Closing summary
Our live coverage is coming to a close. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Here is a summary of today’s developments:
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The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve, a significant escalation in Donald Trump’s extraordinary attack on the US central bank. Several Republican lawmakers have begun speaking out against the probe, with one senator going so far as to threaten all Fed nominations as a result. The responses come days after the justice department subpoenaed the Federal Reserve as part of an investigation rooted in Powell’s testimony before the Senate in June about the ballooning costs of the Fed’s headquarters renovation. More here and here.
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Donald Trump is “unafraid to use military force on Iran” the White House said as the Iranian regime still faces widespread unrest across the country. Speaking to Fox News, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that although diplomacy remained Trump’s “first option”, he was “unafraid to use the lethal force and might of the United States military if and when he deems that necessary.” More here.
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Donald Trump said any country that does business with Iran will face a tariff rate of 25% on trade with the US, as Washington weighs a response to the situation in Iran, which is seeing its biggest anti-government protests in years. “Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” the US president said in a post on Truth Social. Tariffs are paid by US importers of goods from those countries. Iran has been heavily sanctioned by Washington for years. More here.
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The Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, announced a lawsuit against the federal government, seeking to end the surge of ICE agents in the state. The lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials comes in the aftermath of an ICE agent fatally shooting resident Renee Nicole Good behind the wheel of her vehicle last week, leading to protests across the city, and country. More here.
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Democratic US senator Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit seeking to nullify the “chilling” attempt by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to reduce the military veteran’s rank and pension as punishment for speaking out against the Trump administration. Hegseth had previously issued a formal censure to Kelly, a decorated retired navy captain and Nasa astronaut, for alleged “seditious statements” he made urging service members to resist unlawful orders. It began a process that could lead to Kelly, a senator for Arizona since 2021, being demoted and having his pension cut. More here.
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A federal judge cleared Danish offshore wind developer Ørsted to resume work on its nearly finished Revolution Wind project, which Donald Trump’s administration halted along with four other projects last month. The ruling by US district judge Royce Lamberth is a legal setback for Trump, who has sought to block expansion of offshore wind in federal waters. Ørsted’s Revolution Wind lawsuit is one of several filed by offshore wind companies and states seeking to reverse the interior department’s 22 December suspension of five offshore wind leases over what it said were national security concerns. More here.
Key events
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth today continued what he has dubbed his “Arsenal of Freedom” tour, with a stop in Lockheed Martin’s F-35 production line in Fort Worth, Texas.
Hegseth addressed the thousands of workers at Lockheed Martin, the country’s largest military contractor, saying its production is just one part of President Donald Trump’s plan to increase the nation’s defense budget next year. He also said the company’s aircraft played a pivotal role in the US intervention in Venezuela.
“You are a core function of the arsenal of freedom,” Hegseth said.
The justice department said it charged a man shot by a border patrol agent near a hospital in Portland, Oregon, with aggravated assault of a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Luis Nino-Moncada, who is accused of being affiliated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, was also charged with damage to federal property exceeding $1,000.
Nino-Moncada is one of two people shot by a border patrol official in Portland last week.
According to prosecutors, Nino-Moncada admitted in an interview that he had intentionally rammed a border patrol vehicle “in an attempt to flee and stated that he knew it was an immigration enforcement vehicle”.
According to the DoJ release, border patrol agents were conducting an immigration enforcement operation involving a vehicle they believed belonged to a woman suspected of working in a prostitution ring. She was sitting in the passenger seat when agents ordered Nino-Moncada to exit the vehicle, and he allegedly put the car into reverse and slammed into an unoccupied border patrol vehicle.
After the incident, Oregon senator Ron Wyden said in a post on X that “Trump’s deployment of federal agents in my hometown is clearly inflaming violence”.
NYC Council employee detained by immigration officials, says mayor
A New York City Council employee was detained by federal officials during a routine immigration appointment on Long Island, according to Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“I am outraged to hear a New York City Council employee was detained in Nassau County by federal immigration officials at a routine immigration appointment”, Mamdani said in a post on X. “This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values. I am calling for his immediate release and will continue to monitor the situation”.
City Council speaker, Julie Menin, said the employee “had legal authorization to remain in the country until October of this year”.
“We are doing everything we can to secure his immediate release, and we demand swift and transparent action by the federal government on this apparent overreach”, Menin said in a statement.
Richard Partington
My colleague Richard Partington writes about how the White House’s pressure on the US central bank to cut interest rates could put the economy in danger:
Donald Trump’s attempts to influence the US Federal Reserve could risk plunging America into a period of 1970s-style inflation and trigger a global backlash in financial markets, economists have warned.
After the US Department of Justice (DoJ) launched a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the current Fed chair, investors said efforts by the White House to pressure the US central bank to cut interest rates would put the world economy at risk.
Analysts drew parallels with the 1970s when US inflation soared after the then president, Richard Nixon, pressured the then Fed chair, Arthur Burns, to ease monetary policy to help smooth his 1972 election campaign.
Atakan Bakiskan, US economist at Berenberg bank, said: “If the Fed pursues an ultra-accommodative monetary policy despite higher inflation, the result could resemble the 1970s in a worst-case risk scenario.
“Moreover, if the Fed acts on politics rather than data, foreign investors could pull back on financing the US debt and seek new safe havens.”
Read the full story here:
The New York Times reports that the Pentagon carried out a lethal strike on a boat by using an aircraft that resembled a civilian plane, killing 11 people in September. Officials told the Times that the boat was suspected of smuggling drugs.
“The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings”, reads the report.
According to legal experts who spoke to the Times, the aircraft’s civilian appearance is significant because the Trump administration has argued the attacks are lawful acts of war.
But the move could imply perfidy, a war crime that prohibits deceptive acts based on the abuse of the good faith of an adversary, according to Oxford Public International Law.
Officials familiar with surveillance footage of the strike told the Times that the aircraft descended low enough to be visible to those on the boat, and that the vessel appeared to turn back toward Venezuela after the people aboard noticed it.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate nearly $12 million in funding to the American Academy of Pediatrics, including grants supporting rural health care and early screening for disabilities in young children.
The ruling comes after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) terminated several multimillion-dollar grants to the association in December after it criticized secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s public health policies.
US district judge Beryl Howell issued a preliminary injunction on Sunday, finding that the move to terminate the grants was likely motivated by retaliation.
“This is not a case about whether AAP or HHS is right or even has the better position on vaccinations and gender-affirming care for children, or any other public health policy”, Howell wrote in her decision. “This is a case about whether the federal government has exercised power in a manner designed to chill public health policy debate by retaliating against a leading and generally trusted pediatrician member professional organization focused on improving the health of children”.
The former deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, Dina Powell McCormick, was named as the president and vice chair of the tech giant Meta.
Trump congratulated Powell McCormick earlier today in a post on Truth Social.
“She is a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!”, he said.
Powell McCormick is the second former Trump administration official Meta has brought on in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the company announced it hired Curtis Joseph Mahoney, who previously served as a deputy US trade representative during Trump’s first term, as its new chief legal officer.
President Donald Trump called New York City’s congestion pricing program “a disaster”, claiming “it’s never worked before, and it will never work now”. In a post on Truth Social, he said it should be ended “immediately”.
However, data have shown that the policy, which began in January 2025, has reduced traffic, increased transit ridership, and decreased pollution over the course of a year.
After New York’s congestion pricing was installed, most drivers were charged $9 during peak travel times to enter Manhattan below 60th Street.
The move led to about 73,000 fewer vehicles entering the central business district each day, according to a New York Times analysis. That adds up to about 27 million fewer vehicles entering Manhattan south of 60th Street, resulting in an 11 percent reduction in traffic.
According to a Cornell University study, the city’s program led to a drop in pollution in parts of the city.
“Our overall conclusion is that congestion pricing in New York City, like many other cities in the world that have implemented it, helped not only improve traffic, but also helped reduce air pollutant concentration, improve air quality and should be good for public health,” said the study’s senior author and director of Cornell’s Center for Transportation, Environment and Community Health, Oliver Gao, in a statement.
Chris Stein
Count Louisiana senator John Kennedy among the Republican skeptics of the justice department’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell.
“We don’t need this,” the senator told reporters at the Capitol on Monday evening.
Kennedy serves on the Senate banking committee, where fellow Republican Thom Tillis has vowed to oppose any Fed nominees that come before the committee as long as the investigation remains open.
Kennedy declined to say if he would endorse a similar step.
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff “on any and all business being done with the United States of America”.
That new tariff is “effective immediately”. Further details remained unclear.
Minnesota sues Trump administration over surge of federal immigration agents
Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, state attorney general Keith Ellison said on Monday, asking a federal court to halt the ramped-up immigration crackdown in the state.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare the surge unconstitutional and unlawful, with officials claiming the crackdown has led to racial profiling and disruptions to everyday life.
“The unlawful deployment of thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents is hurting Minnesota,” said Ellison. “People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorized, and assaulted. Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing.”
The lawsuit comes just days after the death of Renee Nicole Good, the woman shot to death by an Ice agent in Minneapolis, which has led to heated demonstrations in Minnesota.
A US judge ruled that Ørsted, a European offshore wind developer, can continue development of a windfarm project off the coast of Rhode Island after the Trump administration had suspended work along with several other projects.
Last month, officials from the Department of the Interior halted the leases for five large offshore wind projects that are under construction in US waters over “national security risks”, which were unclear. Earlier this month, Ørsted announced it had filed a legal challenge against the administration’s decision to suspend the lease for its Revolution Wind site.
Today’s ruling marks the latest move in an ongoing clash between the renewable energy industry and Donald Trump, whose administration has sought to block offshore wind projects since he returned to office.
Illinois sues Trump administration over immigration crackdown
The state of Illinois sued the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, with officials alleging that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents used “unlawful and dangerous tactics” across the state.
The lawsuit, filed by Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul and backed by governor JB Pritzker, argues that federal agents exceeded their authority under US law by making arrests without warrants or probable cause, indiscriminately deploying teargas, and carrying out other enforcement actions not authorized by Congress.
“We have watched in horror as unchecked federal agents have aggressively assaulted and terrorized our communities and neighborhoods in Illinois, undermining constitutional rights and threatening public safety,” said Pritzker. “In the face of the Trump administration’s cruelty and intimidation, Illinois is standing up against the attacks on our people.”
More than 4,300 people were arrested in “Operation Midway Blitz” in 2025, according to the AP.
Senator Coons to lead congressional delegation to Copenhagen amid Trump threats to annex Greenland
Democratic senator Chris Coons will lead a congressional delegation of at least nine lawmakers to the Danish capital this week, according to a source familiar with the trip. Republican senator Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, will also be on the trip to Copenhagen, the source confirmed.
The delegation will meet with Danish officials, as Donald Trump repeats his threats to seize Greenland, the semiautonomous territory of Denmark.
The White House has called the annexation of Greenland a “national security priority”, and the president has warned that if the US doesn’t acquire the territory it will open the door for Russia and China to act first.
Senator Kelly sues defense secretary over attempts to reduce military rank and pension
Richard Luscombe
Democratic US senator Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to nullify the “chilling” attempt by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to reduce the military veteran’s rank and pension as punishment for speaking out against the Trump administration.
Hegseth had previously issued a formal censure to Kelly, a decorated retired navy captain and Nasa astronaut, for alleged “seditious statements” he made urging service members to resist unlawful orders. It began a process that could lead to Kelly, a senator for Arizona since 2021, being demoted and having his pension cut.
The lawsuit, filed in Washington DC federal court, argues that comments made by Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers – all military or intelligence veterans – in a short video to service members in November were protected free speech.
The 46-page court filing accuses Hegseth, the Department of Defense, the US navy, and John Phelan, the navy secretary, of “trampling” on constitutional protections “essential to legislative independence”. The filing said the defense secretary was attempting to dismantle the “bedrock principles of our democracy”, freedom of speech and the separation of powers.
“His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the president or secretary of defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted,” Kelly said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
Treasury secretary told Trump that Powell investigation ‘made a mess’ – report
Treasure secretary Scott Bessent told Donald Trump on Sunday that the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell “made a mess” and could be bad for financial markets, according to a report from Axios, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the call.
One of the sources said that Bessent “isn’t happy, and he let the president know”.
A reminder that earlier today, Karoline Leavitt said that Trump did not instruct the justice department to launch an investigation into Powell, but “the president has every right to criticize the Fed chair”.
Sources told Axios that the office of the US attorney for Washington DC, Jeanine Pirro, launched the investigation “without giving a heads-up to treasury, top White House officials or the main justice department”.
My colleagues report that economists also have warned that Trump’s attempts to influence the Fed risk plunging the US into a period of 1970s-style inflation, and triggering a global backlash in financial markets.
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