Trump’s three-word plea that convinced skeptical senator to back Tulsi Gabbard: Live updates

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

Tulsi Gabbard cleared a crucial hurdle on Tuesday as the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance her nomination to become the top U.S. intelligence official.

Gabbard was nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as Director of National Intelligence after the former Democrat backed his presidential bid. But her nomination raised concerns from senators on both sides of the aisle.  

The vote came after Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week where she faced hours of grilling from Republican and Democratic senators. Lawmakers took issue with her refusal to call Edward Snowden a traitor for leaking highly classified information. 

They also raised concerns about her past comments blaming NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine and her 2017 meeting with then-Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Ahead of the vote today, Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) announced on X that he would support her confirmation after expressing frustration with her during her hearing.

This morning he posted a letter from Gabbard in which she made several commitments to him including holding those suspected of disclosing intelligence without authorization accountable and not making any recommendations on the legal standing of Snowden.

She also wrote that she would inform the committee on any foreign travel and visits with agents or officials from foreign governments.

‘Having now secured these commitments, I will support Tulsi’s nomination and look forward to working with her to protect our national security,’ Young posted.

Heading into the vote, Young said he worked with Vice President JD Vance to get the answers to reassure him. 

‘This is how the process is supposed to work. It’s supposed to be a consultative process, and we got the reassurances we needed,’ Young said.

The senator also spoke with President Trump. He claimed it was a ‘very positive’ conversation, and the president told him to ‘vote his conscience.’

It came after two other GOP Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) confirmed on Monday they would back her nomination, helping clear the path for her to move forward. 

The nomination now moves before the full Senate where every senator will have the opportunity to vote on her nomination once that is scheduled in the coming days.

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

The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a vote on Tuesday on the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as Director of National Intelligence.

Some GOP senators expressed reservations after Gabbard refused to call Edward Snowden a ‘traitor’ at her confirmation hearing last week.

She needs the support of every Republican on the panel to advance her nomination.

Ahead of the vote, one Republican holdout, Senator Todd Young, announced on X that he would support her confirmation.

He posted a letter from Gabbard in which she made several commitments to him including holding those suspected of disclosing intelligence without authorization accountable and not making any recommendations on the legal standing of Snowden.

She also wrote that she would inform the committee on any foreign travel and visits with agents or officials from foreign governments.

‘Having now secured these commitments, I will support Tulsi’s nomination and look forward to working with her to protect our national security,’ Young posted.

President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing an executive order to begin dismantling the Education Department – while acknowledging the president lacks the authority to kill the agency entirely.

Trump vowed during the campaign to end what he called ‘wokeness’ and ‘indoctrination’ at the agency.

The Senate Doug Collins to be the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The 58-year-old former Georgia Republican is a retired colonel and military chaplain.

He received a bipartisan vote 77 – 23.

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent

The White House is firing back at Democrats and union bosses who urged federal employees not to take a ‘buyout’ currently on the table for millions of workers.

It came after the American Federation of Government Employees union warned the offer could be a trick.

The union claimed President Donald Trump and DOGE leader Elon Musk may not have the authority to make such an offer – meaning federal employees who quit might not get paid out.

But the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) pushed back on those fears in a statement to DailyMail.com.

‘Union leaders and politicians telling federal workers to reject this offer are doing them a serious disservice,’ spokeswoman McLaurine Pinover said. ‘This is a rare, generous opportunity – one that was thoroughly vetted and intentionally designed to support employees through restructuring.’

Pinover added: ‘Instead of spreading misinformation and using workers as political pawns, they should be making sure federal employees have the facts and freedom to make the best decision for themselves and their families,’ she added.

The 59-year-old, who began her career as a prosecutor and spokeswoman in Hillsborough County, Florida, has certainly climbed the ranks in the world of politics – but she has a rather colorful personal life too.

Bondi has been married twice – with both unions ending in divorce – as well as also being engaged once more over a decade ago before settling down with current boyfriend John Wakefield.

The blonde beauty first tied the knot back in 1990 when she married Garret Barnes at the age of 24.

However, the marriage was short lived and lasted just 22 months before they parted ways.

In 1996, Bondi went on to marry Scott Fitzgerald but that union also ended in divorce in 2002.

Ten years later, Bondi – who holds a Bachelor of Arts in criminal justice – got engaged to ophthalmologist Greg Henderson.

The pair sparked rumors that they had secretly wed that same year in 2012 after being photographed at a luxury Caribbean resort, with Bondi wearing a white dress.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday banning men from women’s sports, DailyMail.com has learned.

One of Trump’s most popular rallying cries during the election was to ‘keep men out of women’s sports.’

He vowed to make it so after he won a second term.

Speaking with DailyMail.com, the Iowa Republican tore into the agency, which has been effectively shuttered by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk.

Originally, USAID was established in 1961 to award U.S. taxpayer cash to countries for important education, infrastructure, health and other projects. It has been credited for helping developing countries get vital resources like medicine and food.

But as Musk’s DOGE team began investigating the department’s expenditures, they were aghast with what they found and decided to ‘shut it down.’

Spending included millions of taxpayer dollars to expand LBGT employment initiatives in Serbia and fund transgender health clinics in India and Vietnam.

As of Tuesday USAID’s fate hangs in limbo and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken over control after finding ‘insubordination’ among the agency’s top ranks.

‘Defiant’ workers are a hallmark of USAID, Ernst accused in the interview with DailyMail.com.

The senator from Iowa said that the agency stonewalled her last year when she tried to investigate the agency’s money flow.

Karoline Leavitt made history when she became America’s youngest press secretary at 27, but the high achiever is also a devoted mother and loving wife.

Leavitt, who is known for her gun-loving ways and conservative values, had her first White House briefing on Tuesday, delivering barbed insults to ‘legacy media’ as well as announcing that social media influencers and content creators will be able to attend her briefings.

She then we on to declare ‘sanity has been restored,’ and that ‘Trump is everywhere again,’ immediately becoming the MAGA darling of the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump picked former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to serve as his Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Her confirmation hearing took place on Capitol Hill last Thursday, and her nomination is facing a major test with a committee vote on Tuesday.

The 43-year-old’s nomination – and her sharp switch from a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 to now a pro-Trump Republican – has sparked interest from members of both parties.

She was quickly labeled as one of Trump’s more controversial picks.

Critics pounced on her previous push of conspiracy theories and claim she has an affinity for hawkish dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

More recently her increased public rise has drawn attention to Gabbard’s husband, Abraham Williams, a camera operator and cinematographer with four IMDB credits.

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

President Donald Trump’s Cabinet pick Robert Kennedy Jr. squeaked through to advance his nomination for secretary of health and human services.

Kennedy was a controversial nominee who was put under the microscope for his stances on vaccinations, abortion and for promoting conspiracy theories.

He needed the support of every Senate Republican on the Senate Finance Committee for his nomination to move forward to a full vote in the Senate, and in the end he was able to advance along party lines with Republicans putting him through.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, had major concerns with Kennedy’s ever-changing position on vaccines leading up to the vote.

But it appears Trump and his MAGA allies successfully pressured the senator to back Kennedy, getting him over the procedural hurdle.

‘I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,’ Cassidy wrote on X.

‘I want to thank VP JD specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,’ he said ahead of the vote.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

President Donald Trump will speak to Chinese leader Xi Jinping today, White House trade czar Peter Navarro said at an event sponsored by Politico.

The two leaders will discuss pausing their tariff war.

Trump imposed a 10% tariff on China, resulting in Beijing announcing retaliatory tariffs on select American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google.

It’s not the first clash between Washington and Beijing under Trump. In 2018, the two sides engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war as Trump raised tariffs and Xi retaliated.

20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!! Thank You! DJT

Vice President JD Vance will leave for his first foreign trip in office next week.

The vice president plans to travel to France and Germany, even before Trump travels overseas.

The vice president plans to attend the AI Action Summit in Paris and the Munich Security Conference.

Vance has already made two domestic trips as vice president, one to Damascus, Virginia to view the government’s hurricane response and one to East Palestine, Ohio to view the response to the toxic chemical train crash.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political REporter

USAID’s Washington, D.C. headquarters remain closed to workers on Tuesday.

The U.S. Agency for International Development was shuttered overnight from Sunday to Monday as Elon Musk and President Donald Trump agreed to close up shop.

Employees received an email that the agency offices were closed on Monday, February 3 and were told to not come in for work.

Hundreds of other workers were locked out of the system when they woke up on Monday.

A USAID source told Fox News the offices are still closed.

‘Extended from headquarters to all buildings per message to staff last night,’ they noted.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that President Donald Trump remained ‘wholeheartedly committed’ to bringing down food prices despite his current set of tariff threats.

Leavitt appeared on Fox News and also talked with reporters outside the White House as Trump spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by phone Monday afternoon.

Ahead of taking office Trump pledged to impose 25 percent tariffs on U.S. allies and neighbors, Canada and Mexico, for not doing more to help patrol the borders.

Jon Michael Raasch, Political Reporter for DailyMail.com

Trump’s selection for attorney general, Pam Bondi, could have her Senate confirmation vote in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Senators voted 52 – 46 to end the debate on the former Florida AG and send her nomination to the floor for a full vote.

The soonest this vote could happen would be Wednesday around 1 am ET.

However, the lawmakers could strike a deal to vote on Bondi’s confirmation sooner or just come in and take the vote on Thursday morning.

By Emily Goodin, senior White House correspondent

President Donald Trump will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House Tuesday for his first in-person meeting with a foreign leader since returning to the Oval Office.

The two men are expected to talk about the second phase of the ceasefire with Hamas, a possible nuclear threat from Iran, and a potential deal to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

Trump seems hesitant about the fragile peace in the Middle East.

‘I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold,’ he told reporters on Monday.

The president and Netanyahu will hold an Oval Office meeting and a press conference as part of the Israeli leader’s visit.

The leaders developed a close relationship in Trump’s first term, in contrast to Netanyahu’s cooler one with Joe Biden. The Israeli prime minister is expected to receive a warm welcome when he arrives in the afternoon.

And that could help him back home where his approval rating is on the downslide as he deals with an on going corruption trial. Trump, however, remains very popular in Israel and that could prove a boost to Netanyahu.

On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump celebrated his newly minted Vice President JD Vance, a former Marine, with members of the Armed Forces at the Commander in Chief ball.

‘They used to say bad things about [Vance]. Now, all of a sudden, he’s very well respected,’ Trump commented.

Both Trump and Vance had been ridiculed as ‘weird’ by Democrats during the campaign, but now they were grinning on stage wearing tuxedos and wielding sabers to cut into a massive cake. Their wives Usha and Melania stood and watched and warfighters in the audience roared with approval.

The pair saluted the crowd with their swords as President Trump did the Trump dance and Vance used his arms to spell out the letters Y-M-C-A to his running mate’s theme song.

For Trump and Vance it was a crowning moment of their political journey, but it also marked the beginning of a unique relationship between the president and vice president as they take office.

President Donald Trump’s FBI nominee Kash Patel had a flurry of close friends and family gathered in the front row of his Senate confirmation hearing last week.

Among those guests included Alina Habba, Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Ric Grenell, Patel’s parents who traveled all the way from India for the hearing, and his sister.

Patel, 44, met Wilkins, 26, at a conservative ReAwaken America event in October 2022, an insider told DailyMail.com. They started dating just a few months later in January 2023.

This came to the dismay of MAGA internet users as online searches about whether Patel was single spiked during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

While Patel has never been married, he has been with Wilkins for over two years now and are serious about continuing their relationship.

The pair is making the move to Washington, D.C., together, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

China has retaliated against President Donald Trump’s tariffs by implementing some of its own, renewing a trade war between the world’s top two economies.

The measures, announced by China’s Finance Ministry, levy a 15 per cent duty on certain types of coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10 per cent tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, large-displacement cars and pickup trucks.

The country has separately imposed export controls on several elements critical to the production of modern high-tech products.

Many of the impacted minerals are essential to US economic or national security and have supply chains vulnerable to disruption.

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

The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on the nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services on Tuesday.

If he is successfully voted out of the committee, it will head ot the Senate floor, but it is unclear whether he has the votes.

Some Republicans including Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) were ‘struggling’ with his nomination and raised concerns about this past work against vaccinations and basic understanding of Medicare and Medicaid at what were brutal confirmation hearings last week.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is also expected to hold a vote on Tuesday on the nomination of Tulsi Gabbard to serve as Director of National Intelligence, a source confirmed.

Some GOP senators expressed reservations after Gabbard refused to call Edward Snowden a ‘traitor’ at her confirmation hearing last week.