updates

President Donald Trump will speak at the Justice Department on Friday about his plans to restore law and order, Axios reported.

Trump spent much of his 2024 presidential campaign complaining about the ‘weaponization’ of government against him.

After he was elected, the Justice Department dropped two federal cases against him: one tied to possession of classified documents are Mar-a-Lago and one connected with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Trump has fired many employees at the DoJ and FBI, stacking the agencies with his loyalists.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter on Capitol Hill:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday evening that the House stop gap spending bill is bad but a government shutdown is worse.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Schumer noted that unless Congress acts, the federal government shutdown Friday at midnight.

‘While the CR bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,’ Schumer said.

He said the Republican bill is a ‘terrible option’ and said it is not a ‘clean CR’ and is partisan.

‘It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs,’ Schumer said. ‘But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even more, even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.’

He said no one on his side of the aisle wants a government shutdown.

Schumer also warned a shutdown would give Trump and billionaire Elon Musk the ability to destroy government services more quickly than they currently can.

He said a shutdown would allow the Trump administration to decide entire agencies are not essential and furlough workers without the promise they would return to work.

The senator said the shutdown would give Trump, Musk and DOGE the ‘keys to the city, state and the country.’

He said he would vote to keep the government open, and a shutdown would be a costly distracction.

Woods, 49, and Vanessa Trump. 47, who both live in Florida, have been together since Thanksgiving and are quickly becoming golf's new power couple. Four sources confirmed to DailyMail.com that the pair are an item.

They live 20 minutes apart in the wealthy southern Florida enclave of Palm Beach and were spotted together at a golf tournament last month. Vanessa's eldest daughter Kai, 17, and Woods' children Charlie, 16, and Sam, 17, all attend the $38,595-a-year The Benjamin School.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter on Capitol Hill:

Senate Democrats gathered on Capitol Hill on Thursday as a government shutdown looms, but their plans on how to handle government funding remains unclear with less than two days to go before funds run out.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer signaled Senate Republicans do not have the votes for the stop-gap measure that funds the government through September.

House Republicans passed the bill nearly along party lines on Tuesday, but Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.

Multiple Democratic senators on Thursday said they were a ‘no’ on the House so-called continuing resolution (CR) and vote to end debate and overcome the filibuster.

But another path forward is also unclear as the clock ticks down.

It appeared that things got heated on Thursday afternoon as senators gathered behind closed doors for the Democratic caucus lunch.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) could be heard shouting loudly enough to be heard by reporters waiting outside.

But senators remained largely tight-lipped on what went down or how they planned to proceed as they exited the room afterward.

‘People are wrestling with what is the least, worst outcome, said Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) after exiting the meeting.

‘I've made my own decision. I think when you confront a bully, you have to confront a bully, and I'm not going to vote for this CR. But I fully respect people who've come to a different conclusion because in either pathway, this is a president who is very comfortable with the pain that either direction will create,’ he added.

On Wednesday, Schumer called for a 'clean' 30-day CR claiming it would lawmakers more time to reach a bipartisan deal, but Republicans have given no indication they’ll entertain bipartisan negotiations after ramming through their own measure.

Schumer told reporters waiting outside the room Thursday afternoon that they would hear from him soon. He did not give any indication what Senate Democrats planned to do next.

President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated the United States 'needs' Greenland for national security purposes and indicated he's willing to send in American troops to take control of the island.

'I think it'll happen,' the president said of annexing the island during his Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Trump then noted the U.S. already has a military base on Greenland.

'We have a couple of bases on Greenland already and we have quite a few soldiers. May be you will see more and more soldiers go there,' he threatened. 'We have bases and we have quite a few soldiers on Greenland.'

Donald Trump tore into CNN host Kaitlan Collins after she grilled one of the president's favorite lawmakers over tariffs in a recent interview.

'Senator Mark Wayne Mullin was great on Fake News CNN,' Trump posted on his Truth Social app Thursday morning.

'Made Caitlin Collins look like the third rate, low ratings reporter, she is!' his stinging note purposefully misspelling the journalist's name continued.

During the Wednesday night interview, Collins and the Republican Senator from Oklahoma sparred over Trump's tariff plans.

'What you just said is important, that a tariff is a tax and it is passed on to consumers,' the TV host said.

'Of course it is,' Mullin confirmed. 'Everybody knows that.'

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

President Donald Trump said he’s open to talking Vladimir Putin after the Russian president said he was open to a ceasefire with Ukraine but had 'serious questions' about how it would work.

‘I’d love to meet with him and talk to him but we have to get it over with fast,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office about Putin.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is in Russia to meet with Putin later today.

Putin said he was in 'favor' of a 30-day ceasefire 'but that there are nuances' and that he had 'serious questions' about how it would work.

'I think we need to talk to our American colleagues... Maybe have a phone call with President Trump and discuss this with him,' he told reporters.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

The push for Puerto Rico's freedom from the United States is making waves.

The issue of statehood versus independence was thrust into the spotlight last week after DailyMail.com's exclusive reporting that several Congressional offices are weighing the matter.

Puerto Rico's total independence is not a widely popular initiative within the island territory community or in the U.S. In recent elections, Puerto Rican voters have overwhelmingly shown preference for statehood over secession and 59 percent of Americans say they support it becoming the 51st state.

Advocates for independence see Trump as their ticket to freedom.

Over the last month, the Puerto Rican Alliance (PRÁ) sent letters to White House officials and congressional offices, a leading voice in the push for independence told DailyMail.com.

'The statehooders – they're totally trying to discredit [us],' author and Puerto Rican independence activist Javier Hernandez told DailyMail.com.

'They're in panic mode right now,' he insisted.

One of Donald Trump's Democratic nemesis is getting torched for posting dizzying and 'cringe' selfie videos warning of a government shutdown.

Pacing through the halls of a congressional office building holding a tiny microphone, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., recorded two videos of himself intently staring into the camera lens while decrying a Republican-led funding bill.

Many of the clips were shakily shot as he walked at a brisk pace around the Senate and his face was engulfed in shadows without strong lighting.

'Is the government shutting down? Well, that depends on Donald Trump and the Republicans,' Schiff begins his four minutes of explanation.

'Republicans passed a partisan resolution that changed all kinds of funding levels and also stripped Congress of the ability to overturn the Trump tariffs that are wrecking our economy,' he shared.

President Donald Trump unloaded on the Wall Street Journal Thursday after the paper came out with a bombshell report saying his family was in talks with a crypto exchange whose founder is seeking a pardon.

He called the Journal a 'globalist' paper following 'polluted' and 'antiquated' thinking after he has been hammered in its opinion pages for days for setting off a series of trade wars – including one that had Trump threatening to slap a 200 percent tariff on all wine, champagne and alcohol coming out of European Union countries.

The attack comes despite Trump's close relations with News Corp chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch. Trump, 78, has peppered his administration with former Fox News commentators and contributors, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

'The Globalist Wall Street Journal has no idea what they are doing or saying. They are owned by the polluted thinking of the European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of “screwing” the United States of America,' Trump wrote in an angry morning diatribe.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended President Donald Trump’s tariffs, saying he was not concerned about them in ‘a short term.’

‘We want to protect the American worker,’ he told reporters at the White House. Trump has sparked fears of a trade war with his tariff plan.

Bessent then pivoted to attack Senate Democrats, blasting them for not helping Republicans pass their stopgap bill to fund the government through Sept. 30. Without it, the government shuts down Friday at midnight

‘What’s not good for the country is this government shutdown,’ he said. ‘I don't know what Democrats are thinking here, because they're going to own it, and to the extent that it hurts confidence hurts the American people.’

The White House is planning to withdraw the nomination of Trump's pick for CDC director reportedly because of his anti-vaccine views.

Dr Dave Weldon, a former congressman from Florida, was tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scheduled to have his confirmation hearing Thursday morning in front of the Senate Health Committee.

However, people familiar with the situation told Axios the Trump administration had concerns over Dr Weldon's longtime criticism of vaccines and another said the White House pulled the nomination because they knew he wouldn't get the votes.

Axios reporter Alex Isenstadt's forthcoming book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power details the great lengths co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita went to ensure Trump had a successful debate.

They even created a 'human shield' around Trump during the flight to Georgia to guarantee that some 'problem' advisers couldn't get in his ear.

'The debate was a few hours away, and the aides knew that even if they felt they had everything locked up, that meant there was, as always, still plenty of time for someone to feed him bad advice,' Isenstadt wrote.

President Donald Trump meets NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte (below) at the White House today.

Trump has consistently criticized other members of the alliance for failing to meet the 2 percent of GDP benchmark for military spending.

He has recently said the U.S. would not defend members who 'did not pay'.

Article 5 of the organization's founding treaty says all members will come to the defense of another member in the case of an attack.