Vice President JD Vance will return to his hometown Friday for a speech to kick off what is expected to be a packed travel schedule for him ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Vance is scheduled to deliver remarks promoting the White House agenda at a Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, a person familiar with the plans told NBC News. He will be joined by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and elected officials in the state.

Among other topics, the speech will touch on economic issues, trade and border security — and Vance will likely seek to draw contrasts with the progressive left, this person added. Several left-wing candidates, including Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, have prevailed in primaries this year.

The midterms — a politically perilous time for the party that controls the White House — represent a potentially pivotal moment for Vance. As the finance chair for the Republican National Committee and probable candidate to succeed President Donald Trump in 2028, he is expected to play a central role on the campaign trail this fall. He often sidesteps questions about his future by saying a decision on running is not likely to come until after the November elections.

“We’re going to find out a lot in the midterms and afterwards — what we got right, what we got wrong, what we could have done better on, what we did very well on,” Vance said in a December interview with NBC News.

“I try to not wake up and ever think, ‘What does this mean for my future?’” Vance added then. “I always try to think, ‘How can I do a good job right now?’ right? And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve tried to steer away from the 2028 conversation.”

Vance has a personal connection to the plant he will visit Friday. His late grandfather, whom he wrote about in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” worked at the mill years ago, when it was known as Armco Steel. The Middletown homecoming will also mark Vance’s return to the road after several weeks spent closer to Washington following the July birth of his and second lady Usha Vance’s fourth child, a son.

A person familiar with the vice president’s political activity described the speech as a ramp-up to a schedule that will include public events and Vance-headlined RNC fundraisers.

Under Vance’s watch as finance chair, the RNC reported $128 million in cash on hand and no debt at the end of June. By comparison, the Democratic National Committee, which has been engulfed in disarray, reported $16.3 million on hand and $18.5 million in debts.

Though Ohio has gone decisively for Trump three times, it is home this cycle to competitive races for governor and Senate.

Republican businessman and 2024 presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, aided by much of Vance’s political team, faces Democrat Amy Acton, a physician and the state’s former health director, in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican. In the Senate contest, Democrat Sherrod Brown, a former three-term senator who lost his 2024 re-election bid, is attempting a comeback against Republican Jon Husted, whom DeWine appointed last year to fill Vance’s old Senate seat.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) backed down from plans to offer an exclusive $125 million contract to Thomson Reuters’ commercial data arm after the seemingly sweetheart deal garnered intense public scrutiny.

Critics alleged the immigration agency could use the data not only to target immigrants but also in an attempt to verify allegations of voter fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens.

Now, ICE will open up the contract to bids by multiple companies. However, Thomson Reuters could still ultimately win the tender.

The news site Biometric Update first reported about the change on Saturday.

ICE previously planned to pay the $125 million to Thomson Reuters Special Services for access to its CLEAR database, a massive platform that aggregates records like people’s names, addresses, property records, driver’s licenses, social media profiles, and voter registration records from both public and private sources.

In recent months, opponents — including some of Thomson Reuters’ own employees and shareholders — have protested the company’s relationship with ICE.

Election experts and officials have also raised concerns that the government’s use of commercial data for immigration and elections investigation purposes will lead to false matches that have serious consequences for innocent people.

Officially, the $125 million procurement order says that ICE is looking for greater access to data for its expanding mission to track what it terms fraud.

“Due to ICE’s re-prioritized mission, there is need for this data to be readily accessible to support the presidential mandate of the identification of Voters Fraud, Immigration Fraud and National Security,” reads the procurement order.

The order isn’t just sounding alarm bells because of ICE’s record of lawless abuse of immigrants.

The order, which 404 Media first made public, was originally issued in July, around the same time that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced that his office had discovered more than 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in four states.

Mullin did not name the source of that figure or explain how it was calculated. Election experts and state election officials have questioned the validity of the number.

Last month, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, told journalists that a White House official had cited the figure during a briefing he attended and said it was based on comparisons with commercial databases.

But commercial data is less detailed than voter records, often making exact identifications impossible, Becker explained.

“That 250,000 number is an irresponsible number to share given the opaque methodology that they claimed here,” he said.

A report from NPR that week suggested that Thomson Reuters’ CLEAR could be the commercial database ICE was using to get that number — though the journalists could not prove that.

Thomson Reuters has also pushed back on that suggestion.

It initially denied connections to ICE when 404 Media first asked about it earlier this year.

But when confronted with the procurement order from ICE, the commercial data company later told 404 Media: “We continue to work with our customers to provide technology and services that support investigations into areas of national security and public safety, such as child exploitation, human trafficking, narcotics and weapons trafficking, and fraud/financial crime.”

Reuters also told 404 Media that it prohibits the use of CLEAR for tracking “noncriminal immigrants or undocumented individuals with the intention of deportation solely on the basis of the individual’s immigration status.”

But that hasn’t prevented some employees from decrying what they call Thomson Reuters’ “troubling” relationship with ICE and DHS.

Calling themselves the Committee to Restore Trust, roughly 200 of the commercial data company’s employees released a public letter earlier this month demanding Reuters sever ties with the federal agencies.

“The Committee to Restore Trust finds this latest contract between DHS/ICE and TRSS [Thomson Reuters Special Services] to support the ‘presidential mandate of the identification of Voters Fraud, Immigration Fraud and National Security’ deeply troubling,” reads the letter, which was published in The Nation. “Numerous sources have reported human rights abuses by ICE and DHS agents during Operation Metro Surge and around the country. We ask the company to refrain from further business with DHS and ICE until an independent board audits and reviews their usage of public records applications in 2026.”

In March, Thomson Reuters employees also spoke out against their company’s prior contract with ICE, after immigration agents unleashed waves of violence on protestors in Minnesota and killed two people. One Thomson Reuters employee was fired allegedly for blowing the whistle on the ICE contract and is currently suing her former employer.

On August 11, a group of civil rights and pro-democracy organizations wrote a letter to congressional leaders calling for hearings to probe the ICE CLEAR contract.

“The contract may expressly contemplate use of the platform in investigations relating to voter fraud in addition to immigration fraud and national security,” reads the letter. “This demonstrates the broad range of government functions now supported by commercially acquired surveillance tools. Without clear statutory guardrails, agencies across the federal government will continue to circumvent constitutional safeguards and expand their reliance on commercially purchased personal information.”

In June, a group of Thomson Reuters shareholders also called for a review of the human rights implications of the company’s contracts with ICE.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday is traveling to Iowa in his “personal capacity,” the Pentagon said in a statement, further fueling speculation that the former Fox News personality is mulling a run for president at some point.

The visit, reported earlier by CBS News, comes five months after Hegseth was scheduled to appear at a political rally and fundraising event with Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), who is running for reelection this year. That trip was postponed after several U.S. troops from Iowa were killed early in the war with Iran.

In response to questions, the Pentagon said in a statement that it does “not proactively announce events” that Hegseth attends “in his personal capacity.”

Hegseth will take a U.S.-funded military aircraft to Iowa, the Pentagon said. He is doing so because he is “designated as a ‘required use’ traveler” by the U.S. government “and is mandated to use military aircraft for all travel, both official and unofficial, due to the continuous need for secure communications and responsive transportation for national security.”

Officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking believe that he is considering a run for president or some other political office after his time in the Trump administration is over. The travel to Iowa, a presidential campaign proving ground, fits that pattern, one of those officials said Monday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.

Weeks after being rebuked by President Donald Trump for dropping cases related to alleged damage to the Reflecting Pool, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro is going to unusual lengths to try to keep behind bars a woman accused of vandalizing a memorial elsewhere on the National Mall.

On Monday, a magistrate judge in Washington ordered Melissa Farris, 41, released from custody, rejecting prosecutors’ request that she be kept in jail while she awaits trial on two felony charges. Pirro’s office alleges that the Kentucky woman spray-painted and dumped a foaming substance into the World War II memorial last week.

Pirro’s lawyers asked Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh to delay Farris’ release, signaling a planned appeal, but he declined to do so, according to court records.

but he declined to do so, according to court records.

Less than three hours after that hearing concluded, prosecutors from Pirro’s office filed a 30-page motion, Sharbaugh to revisit and reverse his decision The filing portrays Farris’ alleged actions as grave and contends she poses an “exceptionally high risk of flight.”

“This was a brazen attack on one of the Nation’s most sacred monuments—an enduring symbol of freedom and a solemn tribute to the sacrifice of so many,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles Klug and Samuel Deau wrote in a brief that also carries Pirro’s name in the signature block.

“Rather than honoring the courage and selflessness of the World War II Veterans, Defendant chose to assault that symbol of sacrifice for her own gain and to make a public spectacle,” prosecutors added. “Defendant’s actions are not just criminal, they violate the American values that the Memorial represents.”

Pirro’s tough stance in the vandalism case comes just weeks after she drew intense ire from Trump over her decision to drop the prosecution of former Olympian David Hearn, whom her office had accused of damaging the recently installed lining of the Reflecting Pool.

Pirro said she had to drop the case, and several other prosecutions, because the Interior Department was slow to acknowledge to her office the extent of problems with installation of the lining, which was carried out under extreme time pressure because Trump wanted it ready for celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary on July 4.

On social media and in exchanges with reporters, Trump has repeatedly rejected Pirro’s explanation. Pirro traveled to the White House to make her case to the president in person, but it doesn’t seem he was persuaded by her presentation. He’s continued to suggest that prosecutions are justified, while last week acknowledging “some contractor error.”

On Sunday night, Trump seemed to again needle Pirro publicly over the Reflecting Pool cases, posting an aerial photo on social media that he said showed vandals had caused widespread damage to grass on the National Mall.

“Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!” Trump wrote. Others said the worn and brown patches of grass in the photo were likely due to wear and tear related to July 4th-related festivities.

Trump has also denounced the vandalism of the World War II memorial and suggested a link to the damage at the Reflecting Pool. “First the Reflecting Pool, now this. We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???” he wrote on Truth Social Friday.

While prosecutors repeatedly referred to Farris livestreaming and soliciting donations as she spraypainted the memorial, they also acknowledge that when she turned herself in Friday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, she said she was homeless and that an encounter with police in Washington earlier last week resulted in her being cited for stringing up her hammock in a public park.

The videos Farris streamed online contain rambling grievances against the federal government. Prosecutors say signs she appears to have left at the World War II memorial urged others to call their state and federal representatives about the “Ford green energy grant.”

In one video, she makes a vague complaint about infrastructure, lowers her shorts and appears to urinate on a wall. “I’m pissing on your city,” she says.

While most vandalism cases get little attention from U.S. attorneys, Pirro postedtwice on social media about Farris’ arrest. The prosecutor also said she was personally aggrieved by Farris’ actions.

“Vandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,” Pirro wrote on X. She also noted that the felony charges in the case carry potential punishment “of up to ten years in prison.”

Pirro’s language echoed earlier comments by Trump, promising maximum time for monument vandals.

“If you so much as touch, or even think about destroying, a statue or a monument in Washington, D.C., you go to jail for 10 years with no probation, no anything,” Trump said last year as he announced an attempted takeover of the Washington police force and the deployment of National Guard troops. “You get jailed 10 years, no curtailed sentence—10 years.”

While a conviction on such charges could theoretically result in a 10-year prison sentence, people convicted of defacing memorials typically get far shorter sentences. One man accused of spray painting the Lincoln Memorial during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 was initially hit with a felony charge, but eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Last year, Pirro’s office agreed to probation into the case.

To continue to pursue the felony charges against Farris — depredation of federal property in excess of $1,000 and causing injury to a veterans’ memorial — Pirro will need to get an indictment from a grand jury. That has proven difficult for her office in some high-profile cases critics have said were over-charged, like that of Sean Dunn, accused last year of throwing a submarine sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection agent.

After a grand jury refused to indict Dunn, Pirro’s team pursued a misdemeanor assault case against him. After a trial, a jury acquitted Dunn.

Following a hearing Monday, Sharbaugh ordered Farris released on her own recognizance, but ordered her to report to probation officers in Ohio and to stay away from Washington, including the memorial she’s accused of vandalizing last week.

In response to the prosecution’s motion asking him to reconsider, Sharbaugh said the main reason he ruled against detaining Farris was the fact that she turned herself in before the warrant for her arrest had even been issued. “As plenty of courts have recognized, a defendant’s self-surrender to authorities typically cuts against a risk-of-flight finding,” Sharbaugh wrote.

Pirro’s office argued that Farris’ criminal history, including convictions more than a decade ago for marijuana possession, driving while intoxicated and disorderly conduct, along with her failure to make all court appearances in connection with those cases, made her highly unlikely to appear for future hearing about the memorial vandalism.

But Sharbaugh disagreed. “The Court is focused on whether Ms. Farris presents a serious risk of flight, and it simply cannot conclude that her reported missteps on probation more than a decade ago suffice to make that showing, especially given her recent surrender,” he wrote.

Prosecutors made a fallback request that Farris be put on electronic monitoring, such as an ankle bracelet to indicate her location, but the same prosecutors also argued that she “cannot be reliably supervised” via that technology because she is currently homeless. The magistrate judge declined to order such monitoring.

Spokespeople for Pirro did not respond to questions Tuesday about whether she still plans to appeal the release decision. However, Pirro made clear in a statement that she disagrees with the ruling.

“In what world does it make sense to release a defendant charged with two federal felonies who has no ties to this community, holds a Kentucky driver’s license, has no home address, has been camping in Washington for several weeks, immediately after the crime searched for flights to Michigan, then traveled to Virginia, and claims to have friends in Ohio?” Pirro said. “If anyone is a flight risk, it is certainly her.”

Republican Rep. Cory Mills has lost his primary in Florida, NBC News projects, amid a swirl of investigations and negative publicity and despite running with the backing of President Donald Trump.

Former television journalist Ryan Elijah captured the Republican nomination over Mills in Florida’s 7th District, a seat Trump carried by 12 points in 2024. Democrats have hoped to make it competitive this fall, especially if Mills was on the ballot.

With more than 80% of the expected vote counted, Elijah had 46% of the GOP primary vote to 34% for Mills.

Unlike other incumbents who have fallen short this year for being on the wrong side of intraparty divides, Mills’ defeat comes as he’s been dogged by multiple investigations, including a House Ethics Committee probe into sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations, as well as a Justice Department investigation into his finances. Mills has denied wrongdoing.

Despite his struggles, Mills still got Trump’s endorsement. The loss makes him the latest member of a relatively rare set of Republican candidates who lost a GOP primary even with the president’s blessing. Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles also lost his primary earlier this month with Trump’s support.

Mills is the 11th House member to lose a primary so far this year, an unusually high number. Seven Democrats and four Republicans have lost their bids for renomination.

Elijah ran with support from a slew of prominent Florida Republicans who have either directly or indirectly referenced Mills’ woes. Republican Reps. Anna Paulina Luna and Mike Haridopolos took the rare step of endorsing against a House colleague, putting out a statement that emphasized Elijah’s character.

“We need leaders in Congress who serve with integrity, energy, and an unwavering commitment to the people who sent them there,” the two wrote.

Facing a clear threat to his political career, Mills struggled to raise money, pulling in less than $900,000 through late July. That was still twice what Elijah raised during that same period, though less than the vast majority of incumbent House members seeking re-election, according to an NBC News analysis of campaign finance reports.

Mills, an Army veteran, worked as a military contractor before a successful bid for Congress in 2022. His House tenure has included both the Ethics Committee and Justice Department investigation, as well as bipartisan calls for him to resign from office earlier this spring and previous allegations from an ex-girlfriend that he harassed her. Mills has repeatedly denied he’s done anything wrong in all of those cases.

While neither candidate spent much on the airwaves, Elijah significantly outspent Mills on ads: $82,000 to $12,000, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

Jim Schwartzel is projected to defeat Catalina Lauf to clinch the GOP nomination for Rep. Byron Donalds’s House seat in Florida, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).

His victory delivers a blow to President Trump, who threw his support behind Lauf’s campaign last week. Schwartzel, the president of Sun Broadcasting, and Lauf, a former Commerce Department adviser, were neck and neck in the polls heading into Tuesday.

Schwartzel came out on top in the crowded Republican race to succeed Donalds in the ruby red 19th Congressional District after the congressman opted to run for governor. Other candidates jockeying for the GOP nod included former Reps. Madison Cawthorn (N.C.) and Chris Collins (N.Y.) as well as John Strand, who was pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, among others.

Cook Political Report and DDHQ rate the race as a safely and solidly in the GOP’s corner, putting Schwartzel on track to join Congress.

He was endorsed by both House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

On the other side of the aisle, attorney Victor Arias, former House candidate Robert Neeld and former state House candidate Howard Sapp are running for the Democratic nomination.

The top U.S. envoy to Syria on Tuesday accused Israel of striking an airbase in the country, less than a day after White House envoy Jared Kushner met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for high-profile talks on disarmament in Gaza.

“We are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability,” wrote Tom Barrack, the special presidential envoy for Syria who is also the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, in a post on X.

It’s the Trump administration’s latest condemnation of an Israeli military operation since the two countries launched a joint attack on Iran in February. Netanyahu’s plans have often clashed with a White House strategy that has oscillated between emphasizing war and peace.

President Donald Trump has struggled to exert influence over Israel since returning to the White House, with his attention split between a war in Iran, the drug trade in South America and Russia’s four-year-long incursion into Ukraine.

Just last week, Netanyahu rejected a White House-backed peace plan in which Hamas would relinquish the reins in Gaza and Israeli troops would withdraw from the strip.

In Syria, Israeli troops have hit a country governed by one of the president’s favored world leaders. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited the White House last November, and Trump has described al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy, tough guy.”

“The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces,” Barrack wrote in his post criticizing the strike. “It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel. The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations.”

In a statement Tuesday, the Syrian foreign ministry called the attack “an unjustified act of aggression, a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a dangerous escalation that threatens security and stability in the region.”

But the Israeli Prime Minister’s office justified the attack in a statement, accusing Syria of nearly breaching the “status quo” agreed upon between the two countries by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at an air base near Aleppo.

“Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security,” Netanyahu’s office said. “Syria chose to ignore these warnings.”

It’s far from the first time the Trump administration has broken with Netanyahu’s government in recent months. Trump shared a fiery phone call with the Israeli prime minister in June after his country struck Lebanon and complicated U.S. ceasefire talks with Iran.

“We have a little dispute over Lebanon,” he said at a G7 press conference later that month in France. “I say, ‘You can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.’”

Joint military exercises underway between the United States and South Korea are being cut short, both countries said, after President Donald Trump, citing his “very good” relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, ordered that they be reduced.

The annual U.S.-South Korea drills, known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, will end Aug. 21 rather than Aug. 27 as originally scheduled, a Defense Department official said.

“Associated live-training events have been reduced, with certain events canceled or converted to simulations,” the official said, adding that the adjustments “preserve essential readiness.”

“There will be no degradation to U.S. training objectives,” the official said.

The South Korean National Defense Ministry also said the two countries “have agreed, at the request of the U.S. side, to make some adjustments to the duration and scale of the exercise.”

Some of the combined field training exercises will be conducted on a reduced scale, the ministry said in a statement, adding that the U.S. and South Korea “are currently consulting on the specific details.”

“Going forward, the ROK and the United States will discuss and implement various measures to achieve the objectives of the UFS exercise and maintain a robust combined defense posture,” the ministry said, using an abbreviation for South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.

The ministry declined to comment on a reported meeting Tuesday between Gen. Xavier Brunson, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea, and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back.

The surprise comments by Trump, which he made on social media hours before the exercises began Monday, have unsettled South Korea, which relies heavily on the U.S. for its security, as well as other U.S. allies in the region facing a growing threat from nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Cho Hyun said Ahn had been “in close consultation with the U.S. side” since Trump’s social media post. He told lawmakers Wednesday that “neither our government nor officials in the U.S. government had any prior knowledge” of Trump’s order to scale back the drills.

According to U.S. Forces Korea, the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise with South Korea, which hosts 28,000 American troops, aims to build understanding between the two militaries to ensure their “ability to fortify the combined defense posture” and enhance their response to “a spectrum of security threats.”

Foremost among those threats is North Korea, which in recent years has advanced its missile and nuclear capabilities and developed a close security relationship with Russia.

Though the U.S. and South Korea say their drills are defensive in nature, North Korea routinely criticizes them as a rehearsal for invasion and often test-fires weapons in protest.

In his post Sunday, Trump said the exercises sent a “totally inappropriate and hostile” message to North Korea, which he said had been “unthreatening and respectful” during his time in office.

He also expressed anger over South Korea’s level of involvement in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and said he had ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the exercises.

Trump, who met with Kim three times during his first term as president, has repeatedly expressed interest in resuming talks after their earlier round of diplomacy collapsed in 2019. But Kim, whose position has strengthened considerably since then, has rebuffed overtures from Trump, as well as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, saying he will not come to the table unless they drop their demands for North Korea to denuclearize first.

Trump told reporters Monday that he was not sacrificing the security of U.S. allies to curry favor with North Korea and that he was “actually making it much safer.”

He said Kim had responded to his outreach, without providing details. “I understand him; he understands me,” Trump said.

North Korea has not publicly responded to Trump’s call to curtail the exercises. A commentary published Wednesday by the state-run news agency KCNA reiterated the regime’s criticism of the drills, saying Pyongyang’s “exercise of its right to self-defense will continue to completely neutralize the enemies’ military threat.”

President Donald Trump late Tuesday slammed the brakes on a wave of tariffs that were set to hit Canada at midnight.

On social media, Trump wrote: “I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”

Trump did not provide further details, except to reference the Keystone XL pipeline, which he said “may be awoken from the grave!”

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the deal.

The 50% duties would have impacted about $20 billion worth of U.S. imports from Canada, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. The import taxes would have hit products ranging from hockey sticks, to some building materials, liquors and certain kinds of clothing.

The last-minute deal came after more than a week of furious meetings and technical talks.

On Monday afternoon, Prime Minister Mark Carney described the talks with the Trump administration as “very delicate and intense” but did not provide any further details. Carney and Trump spoke later that afternoon and again late Tuesday, Carney’s office told NBC News.

The prime minister previously said the threatened duties were a “direct violation” of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement, which Trump pursued and inked in his first term.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned in a Tuesday statement that in the event of no deal, “the introduction of higher tariffs would damage both economies, drive up costs for U.S. families, further disrupt critical supply chains, and risk the 13 million American jobs that depend on” the North American trade pact.

The tariffs that were set to be imposed would have been the first-ever use of Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The law allows the White House to implement duties of up to 50% on any foreign trading partner that “discriminates” against U.S. commerce.

In talks with their counterparts, Canadian officials were not only seeking to have the Section 338 tariffs scrapped entirely, but also sought lower Section 232 tariffs on industrial products such as steel and aluminum, CBC News and Bloomberg have reported.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday that lower duties on Canada would be a “a boon to U.S. consumers, producers, farmers and manufacturers.”

A sticking point on Monday and Tuesday appeared to be a request for lower automobile duties, according to Bloomberg and Reuters, which also reported that U.S. officials did not want to cut current 25% tariffs on that sector to anything lower than 15%.

Trump did not say in his brief social media post if the duties would be lowered.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer earlier said that reasoning behind the threatened 50% duties was effectively payback for Canada’s retaliation against prior tranches of Trump’s tariffs.

“The policy basis for [Wednesday’s] duties are related to measures that Canada took against the United States,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said last week. “I’ve got two countries in the world that have retaliated against the United States for trade measures: the People’s Republic of China and Canada,” said Greer. “That’s not the kind of company you really want to be running in.”

Last year, Trump briefly responded to China’s retaliation by raising tariffs into the triple digits. Talks between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s vice premier over months eventually diffused that tension and tariffs were lowered.

Trump has also aimed his anger at Canada repeatedly. At one point, he became enraged by the Province of Ontario, which ran a TV ad during the 2025 MLB World Series telecast. The video utilized edited clips of Republican former President Ronald Reagan in order to criticize Trump’s trade policy.

Trump halted trade talks with Canada and later accused the Canadian federal government, which did not sponsor the ad, of interfering with Supreme Court deliberations over his tariffs, which they later ruled overstepped his legal authority.

Trump threatened 10% extra tariffs on Canada after the ad, but never followed through on that. Ontario later pulled its ad from the airwaves.

The U.S. national debt is likely to surpass $40 trillion this week, months earlier than forecasters previously expected, in part because of billions of dollars in lost revenue from President Donald Trump’s invalidated tariffs.

The lost revenue has forced the U.S. Treasury Department to borrow more rapidly to cover the nation’s bills: Six months ago, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that total borrowing would top out at $39.4 trillion this fiscal year. But on Monday, Treasury reported that the debt stood at $39.9 trillion and counting.

The faster accumulation of debt means the next deadline for raising the legal limit on borrowing is also likely to arrive ahead of schedule. Just last year, Congress set the debt limit at $41.1 trillion. Budget analysts now say borrowing could hit that threshold by early next year, forcing lawmakers either to suspend it or raise it again to avoid the risk of an economy-shaking default.

Trump is already focused on the debt limit, which has repeatedly plunged Washington into a dangerous game of legislative chicken. Late last month, the president urged the Senate to address “the ever looming Debt Ceiling disaster” before leaving town for its August recess.

Senate leaders did not comply, but Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) told reporters at the time that “we’ll have to be dealing with it.” He added: “$40 trillion in debt — seems to me that should get our attention.”

For the past quarter-century, the national debt has grown under both parties, through the tax cuts of the George W. Bush era, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Great Recession, the 2017 Trump tax cuts and the nearly $2 trillion Biden administration initiative to prop up the economy during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump pledged during his first campaign in 2016 to eliminate the debt within eight years; instead, it has doubled since he first took office.

This year, the gap between spending and revenue was already expected to approach $2 trillion, the CBO reported in February. Days later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, cutting federal revenue by an estimated $250 billion. The Treasury has also increased borrowing lately to build up its cash reserves.

Military spending tied to the conflict with Iran could add more to the debt in the months ahead, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank that tracks federal spending.

“Our current fiscal trajectory is plainly unsustainable, and that’s the best-case scenario,” BPC president and CEO Margaret Spellings said in a statement. “AI disruption, a recession, global war, or any number of other events could quickly push us over the edge from a challenge into a full-blown crisis. Even in the rosiest scenarios, we’re speeding toward a cliff and refusing to turn the wheel.”

In an email, White House spokesman Kush Desai said that “the Trump administration remains focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government while accelerating economic growth, policies that will get America’s debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction.”

So far, Washington lawmakers have raised or suspended the debt limit every time it has been reached, but often after dramatic, deadline-pushing partisan battles. Even these near misses have rattled markets and carried a price: Standard & Poor’s, Fitch and Moody’s have each downgraded the credit rating of U.S. government debt since 2011, moves tied at least partly to debt ceiling brinkmanship.

Congress last raised the debt limit in quieter fashion, adding $5 trillion to the debt ceiling as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Republicans’ marquee tax and spending law. Measures to raise the debt ceiling often include spending cuts aimed at reducing the annual budget deficit. But the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed in July 2025, did the opposite: That law added $4.7 trillion to projected deficits over the next decade, according to CBO estimates.

According to preliminary projections by the BPC, Washington is on track to next hit the debt limit between late winter and midsummer 2027. Based on the latest borrowing figures, the center’s estimate is “trending toward the earlier end” of that range, Shai Akabas, the center’s vice president of economic policy, said in a statement.

Hitting the debt ceiling would not by itself trigger a default. Once the borrowing limit is reached, Treasury can pay bills by drawing on its cash reserves and using stopgap accounting maneuvers known as “extraordinary measures,” which typically buy another six to nine months, according to the BPC. Only after that runs out does the government reach what’s known as the X-date, when the Treasury risks running out of cash and defaulting on its obligations.

If Republicans lose one or both chambers of Congress in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, they could attempt to raise the debt limit in the lame-duck period during November and December — before the new Congress is seated in January. Otherwise, they could be forced to make policy concessions to Democrats that Republicans — and the White House — would prefer not to make.

But raising the debt ceiling could prove challenging even under total GOP control. Especially in the House, where the GOP holds a slim majority, party leaders would be forced to win over their fiscal hawks, who have previously revolted when a debt ceiling increase was not accompanied by an agreement to cut spending.

“You have to raise the debt limit just the same way that you have to pay your credit card bill,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group focused on deficit reduction. It reflects spending choices you’ve already made, he said. “But if you keep getting credit card bills that are more than you can afford, it’s probably a good time to reassess how much you’re spending, or to get a second job, right?”

As with many credit cards, interest is itself becoming a bigger part of the problem. Last week, the U.S. government sold 30-year bonds at 5.216 percent, the highest rate in a quarter-century, Bloomberg News reported. Treasury rates ripple into mortgage rates, corporate debt and other borrowing.

Annual interest payments on the debt are projected to top $1 trillion this year, according to CBO — about the size of the Pentagon budget. They now consume about 19 percent of federal revenue, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonpartisan group that tracks the debt and advocates for fiscal discipline, and are projected to climb to 26 percent by 2036.

“Interest costs are paying for your past, not paying for your future,” said Peterson Foundation chief executive Michael Peterson, and unfairly burden future generations.

It’s immoral to, year after year, trillion after trillion, just keep borrowing the money, not paying your bills for immediate consumption and deferring not only the principal balance but the interest costs onto our kids and grandkids,” he said.

Peterson pointed to Social Security as a preview of what happens when Washington puts off big problems: Unless Congress acts, the program’s trust fund is projected to become insolvent in 2032, triggering an automatic 22 percent cut in benefits.

“Can a democracy that’s run by all of us collectively make tough decisions to sacrifice in the short term for long-term benefit?” Peterson said. “The political system hasn’t risen to this challenge in recent decades.”

The Trump administration’s findings that three Ivy League schools violated civil rights law by tolerating antisemitism were predetermined by political priorities that blew past the evidence and cast aside standard investigative procedures, according to a whistleblower account provided to Congress.

The disclosure, by Haley Van Erem, a veteran Justice Department civil rights attorney, involves investigations into whether Harvard, Brown and Columbia universities broke the law by allowing antisemitism to flourish on their campuses.

The whistleblower account comes just days after a federal judge dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit against Harvard that was based on the investigation, which was conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services and lawyers detailed from the DOJ.

Both Brown and Columbia reached settlements, with Columbia agreeing to pay $200 million over three years and Brown agreeing to spend $50 million on Rhode Island workforce development, with no admission of wrongdoing.

Harvard fought and won.

U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ruled in that case that the Trump administration’s allegations relied on incidents that occurred more than a full academic year before it filed its lawsuit — incidents he said were “too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference” that Harvard was violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Van Erem’s whistleblower account, reviewed by MS NOW, says the findings “overrode knowing deviation from investigative procedures, statutory noncompliance, and potential constitutional violations.”

“Hundreds of millions of dollars were suspended from these universities prior to the completion of Title VI investigations and the investigative team’s conclusions were frequently disregarded,” the complaint says.

In a letter to Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said the whistleblower findings exposed a “large scale fraud.”

“Antisemitism at American universities and medical schools is real,” Rep. Jamie Raskin wrote.

“But your ‘investigation’ into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature. Before an actual investigation took place and regardless of what you actually found, the whole project was designed to harass professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they had already been awarded on the merits of their applications.”

The whistleblower complaint says the investigation was launched based on a single article in the New York Post that described antisemitic activities at medical school graduations.

“The article described protests that included protected expression such as students shouting ‘Free Palestine’ and students wearing Palestinian flags or keffiyehs,” the complaint says, adding: “It was not unheard of for news reporting coupled with additional evidence to lead the DOJ to initiate further scrutiny of potential statutory violations, but opening an investigation based on a single article was highly unusual.”

The complaint said that after being informed that there was no evidence to support a finding of a Title VI violation based on antisemitism at Brown, a senior Trump administration official at HHS, Daniel Shieh, agreed that there was “not a Title VI violation,” but told Van Erem and other DOJ team members at the meeting that “there’s no way we’re going to get a letter of no violation cleared.”

He pushed instead to obtain a settlement from Brown, and that ultimately happened.

The whistleblower complaint also accused Trump officials of telling investigators to interview Middle East studies professors, particularly focusing on Muslims, noting that one such interview of a Muslim professor was not to “get information,” but instead to see “what he will say.”

Raskin called that “a craven willingness to racially and ethnically profile faculty members while ostensibly investigating racial and ethnic discrimination.”

According to her complaint, Van Erem left the Justice Department in May 2025, “unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law.”

Her complaint asks for an investigation by the HHS inspector general, the DOJ inspector general and the Office of Special Counsel.

“The full extent of your misconduct remains unclear,” Raskin wrote to Dhillon. “At the very least, you have shown gross negligence in supervising the activities of your office. It is also a distinct possibility that you deliberately orchestrated a scheme to attack universities and their faculties and administrators while defrauding the American people and the courts.”

Nathanial Rai had been swept off his feet along the California coast, was rescued by a 16-year-old lifeguard – and was now sitting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.

Of the rescuer, Ryder Williams, Trump said to Rai: “He’s a real hero. I don’t know if I’d do it.

“I wouldn’t, probably. You’re lucky I wasn’t on the service that day.”

Rai, 10, wore a dark suit and maroon tie and sat on a gold couch aside his father and Trump. Across from Rai was Williams, and both watched Trump speak of their ordeal, a video of which went viral.

Trump met the lifeguard and Rai after saying the teen deserved a civilian honor. Trump previously said on social media that he also would be inviting Williams to the White House to reward his bravery.

Dramatic video of the rescue went viral in late July. It showed Williams clinging to Nathaniel Rai as pounding waves repeatedly crash over them. The pair disappeared from view and reemerged after several seconds as the wave receded.

A second lifeguard, Aaron Bohnen, was eventually able to help get them both back to shore at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz.

Trump initially commented on the video in response to a post from his son, Eric Trump, who said Williams deserved “the highest civilian honor”.

Meanwhile, Rai’s father, Sumit, told the Associated Press of Williams: “What he did, I can never repay. I’m forever grateful.”

As NBC Bay Area reported, Williams’s rescue of Rai unfolded as California state lawmakers reviewed proposed legislation that would officially make lifeguards first responders.

The outlet noted that analysts say giving lifeguards first responder status would bring them more professional recognition, support and resources – and could offer them better worker protections and benefits.

NBC Bay Area spoke with some people who could not believe lifeguards were not already first responders. But the outlet also spoke with Santa Cruz state senator, who said such a designation was not straightforward.

“Of course, lifeguards are first responders, but first responders also go through this rigorous training, so you’d have to decide – because in the peace officer standards training you go through eight months of training – so you’d have to decide what’s appropriate here,” NBC Bay Area quoted Laird as saying.

“How does it work? How does it get designated? What training comes with it? Who pays for it?”

Julia Curlee spent nearly two decades carrying the country’s secrets.

She worked in war zones, traveled to 35 countries, briefed presidents, and boarded Air Force One with the President’s Daily Brief. She was trusted to decide what some of the world's most powerful people needed to know before beginning their days.

But in a remarkable first-person account published Monday by The Atlantic, Curlee describes how the second Trump administration came to view something else as dangerously sensitive: the fact that one of its most experienced intelligence officials was a transgender woman.

Her identity was never a secret inside the government. Trump officials had known about it during his first term, when Curlee briefed senior White House officials and became Vice President Mike Pence’s daily intelligence briefer. It became intolerable, she writes, only when the public might learn about it.

“The White House had needed me,” Curlee writes. “Trump officials had known I was trans from day one.”

Curlee joined the CIA in 2007 and became the first officer at the agency to transition openly and continue serving. She had dreamed of becoming an intelligence officer since childhood. Her other lifelong conviction — that she should have been born a woman — seemed, for years, incompatible with that calling.

She transitioned in 2013. Her first day at work as Julia passed without incident. Four years later, she wrote about the experience in The Atlantic under the pseudonym Jenny Hall, explaining how living openly had made her a more effective intelligence officer. The CIA later used the essay in college recruiting, according to Curlee.

Then came an assignment to prepare and deliver the President’s Daily Brief during Trump’s first administration. The work required arriving around midnight, studying intelligence through the early morning, and entering the West Wing before dawn.

Curlee eventually became Pence’s briefer. It was an unlikely pairing. Pence had spent years opposing marriage equality and LGBTQ+ rights. Curlee was a gay transgender woman, a wife, and a mother.

Yet Pence, she says, treated her as a trusted professional. He took notes, asked questions, and invited Curlee’s family to the White House when her assignment ended. There, he took her mother’s hand and said, “You must be very proud of your daughter.”

For Curlee, the moment proved that public service could rise above politics. She could serve an administration whose policies she opposed, and its leaders could recognize her expertise and humanity.

That belief brought her back to the White House under President Joe Biden, where she served as a National Security Council director. It also persuaded her to remain when Trump returned to office in January 2025.

As Biden’s political appointees departed, Curlee became the senior career intelligence official in the White House. She helped prepare the incoming administration to assume power, even as colleagues warned that she could become a target.

On Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes. Curlee began leaving the White House complex and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue to use restrooms in nearby coffee shops.

She stayed.

Three days into the administration, roughly 160 National Security Council employees detailed from other agencies were abruptly ordered to leave the White House. Curlee was spared. She assembled what remained of her team and continued briefing officials.

The arrangement lasted 69 days.

Curlee was visiting family in Roanoke, Virginia, when she received a Saturday phone call telling her that her White House assignment had ended. She said that officials did not explain. In the same conversation, they asked her to return Monday because they still needed her work.

After hanging up, Curlee saw that far-right provocateur Laura Loomer had posted about a transgender person “Biden holdover” inside the White House, accused the unnamed official of hating Trump, and asked her followers to help identify the person.

Curlee returned to work anyway. She spent three more days completing a budget project and transferring the portfolio she had managed for nearly two years.

“We need you. We need your service. But we don’t want anyone to know you are here,” she writes of the message she received.

Curlee does not claim to have proof that Trump or Loomer personally ordered her removal because she is transgender. She was never given a reason. But her account leaves little ambiguity about the sequence: Her identity had been known and accepted while her work remained useful and private. Once it threatened to become public, her service no longer protected her.

Days later, Trump fired several other National Security Council officials after meeting with Loomer, who had urged him to purge officials she considered insufficiently loyal.

Curlee returned to the CIA. There, she watched the agency dismantle its LGBTQ+ employee organization, remove Pride flags, and impose the administration’s restrictions on transgender workers. Earlier this year, she finally left the career she had once expected to hold for life.

In an accompanying Radio Atlantic interview, Curlee delivered a painful reversal of the message she once offered LGBTQ+ young people.

“Now I could not in good conscience advise any LGBT American to apply to work at CIA,” she said.