House votes to extend health care subsidies in defiance of GOP leaders

Trump for many months held off from backing the bipartisan sanctions bill, which aimed to economically cripple Moscow, but one of the sponsors, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said this week that he had finally earned the president’s support.

“It’s subject to me, and, you know, I support it,” Trump said.

Trump indicated that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado may be visiting next week and that he may meet with her.

“I understand she’s coming in next week some time and I look forward to saying hello to her,” Trump said in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity that aired Thursday night. “And I’ve heard that she wants to do that.” He called it “a great honor.”

Machado was awarded last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, an honor Trump had been hoping to receive.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is quarterbacking Trump’s foreign policy team as it navigates particularly turbulent times, notably in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America, longtime core interests of the child of Cuban immigrants and former Florida senator.

As the Trump administration has alarmed much of the world with its stunning military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its threats to potentially annex Greenland by force, Rubio has emerged as a voice of relative calm.

In public comments and private briefings to lawmakers, he has toned down bombastic remarks from the president and other top officials even as he offers a full-throated defense of Trump’s more audacious plans. Still, he had a key role in one of the most assertive actions — Maduro’s ouster — after long pursuing leadership changes in Venezuela and Cuba, countries close to him personally and politically.

▶ Read more about Rubio’s influence on the White House

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, the president was asked if he has taken any of the massively popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs, which he has called “the fat drug.”

“No, I have not,” he said. “I probably should.”

Trump’s physical report from April said the president stands at 6’ 3” (190.5 centimeters) and weighed in at 224 pounds (101.6 kilograms), which is 20 pounds (9.1 kilograms) lighter than a 2020 checkup in his first term that showed him bordering on obesity.

In a remarkable rebuke of Republican leadership, the House passed legislation Thursday, 230-196, that would extend expired health care subsidies for those who get coverage through the Affordable Care Act as renegade GOP lawmakers joined essentially all Democrats in voting for the measure.

Forcing the issue to a vote came about after a handful of Republicans signed on to a so-called “discharge petition” to unlock debate, bypassing objections from House Speaker Mike Johnson. The bill now goes to the Senate, where pressure is building for a similar bipartisan compromise.

Together, the rare political coalitions are rushing to resolve the standoff over the enhanced tax credits that were put in place during the COVID-19 crisis but expired late last year after no agreement was reached during the government shutdown.

Trump said on social media Thursday that the move would help reduce mortgage rates at a time when Americans are worried about home prices.

Trump and the White House have been trying to show they are responding to voter concerns about affordability ahead of midterm elections in November.

The president last month said he planned to unveil housing reforms, and on Wednesday he said he wants to block institutional investors from buying houses.

Trump said that he has to possess the entirety of Greenland instead of just exercising a longstanding treaty that gives the U.S. wide latitude to use the country for military posts, in a Wednesday interview with The New York Times.

“I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do with, you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document,” Trump said.

The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases on the landmass with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance told reporters that European leaders should “take the president of the United States seriously” but framed his desire to own the landmass as a defense issue.

“What we’re asking our European friends to do is take the security of that landmass more seriously, because if they’re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it,” Vance said.

Denmark and Greenland’s envoys to Washington have begun a vigorous effort to urge U.S. lawmakers as well as key Trump administration officials to step back from President Trump’s call for a “takeover” of the strategic Arctic island.

Denmark’s ambassador, Jesper Møller Sørensen, and Jacob Isbosethsen, Greenland’s chief representative to Washington, met on Thursday with White House National Security Council officials to discuss a renewed push by Trump to acquire Greenland, perhaps by military force, according to Danish government officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting.

▶ Read more about the meeting

The Senate has agreed to display a plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol during the attack on Jan. 6, 2021, rebuffing House Speaker Mike Johnson who has said the commemorative memorial does not comply with the law.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina led the effort, announcing on this week’s fifth anniversary of the Capitol siege that he would ask colleagues to have it installed. On Thursday, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon joined the effort. No other senators objected.

Congress had approved the plaque three years ago, but it has never been officially hung — although replicas have proliferated in the halls in the lawmakers’ nearby offices. Johnson, a Republican who led efforts to object to the 2020 election results ahead of the riot, has said the plaque as constructed does not comply with the law.

Police had sued to place the plaque as required, but Trump’s Justice Department is trying to dismiss the lawsuit.

Senators agreed to the resolution directing the Architect of the Capitol to “prominently display” the plaque in a “publicly accessible” location in the Senate wing of the Capitol until it can be placed in its permanent location.

Congress can override a veto with support from two-thirds of the members of the House and the Senate. The threshold is rarely reached.

In this case, Republicans opted to avoid a fight in an election year over bills with little national significance. The White House did not issue any veto threats prior to passage of the bills, so Trump’s vetoes came as a surprise to sponsors of the legislation. Ultimately, his vetoes had the effect of punishing those who had opposed the president’s positions on other issues.

One bill Trump vetoed was designed to help local communities finance the construction of a pipeline to provide water to tens of thousands in Colorado. The other designated a site in Everglades National Park as a part of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation.

▶ Read more about the moves in Congress

The White House said it was not feasible to save the East Wing as they shared details of Trump’s planned ballroom at Thursday’s meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission.

Josh Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, listed off a variety of concerns, including a structurally unstable colonnade, water leakage and mold contamination, in explaining why it was more economical to tear down the East Wing to make room for the $400 million ballroom than to renovate it.

“Because of this and other factors,” Fisher said, “the cost analysis proved that demolition and reconstruction provided the lowest total cost ownership and most effective long-term strategy.”

Greetings and laughter alternated with a tense silence among those gathering inside a brick-walled community center in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, waiting and praying for news of their loved ones’ release.

María Alexandra Gómez is the Venezuelan girlfriend of Nahuel Agustin Gallo, a non-commissioned officer and Argentine citizen who entered Venezuela from Colombia over a year ago to visit in-laws and never returned.

His continued detention has escalated already high tensions between the two countries. Venezuelan prosecutors say Gallo is being held on allegations of terrorism — something his family strongly rejects.

“We’re confident that news will be given to us today, and if not today, please God let it be as soon as possible, because we’ve fought so hard for such a long time to be in this moment, in which Venezuela’s prisons are opening up,” Gómez, 33, told The Associated Press, clutching their 2-year-old son Victor and wearing a T-shirt that called for his release.

Among them was Pedro Durán, 60, who said he traveled from Spain to Caracas in hopes of wrapping his arms around his brother Franklin, detained five years ago on charges of trying to overthrow Maduro’s government, accusations the family denies.

Durán said he bought a plane ticket as soon as he heard rumors that authorities might free some prisoners.

“I don’t have words to express the emotion I’m feeling,” he said. “We’re feeling a lot of hope ... We’re just waiting now.”

Despite the anticipation, fear persists in parts of the South American country as residents brace for what comes next.

“Of course everyone here is very scared,” Durán said, “but what more could they (the government) do to us that they haven’t done already?”

Vance’s absence from photos of Trump and top officials watching the strike raised questions about just how involved the vice president has been on the issue. His office told reporters that Vance was absent for security reasons and that he watched the operation unfold through a secure, remote feed.

At a briefing on Thursday, Vance said he’s been running a meeting among top White House officials “every other day...to talk about next steps, to try to ensure that Venezuela is stable.”

Vance said that so far he’s “been very involved, and I’ll keep on doing that.” He also said that his role on Venezuela will be “whatever the president asks me to do.”

The vice president told reporters that his administration is asking European allies to take Greenland’s security “more seriously,” or else “the United States is going to have to do something about it.”

Trump has expressed repeated interest in acquiring Greenland and the White House has not ruled out a military intervention. Vance stressed that the ultimate choice on the Arctic island would rest with the U.S. president as diplomacy continues, but he said Greenland is critical for “the world’s missile defense.”

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark and thus part of the NATO military alliance.

Appearing in the White House briefing room, the vice president’s voice rose as he decried what he called the “corporate media” for its coverage of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shooting a motorist during an operation in Minneapolis.

“This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people,” said Vance, who maintained it has not been portrayed that way by many journalists.

“The way that the media, by and large, has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace,” he added. “And it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day.”

Spain’s government said Thursday that five Spanish citizens were released in Venezuela. It said they would be traveling back to Spain with the help of the Spanish embassy in Caracas, but did not specify when.

The announcement came shortly after Venezuela said it was releasing a “significant number” of citizens and foreigners from its prisons.

Vance says a new assistant attorney general will prosecute the abuse of government assistance programs in response to growing attention to fraud in childcare programs in Minnesota.

He said the prosecutor will focus primarily on Minnesota but will have a nationwide ambit.

The prosecutor will likely be nominated in the coming days, Vance said, adding Senate Majority Leader John Thune told him he’d seek a prompt confirmation.

“This is the person who’s going to make sure we stop defrauding the American people,” Vance said in the White House briefing room.

A lawsuit filed Thursday asks the state Supreme Court to rule Gov. Henry McMaster’s decision to send South Carolina National Guard troops to Washington last year “unlawful.”

South Carolina initially sent 200 National Guard troops last year, as the Trump administration employed forces amid a federal crackdown on crime and homelessness in the capital city. Those forces returned, and in November McMaster said another 300 would be rotated back in.

Plaintiffs including the South Carolina Public Interest Foundation also ask the court to prevent South Carolina’s adjutant general from further implementing the new troop rotation.

McMaster spokesperson Brandon Charochak told AP that South Carolina governors had “unambiguous authority” to deploy the Guard “to save and protect American lives, defend the homeland, and assist in enforcing the rule of law.”

Bernice King, Martin Luther Luther King Jr.’s daughter who leads the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, said Trump’s move to depose Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela is “deeply troubling” and “a terrible precedent to set.”

King said she doesn’t “understand why we take it upon ourselves to go into other nations” given U.S. problems, and she lamented Trump saying his aim is to control more oil.

“Everything that seems to be expressed around this is about the resources that exist there,” King said, rather than about Maduro’s authoritarianism and Venezuelans’ lives. “It wasn’t even about … what kind of leader he was.”

King speaks often about her father’s “three evils of society” -- racism, excessive materialism and militarism. As she watches current U.S. policy, King said, “These are days where I miss my father’s voice and leadership. Because we’ve gotten so far off as a nation.”

Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords returned to the House floor Thursday on the 15th anniversary of the assassination attempt that cut short her promising political career and shocked the nation, which is still reckoning with a spate of political violence.

Giffords held hands with her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly, as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries lauded her congressional service and her advocacy since the shooting for tougher gun control measures. She received a standing ovation from a few dozen lawmakers in the chamber, most of them Democrats like Giffords.

“House Democrats stand with Gabby and with all Americans who say ‘enough is enough,’” said Jeffries, who pledged that Democrats would prioritize gun control legislation if they win the House majority in November’s midterm elections.

Giffords was shot in the head on Jan. 8, 2011, while meeting with constituents at a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. Six were killed and 12 injured in addition to Giffords, who was left with limited motion on one side and aphasia, a verbal disability.

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Senator Susan Collins delivers remarks at the Maine Chiefs of Police Association Winter Conference in South Portland, Maine, Friday, Feb. 7, 2020. (Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press Herald via AP)

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FILE - Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on June 17, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Pool Photo via AP, File)

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks with reporters at the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

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Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., speaks during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the nomination of Xavier Becerra to be Secretary of Health and Human Services on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2021. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)

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The president lashed out at the five Republican senators who voted for the war powers resolution that would limit his ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela.

Trump said “Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young should never be elected to office again” and called their vote “stupidity” in a post to Truth social on Thursday.

Trump went on to argue that the War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam-era law that is aimed at limiting a President’s power to commit troops to conflict without Congressional approval, was unconstitutional.

A key Republican senator overseeing the military met with Denmark’s ambassador Thursday morning and pushed back on Trump’s idea that Greenland could be purchased.

Denmark is unwilling to negotiate over selling Greenland, said Sen. Roger Wicker. “That’s their prerogative and their right.”

Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, met on Capitol Hill with the Danish ambassador to the U.S., Jesper Møller Sørensen, along with the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and the head of Greenland representation, Jacob Isbosethsen.

“Greenland is not for sale,” Isbosethsen told reporters.

Wicker added that he hoped an agreement could be reached that would strengthen the U.S. relationship with Denmark, a NATO ally.

One of the five Republicans who voted to advance the war powers resolution, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the issue was no longer “hypothetical” for some lawmakers after the intervention in Venezuela.

“It’s interesting to see that more people, at least on my side, now are interested in who has the war prerogative, who has the prerogative to initiate or declare war,” he told reporters after the vote.

Asked whether the vote sends a message to the White House, Paul said he was happy that Maduro is no longer In power.

“But on the other hand,” he said, “to me, the worry, it isn’t always just about the immediate president. It’s about who the next president is and the next president and that if you can accuse someone of a crime anywhere in the world and then remove them without a vote of Congress, what it might lead to.”

Venezuela will release a “significant number” of Venezuelans and foreigners imprisoned in the country, the head of Venezuela’s national assembly said Thursday.

Jorge Rodríguez, brother of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, did not specify who would be released or give an exact number.

Despite mass detentions following the tumultuous 2024 election, Venezuela’s government maintains it doesn’t keep political prisoners.

The U.S. government and the country’s opposition have demanded the release of opposition figures and critics.

“Consider this gesture by the Bolivarian government, which is broadly intended to seek peace,” Rodríguez said in an announcement publicized over TV.

The United Nations pushed back Thursday on the Trump administration’s plan to pull out of more than 30 U.N. initiatives, saying Washington remains responsible for its required contributions.

In a statement by his spokesperson, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he regretted Trump’s decision Wednesday to withdraw from 31 U.N.-related agencies, including the population agency and the treaty that establishes international climate negotiations.

“As we have consistently underscored, assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget and peacekeeping budget, as approved by the General Assembly, are a legal obligation under the UN Charter for all Member States, including the United States,” Stephane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesperson, said.

He added that despite the announcement, the U.N. entities targeted will continue to implement their work.

The Senate has advanced a resolution that would limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela, sounding a note of disapproval for the president’s expanding ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.

Democrats and five Republicans voted to advance the war powers resolution on a 52-47 vote tally and ensure a later vote for final passage.

It has virtually no chance of becoming law because Trump would have to sign it if it were to pass the House, but it’s still a significant gesture that shows unease among some Republicans after the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.

The Senate is voting on a resolution that would limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela, and the vote tally is looking to be razor-thin.

Two Republicans who previously voted against similar resolutions — Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Susan Collins of Maine — are now voting for the resolution. It’s still not clear what the final vote outcome would be.

A majority vote would set up a later vote on passage for the resolution. It still has virtually no chance of becoming law because Trump would have to sign it, but the vote outcome showed how some Republicans are uneasy with the Trump administration’s military action against Venezuela.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally, said on Air Force One on Sunday that he’s comfortable with Trump taking over other countries — including Greenland — without congressional approval. “The commander in chief is the commander in chief. They can use military force,” Graham said.

But some others are voicing opposition. Asked whether he’d support putting troops on the ground in Venezuela, Thom Tillis of North Carolina responded: “Not without congressional authorization.”

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, an outspoken proponent of war powers resolutions, acknowledged that Maduro is seen as a “bad guy” and “a socialist and an autocrat.” But, Paul added, “The question is about who has the power to take the country to war?”

Paul said Republicans discussed Trump’s plans for Greenland at their Wednesday luncheon and he heard “zero support” for taking military action to seize it.

“It’s time to get this out of secrecy and put it in the light,” the Virginia Democrat said after forcing a Thursday Senate vote on a resolution that would limit Trump’s ability to strike Venezuela militarily again.

Kaine said a resolution on Greenland would soon be filed, in addition to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Nigeria.

Republican leaders have said they had no advance notification of the raid early morning Saturday to seize Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, but they’ve backed Trump, and mostly expressed satisfaction this week as top administration officials provided classified briefings on the operation.

“I think the president has demonstrated at least already a very strong commitment to peace through strength, especially in this hemisphere,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “I think Venezuela got that message loudly and clearly.”

“The messages that we hear regarding Greenland are extremely concerning and we have had discussions also among the Europeans,” Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Thursday during a press conference in Egypt.

“All these statements are not really helping the stability of the world,” Kallas said. “The international law is very clear, and we have to stick to it. It is clear that it is the only thing that protects smaller countries and that’s why it is in the interest of all of us, and we discussed this today as well, that we uphold the international law on all levels.”

The Senate is expected to vote on a resolution Thursday that would limit President Donald Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela, setting up a test for his expanding ambitions in the Western Hemisphere.

The war powers resolution would require Trump to get congressional approval before striking Venezuela again, and it comes after the U.S. military seized the president of the South American country, Nicolás Maduro, in a surprise nighttime raid and as Trump’s administration is seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government.

Democrats have failed to pass several such resolutions in the months that Trump escalated his campaign against Venezuela. But lawmakers argued that now that Trump has captured Maduro and set his sights to other conquests such as Greenland, the vote presents the Republican-controlled Congress with an opportunity.

▶ Read more about the Senate’s war powers vote

Many Greenlanders feel that remarks about their self-governing territory have been disrespectful, Aaja Chemnitz, one of the two Greenlandic politicians in the Danish parliament, told The Associated Press. Trump’s claim that Greenland is “covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place” is not accurate, she added.

“Many also experience that these conversations are being discussed over their heads. We have a firm saying in Greenland, ‘Nothing about Greenland, without Greenland,’” she said. “Most Greenlanders wish more self-determination including independence” but also want to “strengthen cooperation with our partners” in security and business development as long as it is based on “mutual respect and recognition of our right to self-determination.”

Greenland is “a longstanding ally and partner to the U.S. and we have a shared interest in stability, security, and responsible cooperation in the Arctic,” she said. “There is an agreement with the U.S. that gives them access to have bases in Greenland if needed.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry is calling the U.S. seizure of the Marinera oil tanker under the Russian flag was “a gross violation of the fundamental principles and norms of international maritime law” and warns that the incident could incite geopolitical tensions.

“Washington’s willingness to generate acute international crisis situations, including in relation to already extremely strained Russian-American relations, which are burdened by disagreements from past years, is a cause for regret and concern,” the ministry said in a statement Thursday.

U.S. actions lower the “threshold for the use of force” on the sea, and it’s “utterly cynical” for the U.S. to say the seizure is part of an effort to take over Venezuela’s oil production, it said. “We resolutely reject such neo-colonial ambitions.”

Emmanuel Macron said in a speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee presidential palace that the United States is “gradually turning away from some of its allies and freeing itself from the international rules.”

“It’s the greatest disorder, the law of the strongest, and everyday people wonder whether Greenland will be invaded, whether Canada will be under the threat of becoming the 51st state (of the United States) or whether Taiwan is to be further circled,” Macron said.

The French president pointed to an “increasingly dysfunctional” world where great powers, including the U.S and China, have “a real temptation to divide the world amongst themselves.”

Trump has boasted about the U.S. military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. But the mission did involve a U.S. helicopter being hit by enemy fire.

In a New York Times interview published Thursday, Trump said he was thinking about a “Jimmy Carter disaster” as the Venezuela mission played out.

He was referring to a failed April 1980 mission Carter ordered to rescue 52 American hostages in Iran. U.S. helicopter mechanical failures and a crash with a C-130 killed eight servicemembers, deeply affecting Carter politically and personally.

“That destroyed his entire administration,” Trump told the Times. “I don’t know that he would have won” in 1980, Trump continued, “but he certainly had no chance after that disaster.”

Trump used Carter often in the 2024 campaign to mock then-President Joe Biden, saying Carter loved Biden “because he had a brilliant presidency compared to Biden.”

Troels Lund Poulsen made the remarks to Danish broadcaster DR on Thursday.

Greenland’s government has told Danish public broadcaster DR that Greenland will participate in the meeting between Denmark and the U.S. announced by Rubio.

“Nothing about Greenland without Greenland. Of course we will be there. We are the ones who requested the meeting,” Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt told DR.

The island of Greenland, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people.

“Nothing can be decided about Denmark and about Greenland without Denmark, or without Greenland. They have the full solid support and solidarity of the European Union.”

The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the U.K. joined Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday in defending Greenland’s sovereignty in the wake of Trump’s comments about Greenland, which is part of the NATO military alliance.

In an interview with Fox News, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that Denmark “obviously” had not done a proper job in securing Greenland and that Trump “is willing to go as far as he has to” to defend American interests in the Arctic.

He also repeated Trump’s claim that Greenland is crucial to both the U.S. and the world’s national security because “the entire missile defense infrastructure is partially dependent on Greenland.”

Vance said the fact that Denmark has been a faithful military ally of the U.S. during World War II and the more recent “war on terrorism” did not necessarily mean they were doing enough to secure Greenland today.

“Just because you did something smart 25 years ago doesn’t mean you can’t do something dumb now,” Vance said, adding that Trump “is saying very clearly, ‘you are not doing a good job with respect to Greenland.’”