February 25, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

Tulsi Gabbard listens to President Donald Trump at the Oval Office of the White House, in Washington on February 12.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said members of the intelligence community are coming to her directly to point out places where she needs to “clean house.”

Gabbard has vowed to “rebuild trust” in the intelligence community, which she claims has been politicized — but her remarks come against the backdrop of a deep unease among some career officials that Trump’s efforts to speedily slim down the US government may be putting American secrets within the grasp of foreign spies and hackers.

On Ukraine: Gabbard also told Watters that negotiations to end the war, which Trump vowed to do on his first day in office, are “still ongoing.”

“Those negotiations are still ongoing,” she said. “President Trump wants to end the killing and most importantly, he’s looking at each of these deals and negotiations that are under way within the context of what is in the best interest of the American people and our taxpayers and for the cause of peace.”

President Donald Trump delivers remarks after signing an executive order on reciprocal tariffs in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 13.

House GOP leaders said President Donald Trump was instrumental in convincing holdouts to support the budget blueprint tonight.

Throughout the flurry of voting activity, GOP lawmakers were going on and off the floor for phone calls and side conversations.

House Speaker Mike Johnson makes a statement to reporters at the Captiol after the House passed the budget resolution Tuesday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the vote that “Trump helped a lot.”

“Trump helped us, you know, with a number of members,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise echoed.

Scalise added that not all of the GOP holdouts spoke with the president during the delayed voting process but that “some did.”

Here’s how critical lawmakers voted:

The post was updated with remarks from Burchett.

The House voted to adopt Republicans’ sweeping budget blueprint tonight, by 217 votes to 215. Rep. Thomas Massie was the only Republican to vote against adopting the resolution.

Several Republicans who had expressed concern and warned they could oppose the bill ended up backing it, including Reps. Tim Burchett, Warren Davidson, and Victoria Spartz.

The successful vote is a victory for House Speaker Mike Johnson who pressed ahead with the move even when it wasn’t clear if Republicans would have the votes.

What’s next: But it is only the first step in a lengthy process. There is still a rocky road ahead. The Senate has already adopted a different, targeted budget resolution focused on border security and national defense. Both chambers will have to adopt the same version in order to move ahead with President Donald Trump’s agenda.

House Speaker Mike Johnson holds a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

In a stunning shift, House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team have taken a 180-turn and now plan to go ahead with the vote to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Johnson instructed members to return to the floor just minutes after punting a key vote to advance Republican’s budget blueprint. It is not clear what changed in the meantime.

Teachers unions and others sued the Trump administration Tuesday for a Department of Education letter that threatens the federal funding of schools that consider race in most aspects of student life.

The lawsuit, filed in Maryland’s federal court, alleges the letter is unconstitutionally vague and infringes on free speech, while stretching the 2023 Supreme Court’s opinion ending college affirmative action programs.

According to the lawsuit, the February 14 letter appears to ban not just diversity, equity and inclusion programs — which have been a target of several administration actions — but would go much farther in banning voluntary student groups and forbidding the teaching of race-based topics.

In the letter, the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal federal funding or take other enforcement action against schools not in compliance.

The new lawsuit says that it “radically upends and re-writes otherwise well established jurisprudence.”

“No federal law prevents teaching about race and race-related topics, and the Supreme Court has not banned efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in education,” the lawsuit says.

An Education department spokesperson said it “does not comment on pending litigation.”

This post has been updated to include a statement from the Department of Education.

Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to punt a critical vote tonight to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, according to multiple lawmakers and aides familiar with the plans.

GOP leaders may still try to hold the vote in the coming days, the sources said.

The Capitol Building is seen from the National Mall in Washington DC on Tuesday.

House GOP leaders are keeping open the first vote of a three-vote series much longer than usual as they work behind the scenes to lock down support for their budget blueprint needed to unlock President Donald Trump’s larger agenda.

At the moment, at least three Republicans are vowing to vote NO: Reps. Thomas Massie, Victoria Spartz and Warren Davidson.

Given Democratic absences, it appears that Speaker Mike Johnson can lose two GOP votes.

The next vote scheduled is the budget blueprint.

President Donald Trump said today that the US would be selling what he described as a “gold card” to wealthy foreigners, giving them the right to live and work in the US and offering a path to citizenship in exchange for a $5 million fee.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the card will replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa program. “They’ll have to go through vetting, of course,” Lutnick said, “to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.”

Trump made the announcement at a media availability in the Oval Office, where he also signed an executive action investigating the copper industry and took questions on an array of topics.

Here’s what he said:

House GOP leaders are prepared to roll the dice and put the budget blueprint on the floor for a vote even though they’re not sure they have the needed support.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team feel like they made good progress today between meetings and calls from President Donald Trump, according to a leadership source.

Leadership is prepared to leave the vote open and pressure holdouts to fall in line if it comes to it.

What some House GOP members have told CNN:

This post has been updated with remarks from Burchett.

Doug O'Donnell speaks at the Internal Revenue Service facility in New Carrollton, Maryland, on September 15, 2022.

The acting head of the Internal Revenue Service plans to retire Friday, the agency announced Tuesday, after weathering weeks of chaos and cutbacks at the agency since President Donald Trump took office.

Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell’s departure comes abruptly as the agency heads into the crunch time of tax filing season.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced in a news release that the IRS will be led by Melanie Krause, the agency’s chief operating officer who has been sympathetic to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency efforts within the agency. Trump intends for former Rep. Billy Long to head the IRS.

The Department of Government Efficiency has quietly removed certain claims from its website that it saved billions of dollars by canceling a handful of federal contracts.

As of this afternoon, the top five contracts that had been listed as saving taxpayers the most money when the site launched last week — including $8 billion in claimed savings for a contract that was actually worth a maximum of $8 million — are no longer on the list with their original savings amounts. The deletions, which were first reported by the New York Times, come after reports from CNN and other media outlets calling into question the accuracy of the overall tally.

DOGE.gov’s “wall of receipts” currently lists about 2,300 contracts that DOGE says it has canceled, for a total savings of about $9.6 billion. But the department claims that the contracts listed are just a “subset” of all it has canceled, and that the total savings have grown to $65 billion.

Of the canceled contracts listed, nearly 800 — about a third — are listed as saving taxpayers $0, because the federal funds associated with them have already been obligated to be spent.

In various cases, according to media reports, the DOGE list has included some contracts that were canceled during the Biden administration or had not been canceled at all. This likely inflated savings totals by using the maximum amount that could possibly be spent on a contract — even if the government was unlikely to ever spend that much in reality.

A DOGE representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment this afternoon.

The Office of Management and Budget along with the Office of Personnel Management are expected to issue a memo on Tuesday that will direct agencies to prepare for large-scale firings, a source familiar with the plans said.

The guidance will direct government agencies to submit “reorganization plans” by March 13 to prepare for what the Trump administration is referring to as sweeping “reductions in force.”

The move is the latest effort by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to massively reduce the size of the federal government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives for talks at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on February 15.

President Donald Trump said today that he heard Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “coming on Friday” to Washington.

“Certainly it’s OK with me if he’d like to,” the president said from the Oval Office.

He called the US and Ukraine’s agreement to terms for a deal on natural resources and reconstruction today “a very big deal.”

“It could be a trillion-dollar deal. It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things,” Trump said, adding that Zelensky wants to sign the deal with him.

According to a Ukrainian official, the deal was agreed to after “everything unacceptable was taken out of the text and it is now more clearly spelt out how this agreement will contribute to Ukraine’s security and peace.”

Philadelphia Eagles players celebrate with the Vince Lombardi Trophy after the Eagles won Super Bowl 59 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, February 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday that he plans to invite the world champion Philadelphia Eagles to the White House following their Super Bowl win earlier this month, continuing a long-standing tradition after unverified rumors on social media falsely claimed the team had declined the invitation.

Asked during an executive action signing if the Eagles would be invited to visit, Trump said, “They will be. We haven’t yet, but we will be.”

On Monday, CNN’s Jake Tapper reported the Eagles would be honored to visit the White House to celebrate their blowout win against the Kansas City Chiefs, per a source with the team.

When the team won its first championship in 2018, the Eagles decided not to celebrate the championship with Trump, who was in his first term in office.

The decision sparked a storm of criticism from Trump, who falsely accused the Eagles of taking a knee during “The Star-Spangled Banner” that year and disrespecting the National Anthem in other ways before uninviting the whole team.

President Donald Trump said today that the US would be selling what he described as a “gold card” to wealthy foreigners, giving them the right to live and work in the US and offering a path to citizenship in exchange for a $5 million fee.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the card will replace the government’s EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.

“They’ll have to go through vetting, of course,” Lutnick said, “to make sure they’re wonderful world-class global citizens.”

Trump said the sale of the cards will begin in about two weeks. and suggested millions of such cards could be sold. “From the legal standpoint, it’s totally legal to do,” he added.

Asked whether he would consider selling the cards to Russian oligarchs, Trump responded: “Yeah, possibly. I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”

The White House is suspending the active security clearances of lawyers from the large legal defense firm, Covington & Burling, who are working with former special counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted Donald Trump unsuccessfully on behalf of the Justice Department under the Biden administration.

According to a memo released Tuesday by the White House, all executive agencies are to suspend the clearances that may be used by Covington lawyers in private practice, as the White House launches a “review and determination of their roles and responsibilities, if any, in the weaponization of the judicial process.”

The direction from Trump is a clear pushback to the firm’s work now, as it represents Smith as a private citizen now facing investigations from Republicans. It also marks an escalation of the White House’s retaliation toward those who have supported the special counsel’s work. Covington lawyers are not the first attorneys to represent people perceived as political enemies of Trump who have lost their security clearances, which could allow them flexibility in practicing law when it relates to national security issues and classified aspects of cases.

The president, clearly taking aim at the Smith, said ahead of signing the memo that, “We’re going to call it the deranged Jack Smith signing or bill.”

In response to the White House’s decision, a Covington spokesman said on Tuesday: “We recently agreed to represent Jack Smith when it became apparent that he would become a subject of a government investigation. Covington serves as defense counsel to Jack Smith in his personal, individual capacity.”

“We look forward to defending Mr. Smith’s interests and appreciate the trust he has placed in us to do so,” the statement also said.

Read more.

Rep. Warren Davidson talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Republican Reps. Warren Davidson and Victoria Spartz said they still oppose the House GOP blueprint to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, even as the president and House Speaker Mike Johnson ratchet up pressure on holdouts to vote in favor of it later in the day.

With Republican Rep. Thomas Massie saying he’s a unwavering “no” vote, Johnson can’t afford to lose another Republican — assuming all members are present and voting.

Davidson told CNN’s Manu Raju his “base objection” is that the budget blueprint being addressed in the House now deals with mandatory spending, but it’s an “incomplete product.” He said and he’s had “no commitment” about the remainder of spending levels that would be addressed in the one massive agenda bill.

Pressed on if he’s still a no on the House GOP’s blueprint, the Ohio lawmaker responded, “I have not yet committed to vote for it, that’s fact.”

Rep. Victoria Spartz speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Spartz, who has also expressed spending concerns, told Raju she would only change her mind if the language in the blueprint is altered.

The Indiana Republican said lawmakers have a “mandate” from voters to “fix the country,” and “put great things they wanted from us in the law.”

“The agenda that President Trump wants to deliver has to go through Congress and we cannot be weak and we have to do the right thing for the people,” she said.

President Donald Trump speaks to the press after signing an executive order at the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump described the sweeping directive to federal employees to recount their workweeks or risk termination as “somewhat voluntary,” even though later he said people who don’t answer would be fired.

The answer provided scant clarity on the order, which generated confusion across the government after employees received it over the weekend.

He went on to justify the email command as a way to surface workers who, in his telling, may not be real.

“If they’re there and they’re working, they’re able to say they did five things during work, and that means they’re working, and they’re with us, and they have no further obligation,” he said. “If they’re not, it could be there’s no such person.”

Asked if billionaire Elon Musk spoke for him when he sends messages about the federal workforce, Trump said simply: “Everybody speaks for me. I’m the one. I’ll take responsibility.”

President Donald Trump signed a new executive action today ordering an investigation into the copper industry, potentially leading to the imposition of higher tariffs on imports of the metal into the United States.

“American industries depend on copper, and it should be made in America. No exemptions, no exceptions,” Lutnick added.

The commerce secretary suggested that the administration could enact a third kind of across-the-board metal tariff, in addition to 25% aluminum and steel tariffs set to take effect next month without any exemptions or exceptions.

In addition to the copper investigation, Trump recently ordered investigations into countries with value-added taxes, digital services taxes and ones that have higher tariffs on US goods compared to the rates the US tariffs them, which is likely to lead to what the president refers to as a “reciprocal tariff” to even the playing field.