分类： politics

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a candid interview with CNBC on Tuesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump shared his latest outlook on diplomatic negotiations with Iran, saying he remains confident that Washington will ultimately reach a favorable agreement with Tehran even as he ruled out extending the current temporary ceasefire, which is set to expire this Wednesday.

When discussing the shifting landscape of Iran’s leadership, Trump argued that the removal of the country’s top former figures has created an unexpected shift in the negotiation dynamic. “We’ve taken out their leaders, frankly, which does complicate things in one way, but these leaders are much more rational,” he told the business news network. Trump also suggested that Iran has little alternative but to reach a negotiated settlement with the United States, adding “I think they have no choice.”

Pressed on whether he would consider extending the current truce to create more time for diplomatic dialogue, Trump offered a definitive rejection of the idea, saying “Well, I don’t want to do that.” The comment comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, with the clock ticking down on the temporary ceasefire that has paused active military clashes between the two sides in recent weeks. The rejection of an extension has left regional observers watching closely to see whether diplomatic progress can be achieved before the truce lapses, or whether active hostilities will resume after Wednesday.

In a high-profile alignment with conservative Christian politics that underscores deep divides over religion’s role in U.S. public life, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump is set to feature in a marathon continuous Bible reading event organized by right-wing Christian groups, just weeks after he sparked backlash over controversial AI-generated imagery and opened a public rift with Pope Leo XIV.

The week-long initiative, dubbed “America Reads the Bible,” launched on April 18 at Washington D.C.’s Museum of the Bible, timed to coincide with commemorations of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Trump’s contribution, a pre-recorded reading from the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles, will air during the event’s Tuesday evening programming. The passage he will deliver is a favorite among U.S. Christian conservatives, widely interpreted as a divine promise that national healing and blessing follow collective repentance and spiritual turning.

The event has drawn dozens of prominent public figures, including senior members of the Trump administration: Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are both participating, sharing their own selected biblical passages throughout the week. Hegseth, a longtime advocate for elevating Christian influence in government, has already integrated explicit biblical references into official Pentagon press briefings and regularly leads department-wide prayer gatherings, reflecting the broader Trump administration’s open embrace of the New Christian Right movement that frames Christianity as a foundational, non-negotiable element of U.S. national identity. This stance stands in quiet tension with the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition on government establishment of a national religion, a line that conservative Christian activists have long pushed to reinterpret.

Event organizers frame the project as a deliberate effort to encourage what they call a “return to the spiritual foundation that has shaped our country.” According to event organizers, Trump’s reading was pre-taped earlier in the White House Oval Office, eliminating any need for an in-person appearance at the museum. The core line of his selected passage reads: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

Trump’s participation comes amid two unfolding religious controversies that have put his relationship with faith and institutional Christianity under renewed scrutiny. First, the president is currently engaged in a public dispute with Pope Leo XIV, who recently slammed U.S. military action in Iran during an official visit to Cameroon. In that address, the pontiff issued a sharp rebuke to leaders who “manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.” Though the Pope did not name Trump directly, the comment was widely interpreted as a critique of the president’s blending of faith and foreign policy. Speaking to reporters last Friday, Trump pushed back openly, saying “I have a right to disagree with the Pope.”

Second, the event comes just days after Trump drew criticism even from some of his own religious supporters for sharing a pair of AI-generated images that cast him in messianic terms. The first image depicted Trump with visual parallels to Jesus, appearing to heal sick people. After facing backlash, Trump removed the post, claiming he had originally interpreted the image as portraying him as a medical doctor rather than a Christ-like figure. He quickly replaced it with a second AI-generated image showing Jesus embracing Trump, paired with the caption: “The Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!” That post remains online.

A sitting Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, has formally stepped down from her congressional seat, capping off a high-stakes ethics probe that uncovered more than two dozen rules violations spanning campaign finance misconduct and misuse of federal disaster funds. The 46-year-old lawmaker, who first won election to Congress in a 2022 special election, had been on the brink of a rare full-chamber expulsion vote after the bipartisan House Ethics Committee released its damning factual findings earlier this month.

The core of the allegations against Cherfilus-McCormick centers on her alleged misuse of millions in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding. Federal prosecutors have charged she and an unnamed co-conspirator diverted roughly $5 million in disaster relief funds from a FEMA contract that her family-owned health care company held. According to charging documents, the funds were funneled to friends and family members, who then redirected the money back to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 special election campaign as falsely labeled personal campaign donations.

In her public resignation announcement shared via social media, Cherfilus-McCormick has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing, framing the congressional investigation as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Arguing that the Ethics Committee blocked her legal team from mounting a full and fair defense while the parallel federal criminal proceeding was ongoing, she said she chose to step down rather than engage in what she called partisan political games. “Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away,” her statement read, adding that the overlapping investigations left her unable to properly defend herself against the claims.

If the case against her goes to trial and she is convicted on all federal charges, Cherfilus-McCormick faces a maximum potential sentence of 53 years in federal prison. Her criminal trial was recently delayed until February 2027, giving both legal teams additional time to prepare their cases.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, told reporters last week that the Ethics Committee’s findings left little room for dispute, noting that the bipartisan panel had uncovered “clear and convincing evidence” of rulebreaking and that Cherfilus-McCormick’s removal from Congress was all but guaranteed. “The Ethics Committee has gone through all of its processes, and they found some alarming facts,” Johnson said. “I think the facts are indisputable at this point.”

Cherfilus-McCormick’s exit marks the third high-profile congressional resignation in April 2025, all from members who opted to step down rather than face formal expulsion votes. Earlier this month, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell and Republican Representative Tony Gonzales resigned their seats ahead of expulsion proceedings stemming from separate sexual misconduct allegations. The last time the full House voted to expel a sitting member was in 2023, when New York Republican George Santos was removed from office – the first congressional expulsion in two decades prior to this month’s string of departures.

A contentious Capitol Hill confirmation hearing for Kevin Warsh, former Federal Reserve governor and U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, devolved into sharp clashes between Warsh and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday, with explosive allegations ranging from undue presidential influence to unanswered questions about ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The high-stakes showdown has put the future of the central bank’s long-held independence and U.S. monetary policy trajectory in the national spotlight.

Leading the opposition against Warsh was Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee that oversees the confirmation process. Warren opened with a searing accusation that Warsh would serve as nothing more than Trump’s “sock puppet” at the central bank, a claim that set the tone for the entire hearing. Trump has publicly pushed for deep interest rate cuts, arguing that looser monetary policy is required to stimulate continued growth in the U.S. economy, and has openly signaled he expects Warsh to align with his policy agenda if confirmed. Warren warned that placing a pliant leader in charge of the Fed would give Trump unprecedented access to the central bank’s policy tools, which he could exploit to enrich himself, his family, and his close allies in the Wall Street financial sector. When pressed directly on whether he would act as a loyalist to the president, Warsh pushed back firmly, telling the committee “Absolutely not.” He reaffirmed that the Federal Reserve’s institutional independence is non-negotiable and essential to its function, vowing to protect the central bank’s self-governance if he is confirmed to the post.

Beyond the question of political influence, Warren also pressed Warsh on his extensive undisclosed financial holdings and potential connections to Epstein, the convicted paedophile financier who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Warsh has publicly disclosed that his personal assets are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including a stake in an investment fund valued at no less than $100 million. However, he has refused to detail the underlying assets held by that fund. In her questioning, Warren asked whether the fund holds stakes in companies linked to Trump or his family, entities that have been tied to money laundering, Chinese-controlled firms, or financing vehicles created by Epstein. Warsh declined to give a direct answer to the question, only stating that he plans to fully divest all of his conflicting financial holdings if and when he is officially confirmed to the chairmanship. Warsh’s name appears multiple times in Department of Justice court records connected to the Epstein case, though court officials have emphasized that a mention in the files does not inherently indicate any wrongdoing on Warsh’s part. Warsh also used the hearing to deny widespread reports that he had struck a quid pro quo deal with Trump: cutting interest rates in exchange for the Fed chair nomination. “The president never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period, and nor would I ever agree to do so if he had, but he never did,” he stated. This denial was directly contradicted by Senator Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, who cited a 2025 Wall Street Journal report that claimed Trump had pressured Warsh to commit to lower borrowing costs during a private meeting. The hearing took place just hours after Trump told CNBC in an interview that he would be “disappointed” if Warsh did not move to cut interest rates immediately after taking office. Interest rate decisions made by the Federal Reserve ripple through every corner of the U.S. economy, impacting everything from residential mortgage rates and consumer auto loans to corporate borrowing costs for small and large businesses alike.

While support and opposition to Warsh’s nomination largely broke along partisan lines, the process hit an unexpected snag from within the Republican caucus: Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina became the lone GOP member to withhold his support for the nominee. Notably, Tillis is not running for re-election in the upcoming cycle, and he clarified that he does not oppose Warsh personally, praising what he called Warsh’s “extraordinary credentials” for the role. However, Tillis has placed a hold on Warsh’s confirmation, demanding that a congressional inquiry into outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell over cost overruns on a Federal Reserve building renovation project be dropped before he will allow a vote on the nominee. Trump has had repeated public and private clashes with Powell over the Fed’s monetary policy over the course of his presidency. Tillis argued that the cost overruns, while “unfortunate”, were “legitimate”, citing unforeseen structural issues with the century-old existing building and global increases in construction material costs that drove up the final budget. If Warsh is not confirmed by May 15, the end date of Powell’s current term, Powell has stated he will remain in the post until a successor is confirmed. Tillis’s blockade makes it increasingly likely that Powell will stay on in the role beyond his scheduled term end.

Beyond the political clashes, Warsh used the hearing to outline his policy agenda for the central bank if confirmed, revealing plans to overhaul core Fed practices around inflation measurement and public communication of monetary policy. In his opening remarks, Warsh criticized the Fed’s longstanding practice of “forward guidance”, the system of public communications that signals the likely future path of interest rates to markets and the public. He argued that this policy has become “unhelpful” to market stability, saying he prefers “messier” Fed policy meetings that do not rely on “rehearsed scripts” for public announcements. Warsh also pledged to implement a “new inflation framework”, signaling that he plans to abandon the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index that the Fed has relied on for decades to set its inflation targets. It remains unclear exactly what metrics Warsh would adopt to replace PCE, or how his new framework would change the Fed’s approach to monetary policy going forward. When pressed by Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware on his previous calls for “regime change” at the Fed – with Rochester asking whether he planned to fire regional Fed presidents who participate in monetary policy voting – Warsh clarified that he was calling for change to policy frameworks, not a purge of sitting Fed officials.