February 4, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has moved here.

A Palestinian woman pulls a trolley with water cans in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump’s proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza is a “recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region,” a Hamas official said late Tuesday local time.

The Palestinian militant group — which survived Israel’s attempt to eradicate it during the 15-month-long bombardment and destruction of Gaza — had governed the territory for more than 15 years before its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Trump’s proposal has been roundly dismissed by Palestinians since it was first suggested about two weeks ago.

Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said at the time that Palestinians “will not accept any proposals or solutions” from Trump on leaving their homeland, even if they are “seemingly well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction.”

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, an independent Palestinian politician, said he “completely rejected” Trump’s comments.

Previous reporting by Betsy Klein and Lex Harvey

Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US “will take over” and hold a “long-term ownership position” in Gaza caused global shockwaves as experts and political leaders tried to make sense of what he means — and whether his vision is even realistic.

It’s not clear how such a takeover would be carried out. Trump did not rule out sending in US troops to Gaza — but he’s also voiced reluctance to get further involved in overseas conflicts, vowing to end the Ukraine war and avoid new wars.

Ahead of his first presidential term, Trump rose to power while voicing criticism of America’s longest wars in the Middle East — often falsely claiming he had opposed the invasion of Iraq, which was definitively debunked in 2016.

‘No precedent’: Analysts have cast doubt on the practical feasibility of his plan for Gaza. “There is no mechanism for this. There is no precedent for this,” former deputy national intelligence director Beth Sanner, who served under both Trump and Biden administrations, told CNN’s John Berman on Tuesday.

And though Trump had suggested Palestinians be provided another “good” piece of land to live, most of the two million people living in Gaza won’t want to leave, she said, raising the question of whether they could be forcefully removed.

Opposition from Arab neighbors: Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Egypt, have pushed back on any suggestions to displace Palestinians from Gaza, which opponents argue would amount to ethnic cleansing. Last week, these nations reiterated their commitment to rebuilding the enclave while ensuring “the continued presence of Palestinians in their homeland.”

These governments would also be wary of an influx of refugees destabilizing their own countries, including the possibility of protests or violence, Sanner said.

The Gaza plan could endanger Trump’s goals: Sanner said Trump’s suggested plan is also “contradictory” to his other goals. For instance, it could endanger the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas, she said.

The plan would also jeopardize Trump’s efforts to extend the Abraham Accords, which he spearheaded in 2020, to include normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. This long-held goal is a centerpiece of Trump’s Middle East policy, but Saudi Arabia has previously insisted that it will only normalize relations with Israel if the Palestinian people get a state of their own, and on Wednesday reaffirmed its “unwavering” support for a Palestinian state.

The FBI headquarters is seen in Washington, DC, on February 2, 2018.

An attorney representing a group of FBI employees trying to block the Trump administration from releasing the names of those who worked on cases connected to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot told CNN on Tuesday that workers in the agency are afraid of losing their jobs and of them and their families being put at risk.

In a class-action complaint filed earlier Tuesday, the group represented by Keith accused the Justice Department of violating the Constitution and privacy laws by demanding that agents complete a survey allegedly designed to “purge” FBI personnel involved in Trump-related probes, CNN previously reported.

Keith said that the agents shouldn’t be “disturbed” because “they don’t get to choose which assignments they take up and which ones they reject based on political reasons.”

“We can’t ignore that, as candidate, Donald Trump made multiple campaign stops in which he promised retribution, vengeance, especially with respect to the January 6 cases,” Keith said. “And so you have to ask the question, what is the legitimate business interest in aggregating this information?”

Keith added that 18 additional agents have reached out to her since the suit was filed.

Ben Gvir gives a statement to members of the press in Jerusalem on January 16.

A far-right Israeli lawmaker has urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt a plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza after US President Donald Trump said he doesn’t see a permanent future for them in the strip.

Jewish Power party leader Itamar Ben Gvir, who resigned as national security minister last month in protest over the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, also claimed Trump’s comments had vindicated a position he has expressed throughout the war.

“The only solution to Gaza is to encourage the migration,” of Palestinians, Ben Gvir said on X on Wednesday.

Speaking with Netanyahu at the White House, Trump suggested that Palestinians in Gaza move to a new location provided by one or more nations in the Middle East — and said it was impossible to believe anyone would want to remain in the war-torn territory.

Some context: Trump last week floated the idea of displacing Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan and Egypt — a proposal applauded by the Israeli far-right, which since early in Israel’s war with Hamas has argued for expelling Palestinians from Gaza and reestablishing Jewish settlements in the territory. Some Israeli real estate firms have even advertised proposals for beach-front properties in the enclave.

But the idea of displacement, voluntary or otherwise, was strongly rejected by Jordan and Egypt and alarming to other Arab allies of the US, threatening decades of international consensus about the right of Palestinians to a homeland. Saudi Arabia on Wednesday reaffirmed its “unwavering” support for a Palestinian state.

An immigration agent stands in front of Dante Lopez's home in Florida.

Dante Lopez has been living in the United States illegally for 14 years after fleeing violence in his native Peru. Now he fears President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown could put an end to his dream of becoming a US citizen.

On Monday, several immigration agents wearing tactical gear descended on Lopez’s South Florida home where he lives with his wife and children, Lopez told CNN on Tuesday.

Video from CNN affiliate WPLG shows several immigration agents standing outside of Lopez’s house in the City of Coral Springs — a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. ICE has visited Lopez’s home before, he said, but added he has never been approached by so many ICE agents, and they never had any weapons.

When agents knocked on his door this week, Lopez was advised by his attorney not to open the door, he told CNN. The agents did not have a warrant, Lopez added, so they ultimately left after sending several text messages to his cell phone asking him to open the door, he said.

Since arriving in the US, Lopez married and the couple had three children, all born in the US, he said. His family is now staying with relatives, Lopez said, as he expects officials to return to his home soon.

Lopez has been seeking asylum in the US since 2022 when his immigration status was reported to ICE by a coworker, he told CNN. Since then, Lopez has been reporting to ICE every day and uses a monitoring device to check in with authorities.

Lopez’s last in-person appointment with ICE was in January, he told CNN. His next appointment is in July. By then, he says, he will likely be detained.

John Ratcliffe appears for a Senate Intelligence confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 15.

The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday became the first major national security agency to offer so-called buyouts to its entire workforce, a CIA spokesperson and two other sources familiar with the offer said, part of President Donald Trump’s broad effort to shrink the federal government and shape it to his agenda.

The offer — which tells federal employees that they can quit their jobs and receive roughly eight months of pay and benefits — had up until Tuesday not been made available to most national security roles in an apparent cognizance of their critical function to the security of the nation.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe personally decided he also wanted the CIA to be involved, one of the sources said.

The spokesperson said that the move is part of Ratcliffe’s efforts to “ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities,” adding that is “part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy.”

Still, even as the offer was sent to the entire workforce at the agency, it was not immediately clear whether all would be allowed to take it. Some specific occupations and areas of expertise appear likely to be restricted, one of the sources familiar with the offer said, suggesting that the effort is far less sweeping than in civil service agencies that are not considered to be doing national security work.

There’s also a caveat for Ratcliffe to retain flexibility to work through the timing of officer departures in critical areas, according to another source familiar with the matter.

Read more about the move.

The USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, on Monday..

USAID staff around the world are being put on administrative leave Friday and ordered to return to the United States, according to an agency directive issued Tuesday night.

As the name implies, a direct hire is a government official directly employed by the US government, as opposed to contractors who make up a huge part of the USAID workforce. Many of those contractors have already been furloughed and laid off.

CNN reported earlier that staffers were receiving individual emails on Tuesday informing them that they were being put on leave. Then, the agency-wide statement came.

Hundreds of contractors had previously been shut out of USAID’s IT systems and premises before Tuesday.

The statement on the website ends with: “Thank you for your service.”

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.

Saudi Arabia reaffirmed its “unwavering” support for a Palestinian state on Wednesday after US President Donald Trump reiterated his intention for the US to “take over” the Gaza Strip during a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry also restated its long-held position that it will not commit to normalization of relations with Israel without guarantees of a Palestinian state, citing previous speeches by the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The ministry also demanded an “end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.”

“Achieving lasting and just peace is impossible without the Palestinian people obtaining their legitimate rights in accordance with international resolutions, as has been previously clarified to both the former and current U.S. administrations,” it added.

Earlier, Trump and Netanyahu had both expressed confidence that Israel and Saudi Arabia would normalize relations in the future, with the Israeli leader saying peace between the two Middle Eastern nations “is going to happen.”

More context: Last week, Saudi Arabia along with other Arab nations including Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Egypt, issued a wide-ranging statement pushing back on Trump’s suggestion to displace Palestinians from Gaza when it was initially raised. Without specifically referencing the US president’s proposal, the statement reiterated a commitment to rebuilding the enclave while ensuring “the continued presence of Palestinians in their homeland.”

The US Postal Service says it has temporarily suspended accepting international parcels from China and Hong Kong until further notice.

It did not provide a reason for the change, but said in a statement Tuesday the flow of letters will not be affected.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that terminated the “de minimis” exemption, a long-standing rule that allowed anyone, including exporters, to ship packages worth less than $800 to the United States without duties or needing to undergo inspections.

The new rule could also affect e-commerce sites like Shein and Temu, which have built their gargantuan business models around this exemption. The relaxed restrictions and tax exemptions on cheap products have allowed more than a billion packages to pour into the US at low prices for consumers looking for deals on clothing to household goods.

While it is unclear whether the suspension was related to the executive order, experts have told CNN the delivery of international parcels into the US would be “slowed down” if every package must be examined.

Currently, US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to open and inspect all international packages, though in practice it doesn’t open every single item.

Russell Vought speaks during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 15, in Washington, DC.

Senate Democrats are planning to hold the floor from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday evening to protest the nomination of Russell Vought to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget, according to a Democratic leadership aide.

The effort willl begin after Vought clears the final procedural hurdle tomorrow afternoon, limiting debate to 30 hours before the final confirmation vote Thursday night.

Vought, whose staunchly conservative views and ties to Project 2025 have drawn the ire of Democrats, is expected to be confirmed along party lines for the powerful position. He was Trump’s former budget director during his first administration when Vought oversaw a widespread deregulation push.

OMB oversees the development and execution of the federal budget, and the office has significant influence over the president’s agenda.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting.

A US district judge granted the requests of anonymous federal employees in multiple cases against the Trump administration to move forward in the proceedings under pseudonyms in an effort to protect themselves from potential public harassment and threats.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of DC’s federal trial court on Tuesday pointed to concerns raised by the employee’s lawyers that they faced certain safety risks by bringing litigation against the Trump administration.

The FBI employees are suing over the Justice Department’s collection of information from them about their work on Trump investigations as part of an alleged effort to purge those involved in those cases. Two of the requests were made in separate cases brought by FBI employees against the Justice Department, and a third was in a case against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM.)

The filings in one of the cases, Boasberg said, showed “numerous instances in which FBI agents have been doxed in online posts or subjected to violent attacks because of their involvement in investigations concerning President Trump.” The efforts by January 6 rioters, including those pardoned by Trump, to publicize the identities of the FBI agents working on those cases also weighed on Boasberg’s decision.

“Such concerns are as troubling as those that typically justify pseudonymity,” Boasberg wrote.

In the FBI cases, the plaintiffs’ names will be shared confidentially with the Justice Department. But Boasberg is allowing the OPM staffers to withhold their identities from the government defendants, as their lawyer argued they could also face professional consequences if the government learned their identity. That case alleges OPM failed to assess data security issues when setting up an email distribution system used to blast the entire federal civil service.

The three cases will now be assigned to judges who will oversee them going forward. Boasberg said those judges could revisit his decisions on anonymity.

Rep. Maxwell Frost, accompanied by other members of congress, speaks during a rally against Elon Musk outside the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

Packed outside of the Treasury Department Tuesday evening, hundreds gathered to protest what they described as Elon Musk’s illegal invasion of financial systems holding the sensitive security information of millions of Americans.

Members of Congress rallied the crowd and chants of “Deport Musk” could be heard.

The “Nobody Elected Elon” rally was organized by several left-leaning groups including Indivisible, MoveOn and the Working Families Party.

Congressional representatives voiced alarm at the lack of oversight over Musk’s role and assured the public that despite frustrations, many lawmakers are “holding the line,” fighting for constituents and not carrying on business as usual.

Speakers also argued President Donald Trump ran on an agenda to uplift the working class, but that he’s instead using the government to further enrich billionaires and corporations.

Democrats characterized themselves as a unified “opposition” party committed to oversight as they warned of an authoritarian takeover.

“I want you to know that the crisis is here. I want you to know that the power belongs to the people though y’all. Do not feel powerless in this moment,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett.

Speakers identified part of their work as persuading Republican voters they could also be adversely impacted by the early actions of the Trump administration as they vowed to take the fight to the streets and the courts.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced all 47 Democratic senators would vote against Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought, but didn’t engage with demonstrators who called on him to shut down the Senate. Chants of “shut down the Senate” and “no regular order,” blared from the crowd as Schumer departed the podium.

President Donald Trumpand Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands following a joint news conference at the White House on Tuesday.

Asked Tuesday night about President Donald Trump’s remarks that the US will “take over” the Gaza Strip, GOP senators largely refused to comment as they dashed to-and-from floor votes, including Trump ally Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch.

Others expressed some skepticism.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it an “interesting proposal” but also “problematic.”

“We’ll see what our Arab friends say about that. I think most South Carolinians would probably not be excited about sending Americans to take over Gaza. I think that might be problematic. But I’ll keep an open mind,” he said.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said that “there are probably a couple of kinks in that Slinky, but I’ll have to take a look at the statement.”

“I don’t know what to make of it,” said Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn. “Check back with me tomorrow, that’s a good idea.”

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the idea “crazy, and you can quote me.” He said it would “blow apart the Abraham Accords,” adding that “all the progress that we have made including the brave and costly battles that Israel has waged would be effectively undercut by this crazy notion.”

New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic on the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “No, I don’t think it’s something that is in America’s interest.”

She added: “This idea, I think it fails to recognize the need to have a Palestinian state, and the fact that until we address the concerns of the Palestinians, there will continue to be conflict in the region.”

Sen. Chris Coons, another key Democratic member of the committee, also criticized the plan.

“You can put me down as this is between offensive and insane and dangerous and foolish,” he said.

Two Arab officials who spoke with CNN immediately following President Donald Trump’s unexpected Tuesday comments about the US taking over Gaza expressed puzzlement, concern and pessimism.

It was “rough, raw, hard to grasp and digest” one official said, adding that they “need clarity and further development to become understood.”

A second official, a diplomat, said the comments will jeopardize the fragile ceasefire deal in Gaza and likened them to what Trump has said about absorbing Canada and buying Greenland.

The source continued: “Furthermore, the reality remains that 1.8 million people in Gaza would resist such an initiative and refuse to leave,” said the diplomat. “Saudi Arabia is unlikely to pursue peace under these circumstances, and other nations may reconsider their commitments to the Abraham Accords.”

The diplomat went on to say that the move’s timing “raises significant concerns, particularly as we strive to maintain a fragile ceasefire and negotiate a potential hostage deal.”

“Statements like these can inadvertently jeopardize the progress we have made and threaten to unravel the delicate balance we are working to achieve,” they said.

Some background: On Monday, foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as the Secretary General of the PLO, sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, calling the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “the key to regional peace” and saying it can only come about through a two-state solution.

“It is imperative that Israel does not annex any Palestinian land,” says the letter, a copy of which was seen by CNN. “Such annexation will simply render the two-state solution unviable.”

“Palestinians do not want to leave their land. We support their position unequivocally,” the ministers wrote.

Signage on the exterior of the US Department of the Treasury building on January 11, in Washington, DC.

The Treasury Department said that aides of Elon Musk detailed to the agency that they have “read-only” access to its sensitive $5 trillion US payments system and that no payments have been suspended or rejected as part of an ongoing review.

The information, provided in a letter to lawmakers from a Treasury official, amounts to the first substantive effort to detail the role Department of Government Efficiency staff detailed to the agency have in the operations of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Efforts to gain access to the systems, which are closely held and the lynchpin of federal government payments, have rattled career Treasury officials and raised significant concern among lawmakers and former government officials in recent days, as CNN has reported.

The letter marks Treasury’s first public acknowledgment and explanation of the role held by Tom Krause, the chief executive officer at Cloud Software Group with ties to DOGE. Krause was described in recent weeks as the central DOGE-connected staffer driving the effort to secure access to the payment systems. Krause clashed with career officials over the request and was eventually granted access by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Read more here.

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its anti-trans prison policy against three transgender women currently housed in women’s facilities at federal prisons.

The narrow ruling from US District Judge Royce Lamberth applies to just three trans inmates, but it nonetheless represents another legal setback for a divisive executive order issued by President Donald Trump on his first day in office after a separate judge made a similar ruling week.

Among other things, the executive order from Trump required officials to ensure that transgender women detained in federal facilities be housed in men’s facilities and prohibited the Bureau of Prisons from providing gender-affirming care to inmates.

Three transgender women currently housed in women’s facilities sued over the policy, alleging it represented unconstitutional sex-based discrimination and violates their protections against cruel and unusual punishment “given the serious risk of violence and sexual assault” they’ll face in men’s facilities, their attorney, Jennifer Levi, told the judge during a hearing on Tuesday.

In an 11-page ruling granting the inmates’ request for a temporary restraining order, Lamberth agreed that their safety could be at risk if they were transferred to men’s facilities and said that they would likely succeed on their cruel and unusual punishment claims during a later stage in the litigation.

“With respect to the transfer provision, the plaintiffs cited to various government reports and regulations recognizing that transgender persons are at a significantly elevated risk of physical and sexual violence relative to other inmates when housed in a facility corresponding to their biological sex — which the defendants do not dispute,” he wrote.

Lamberth said that prison officials “shall maintain and continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20, 2025.”

The judge said his block will remain in effect “pending further Order of this Court.”

The National Institutes of Health has quietly restarted some paused activities, such as reviewing research grant proposals in closed meetings. But other activities, like hiring research trainees and recruiting study participants, remain on hold, according to sources familiar with the decisions who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to share the information.

On January 21, the acting secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services ordered a blanket and unprecedented freeze on external communications, causing federal health agencies to go silent.

The US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement Tuesday that some external communications have been restored.

Long-running scientific publications like the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report didn’t publish on schedule. Critical meetings to review research proposals were halted. Presentations at scientific meetings were abruptly stopped. Researchers were told they couldn’t order needed supplies for ongoing studies because the purchase orders required amounted to external communications.

Tuesday, there were signs that some NIH activities were resuming, including meetings called study sections, where panels of outside experts review research proposals and rate them for future funding. The most highly rated proposals then go on to another round of review before they are funded.

Closed sessions of the NIH’s advisory council meetings, another key step in the grant review process, were also allowed to resume, according to a guidance document obtained by CNN. Travel for those sessions was allowed, although it remained on hold for large public events, the document said.

Other activities remained verboten, as well.

Scientists were told they could not recruit study participants by posting notices for them; they were also told not to review scientific papers for medical journals or write commentary and perspective articles for publication, according to internal communications shared with CNN.

The guidance document for employees said the communications pause is still in place on public documents and communications, including grant announcements and news releases, until they can be reviewed by a presidential appointee. Sources at multiple agencies within HHS said they still hadn’t been able to get clearance for regular outside communications.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he intends to visit Gaza and other areas in the Middle East after he repeatedly disparaged the war-torn region and suggested that the US should take a “long-term ownership position” of the enclave.

He added: “I’ll be visiting a lot of different places in the Middle East. I’ve been invited everywhere, but I will be visiting some.”

His comments about visiting came after he said multiple times Tuesday that he wants the US to be involved in redeveloping Gaza.

He also suggested that Palestinians should be relocated to multiple areas where “you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like some place where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying.”

Some context: The president has previously claimed to have traveled to Gaza, but there is no public evidence of Trump ever having been to Gaza. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Gaza last week, becoming the first high-ranking US official known to visit the strip in years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed support for US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the possibility of the US taking a “long-term ownership position” in Gaza.

Pointing to Israel’s war objective of making sure Gaza does not pose a threat to it, Netanyahu said, “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level. He sees a different future for that piece of land that has been the focus of so much terrorism.”

He added: “I think it’s worth paying attention to this. We’re talking about it.”

The Israeli leader said Trump’s idea could “change history” and that it is “worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”