FED CHAIR ANNOUNCEMENT: Trump said he plans to announce his nominee for the next chair of the Federal Reserve this morning after months of speculation.
Former Fed board of governors member Kevin Warsh has reportedly emerged as the favorite for the position, The New York Times and CNN report.
Others candidates included National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, BlackRock executive Rick Rieder and Fed Governor Christopher Waller.
Trump said during his Cabinet meeting Thursday that he planned to announce the nominee next week. But he revealed while at the premiere for the documentary film "Melania" about the first lady that he moved the timeline up to Friday morning.
At the Cabinet meeting, he reiterated his criticism of the agency for not lowering interest rates more quickly.
The term of the current chair, Jerome Powell, is set to end in May.
Trump has regularly slammed Powell, whom he appointed during his first term, for his leadership of the Fed and not being more aggressive in lowering interest rates. The Fed voted to keep interest rates at their current level at a meeting Wednesday despite the pressure from the president.
"We're paying far too much interest in the Fed. The Fed rate is too high, unacceptably high," Trump said Thursday.
Further adding to the intensity of the situation is the Department of Justice's probe into Powell, which he has rejected as designed to pressure him to support lower rates.
▪ CNN: Takeaways from Powell's press conference.
'PERHAPS, INSURRECTIONIST': Trump escalated his rhetoric about Pretti early Friday morning, branding the ICU nurse killed by immigration agents as both an agitator and "perhaps" an insurrectionist.
The president's online comment references a video in which Pretti appears to engage in an altercation with federal immigration agents more than a week before he was killed.
"Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti's stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces," the president said in a Truth Social post early Friday morning.
"It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control," Trump continued.
The comments build on Trump's past remarks on Pretti in which he attempted to shift blame toward him for the incident that led to his death. He previously said the 37-year-old protester shouldn't have had a gun on him at the protest.
"You can't have guns. You can't walk in with guns," Trump said Tuesday.
Pretti had a license to carry the firearm and didn't appear to take out the gun before being shot.
▪ USA Today: Millions donated to GoFundMe for Good, Pretti after shootings
▪ NBC News: Viral video plays key role in Minneapolis.
ICE ROLLBACK: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is ending its enhanced operations in Maine following a plea from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a rare step back for the administration on immigration enforcement.
"There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here," Collins said in a statement. "I have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the Administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state."
"I appreciate the Secretary's willingness to listen to and consider my recommendations and her personal attention to the situation in Maine," she continued.
Maine had been the latest front in the Trump administration's ongoing immigration enforcement push, which has mostly been targeted at Democratic-leaning cities and states.
DHS launched "Operation Catch of the Day" in Maine last week. Gov. Janet Mills (D), who is running for Senate to challenge Collins, slammed the operation and requested a meeting with Trump following the killing of Pretti in Minneapolis. Mills expressed concern about a "threat to the lives of law-abiding people" in her state and across the U.S.
Immigration enforcement has been a key part of the administration's focus through Trump's second term, and while officials are pulling back at least for now in Maine and possibly Minnesota, they haven't signaled a broader shift in their strategy.
Still, the decision is notable and comes as the president has faced declining approval numbers broadly and particularly on immigration, which has traditionally been a stronger issue for him with the public.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week showed Trump's approval rating on immigration falling to a record low of 39 percent.
Collins said Tuesday that she asked Noem to pause the enhanced operations in Maine so the tactics could be reviewed and made more targeted.
The GOP senator has stopped short of calling for Noem to resign, as two of her Republican colleagues, Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), have done.
The issue of Trump's immigration policies has also been poignant particularly in Maine as Collins is running for reelection in a Democratic-leaning state that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Mills has accused the incumbent of not doing enough to help rein in ICE.
▪ The Hill: Tom Homan says Trump wants to 'fix' Minnesota operations.
▪ KSTP: What does a scaled-back ICE operation look like?
NOEM SILENT: The Homeland Security secretary remained quiet and the controversy in Minneapolis was never discussed during Trump's first Cabinet meeting of the year.
Noem wasn't the only Cabinet member who didn't speak during the meeting, which lasted more than an hour, but it was a break from past meetings in which the president has gone around the table to have all members talk. More attention than usual has been on Noem following the shootings in Minneapolis and amid negotiations over the DHS bill.
Trump also notably didn't take any questions during the meeting, unlike past ones in which he has frequently let reporters ask questions after everyone spoke.
Noem has faced calls from Democrats, along with a couple of Senate Republicans, to resign over the scrutiny she's faced for her handling of the situation in Minneapolis. But Trump has said Noem will stay in the role and that he believes she's doing well in leading the department.
▪ The Hill: Republican senator rails against Noem.
ACA ENROLLMENT DROP: The number of people who signed up for health care through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) dropped by more than 1 million as enhanced subsidies expired at the end of last year.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported 23 million people signed up for open enrollment, which ended Jan. 15. That's a drop from the 24.2 million people who signed up for insurance over the same period a year ago and ends four consecutive years of record enrollment for ACA marketplace plans.
Enhanced tax credits enacted through the American Rescue Plan, passed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, were credited with boosting the number of enrollments. But their expiration after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on extending them caused premiums to skyrocket for more than 20 million Americans.
The House passed a three-year extension of the subsidies, with the support of Democrats and a few moderate Republicans, earlier this month, but that bill hasn't advanced yet in the Senate. And the issue has largely been overshadowed recently by the national debate over the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: Health care is more expensive than mortgages for some.
▪ CBS News: States expand state-funded subsidies to make up for lapse.
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