Trump Administration Live Updates: Trump’s Gaza Proposal Overshadows Rubio’s First Mideast Visit

Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, blamed the Biden administration for higher egg prices and persisting inflation during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” He claimed that cuts to government spending, tax cuts and deregulation that the Trump administration is pushing for would lower prices.

He also backed Trump’s proposal for imposing tariffs on countries with the value-added tax, a type of sales tax levied on purchases for each stage of various supply chains. He said U.S. companies were effectively paying for VATs in other countries, as they sell U.S. goods in foreign markets.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Jerusalem, reiterated a long-standing bipartisan consensus in Washington that Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, a stance supported by Arab nations. Some U.S. officials are reportedly discussing whether Israel might try to attack Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in the coming months, and what the United States should do if so. President Trump has signaled he might prefer to try first to negotiate a nuclear-limits agreement with Iran, despite the fact that, in his first term, he ended the deal that President Barack Obama had reached and that Iran was abiding by.

Mike Waltz, President Trump’s national security adviser, told “Fox News Sunday” that Trump has said Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, although he sounded a far less aggressive note militarily. “How we get there, I’m not going to get into the details of here, but the president has also expressed a willingness to take whatever action is necessary, all options are on the table,” Waltz said, “But also to talk to Iran as well if they want to give up their entire program and not play games as we’ve seen Iran do in the past, in prior negotiations.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, reiterates that he will “never” accept a peace negotiation reached between Russia and the United States without his country.

Zelensky, asked if he feels he has a seat at the table right now, doesn’t answer directly. He says he counts on one.

On “Fox News Sunday,” President Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, defended the administration’s effort to have Ukraine sign an even-split agreement for resources like rare-earth minerals as part of a reconstruction effort. “I can’t think of any better security guarantee than being co-invested with President Trump,” Waltz said, saying later that “the American people deserve to be recouped, deserve to have some type of payback” for helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

On complaints about Europeans not being at the table for discussions while the U.S. presses for European nations to take on a greater security role, Waltz said that Trump has spoken with leaders like the French president, Emmanuel Macron. While some might not like the sequence of the discussions, Waltz said, he rejected the idea that people aren’t being consulted.

But Mr. Trump’s controversial vision for transforming Gaza into an American-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” has overshadowed those high-stakes negotiations, and Mr. Rubio is sure to be pressed for more clarity about the proposal during his visits in the coming days to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Trump has “been very bold about what the future for Gaza should be, not the same tired ideas of the past,” Mr. Rubio said in prepared remarks delivered alongside Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday after the two met privately. “It may have shocked and surprised many, but what cannot continue is the same cycle where we repeat over and over again and wind up in the exact same place.”

Mr. Rubio also talked about the need to watch for any security threats arising from the new government in Syria, and the imperative to disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon. And he asserted Iran is the “common theme in all of these challenges,” using more aggressive language to describe that nation than Mr. Trump typically does in calling it “the single greatest source of instability in the region.”

“Behind every terrorist group, behind every act of violence, behind every destabilizing activity, behind everything that threatens peace and stability for the millions of people who call this region home, is Iran,” Mr. Rubio said.

Mr. Netanyahu said he had thanked Mr. Rubio for “America’s unequivocal backing for Israel’s policy in Gaza in moving forward.” However, Mr. Netanyahu’s government has yet to present a long-term strategy for Gaza to the Israeli or American public.

“I want to assure everyone who’s now listening to us, President Trump and I are working in full cooperation and coordination between us,” said Mr. Netanyahu, who met with the president in the White House on Feb. 4.

Mr. Trump surprised the world with his Gaza plan during a news conference that day with Mr. Netanyahu, who has since called it “a revolutionary, creative approach” that should be studied. Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday that he and Mr. Rubio had discussed Mr. Trump’s “bold vision for Gaza, for Gaza’s future — how we can work together to ensure that that future becomes a reality.” Some Israeli officials consider the idea impractical, and experts say it would be a severe violation of international law.

After Arab officials in the region immediately denounced the proposal, Mr. Rubio had suggested that Mr. Trump was merely trying to “get a reaction” and “stir” other nations into providing more assistance for postwar Gaza.

Since then, however, Mr. Trump has doubled down, telling reporters in the Oval Office on two other occasions and in a Fox News interview that he intends to move forward with the plan. On Friday, Mahmoud Abbas, who governs the West Bank as the president of the Palestinian Authority, said the Palestinian people “must remain” on their land.

The forced expulsion of Palestinians would be ethnic cleansing and a war crime, international law scholars say. More than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military retaliation in Gaza for a Hamas-led assault in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people. Most of the dead on both sides have been civilians.

Mr. Trump has said Jordan and Egypt should allow the Palestinian residents of Gaza to move to their countries. The idea has long been promoted by the Israeli right but flatly rejected by Arab and Palestinian leaders as well as past U.S. presidents of both parties. King Abdullah II of Jordan publicly rejected Mr. Trump’s proposal after a Wednesday meeting at the White House that was also attended by Mr. Rubio.

Mr. Rubio said in a radio interview on Thursday that any Arab proposal for a postwar Gaza should address the mammoth task of reconstructing the territory and deploying a multinational security force to fight remnants of Hamas.

But that would only be possible once the war in Gaza comes to an end — which is dependent on extending a cease-fire agreement that revolves around hostage and prisoner exchanges. The first phase of the current cease-fire agreement is set to end in March.

Neither Mr. Rubio nor Mr. Netanyahu made any reference in their public remarks on Sunday to the status of negotiations for the next phase of the deal. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that talks on phase two of the cease-fire deal would take place this coming week.

Indirect negotiations for a permanent cessation of hostilities and the release of all remaining living hostages from Hamas captivity were supposed to have begun two weeks ago and were meant to be finalized by the end of the coming week. Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman has denied that any such talks are underway.

Israel and Hamas have both asserted that the other party has violated the terms of the cease-fire. On Sunday, Hamas accused Israel of violating and showing a lack of commitment to the cease-fire deal by preventing the entry of trailers into Gaza to house displaced Palestinians and delaying talks for the next phase of the agreement.

Israeli officials acknowledged holding up the entry of housing trailers for Palestinians into Gaza, saying over the weekend that the issue would be discussed in the coming days and without elaborating on reasons for the delay.

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, appears to have given Mr. Netanyahu some leeway for changing the terms of the deal or for resuming fighting in Gaza, should he choose to do so, saying in a social media post on Saturday that the United States would back any decision made by the Israeli government.

Both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Rubio spoke on Sunday of the need to eliminate Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced that a shipment of 2000-pound bombs, which had been held up by the Biden administration, had arrived in Israel overnight. U.S. military officials have said that such bombs are unsuitable for urban combat, though the Israeli military has dropped them in Gaza.

Mr. Rubio’s arrival in Israel on Saturday night came hours after Hamas released three Israeli hostages, including a dual American citizen, in exchange for 369 Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli and American governments had been pressuring Hamas for days to release the hostages in hopes of sustaining the cease-fire first reached with the prodding of Biden and Trump aides in mid-January. Mr. Trump warned last Monday that Israel could cancel the agreement and that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas did not release all hostages by Saturday.

Mr. Rubio is on his second trip as secretary of state. He landed in Israel after a stop at the Munich Security Conference, and was expected to fly onward to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Rubio had planned to stop in Qatar earlier, but that was not on the announced schedule.

In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Rubio and two other top Trump aides plan to meet with Russian officials to discuss ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Michael Crowley contributed reporting from Washington, and Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

The meeting will most likely draw criticism from some top Ukrainian officials. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Thursday that his country must be involved in any talks over its own fate, a statement he made after learning about the Trump-Putin call. Ukrainian officials fear Mr. Trump could try to reach a deal with the Russians that would not have strong security guarantees or viable terms for an enduring peace for Ukraine, which has been trying to repel a full-scale Russian invasion for three years.

The top American officials who plan to attend are Marco Rubio, the secretary of state; Mike Waltz, the national security adviser; and Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy who also works on Ukraine-Russia issues, the person familiar with the schedule said.

When asked whether any Ukrainian officials would attend, the person did not say — a sign that Ukraine will probably not take part in the talks, despite Mr. Trump’s saying this week that Ukrainians would participate in discussions in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Rubio and Vice President JD Vance met with Mr. Zelensky at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

Mr. Rubio, the top American diplomat, spoke Saturday on the phone with Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister of Russia, as Mr. Rubio traveled from Munich to Israel.

The call was the Trump administration’s latest step in reversing the Biden administration’s attempts to isolate Russia diplomatically.

Mr. Rubio “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” a State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, said in a written summary of the call. “In addition, they discussed the opportunity to potentially work together on a number of other bilateral issues.”

The Russian summary of the call said the two top diplomats agreed to address barriers to cooperation on a range of issues that had been erected by the Biden administration. It also said the two diplomats would speak regularly and prepare for a summit between their presidents, and the governments would work to restore the work of each other’s diplomatic missions.

In addition, the Russian summary said, “a mutual commitment to interaction on current international issues was outlined, including the settlement around Ukraine, the situation around Palestine and in the Middle East as a whole and in other regional areas.”

Mr. Rubio planned to go to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after stopping in Israel on his first trip in the Middle East.

Anton Troianovski contributed reporting.

There are more than 700 immigration judges, each of whom handles between 500 and 700 cases a year, Mr. Biggs said. Most of the cases are related to deportation, which is one of the top issues Mr. Trump is focused on.

“It’s inexplicable,” Mr. Biggs said in an interview on Saturday. “It’s contrary to what the president campaigned on, and it makes no sense at all.”

Immigration judges are part of the administrative court system and housed in the Justice Department. They make decisions about asylum claims and decide who should be removed from the country. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Immigration courts have been facing a growing backlog, which has contributed to the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. Because cases take so long to wind through the system, many of those waiting start putting down roots in their communities.

One of the immigration judges who were dismissed, Kerry E. Doyle, announced her firing on LinkedIn. She was among the incoming class of new judges and had not yet announced her new position on social media, she said.

“Unfortunately, I was unable to avoid the political pink slip,” Ms. Doyle wrote on LinkedIn. She served as the principal legal adviser at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “This firing occurred despite the fact that among my peers in my court, I had the longest and most extensive experience in immigration law,” she wrote.

Ms. Doyle wrote a memo during the Biden administration, instructing lawyers at ICE to review cases and try to clear those considered low priority.

The Trump administration has been carrying out mass firings across the government. During Mr. Trump’s first administration, immigration judges were told to speed their decision-making, raising concerns about whether the immigrants received due process. In most cases, immigrants can appeal a judge’s decision.

Soon after Mr. Trump took office again last month, he fired the acting head of the U.S. immigration court system and three other top officials. The additional firings this week have left many judges wondering what Mr. Trump’s plans are for the court system.

“It begs the question: Is this administration going to try to unilaterally do away with that process?” Mr. Biggs said.

By late afternoon, Mr. Trump had pinned the statement to the top of his Truth Social feed, making it clear it was not a passing thought but one he wanted people to absorb. The official White House account on X posted his message in the evening.

The quote is a variation of one sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, although its origin is unclear.

Nonetheless, the sentiment was familiar: Mr. Trump, through his words and actions, has repeatedly suggested that surviving two assassination attempts is evidence that he has divine backing to enforce his will.

He has brought a far more aggressive attitude toward his use of power to the White House in his second term than he did at the start of his first. The powers of the presidency that he returned to were bolstered by last year’s Supreme Court ruling that he is presumptively immune from prosecution for any crimes he may commit using his official powers.

During his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump has signed numerous executive orders that pushed at the generally understood limits of presidential power, fired numerous officials and dismantled an agency in clear violation of statutory limits, and frozen spending authorized by Congress without clear authority. Many of his policy moves have been at least temporarily frozen by judges.

Such moves include trying to unilaterally rewrite the definition of birthright citizenship — a right enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment — to exclude babies born to undocumented mothers, and mass firings of public servants, ignoring civil service protection laws. He has all but shuttered the agency responsible for foreign aid, dismissed prosecutors who investigated him, and fired Senate-confirmed watchdogs without giving proper notice to Congress or justification.

Mr. Trump’s team has embraced an expansive version of the so-called unitary executive theory, a legal ideology that says that the Constitution should be understood as forbidding Congress from placing any limits on the president’s control of the executive branch, including by creating independent agencies or restricting the president’s ability to summarily fire any government official at will.

The Trump administration at first did not offer a public legal rationale for blowing through the statutes that provide various kinds of job protections to the officials that Mr. Trump has summarily fired, including members of independent agencies like the National Labor Relations Board.

But last week, the administration offered something of an explanation. Sarah M. Harris, the acting solicitor general at the Justice Department, sent a letter to Congress saying the department would not defend the constitutionality of statutes that limit firing members of independent agencies before their terms were up. Such laws say the president cannot remove such an official at will, but only for a specific cause like misconduct.

While not using the phrase “unitary executive theory,” Ms. Harris’s letter echoed its ideological tenet that the Constitution does not allow Congress to enact a law “which prevents the president from adequately supervising principal officers in the executive branch who execute the laws on the president’s behalf,” and said the Trump administration will try to get the Supreme Court to overturn a 1935 precedent to the contrary.

That, at least, is a theory under which at least some of what Mr. Trump has been doing is lawful: It is not illegal to disregard an unconstitutional statute.

But, taken at face value, Mr. Trump’s statement on Saturday went much further, suggesting that even if what he is doing unambiguously breaks an otherwise valid law, that would not matter if he says his motive is to save the country.

There are a handful of instances of other presidents claiming the power to override legal limits, but those have usually been limited to national security.

In the early days of the Civil War, for example, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus rights, called up troops and otherwise spent money that Congress, which was not in session, had not appropriated.

When Congress reconvened, Lincoln sent them a letter telling them what he had done and famously asking, “are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” He also said that what he had done, “whether strictly legal or not,” had been necessary, and Congress retroactively ratified his actions.

More than a century later, after President Richard Nixon resigned to avoid being impeached in the Watergate scandal, he talked in an interview about wiretapping and other steps that might appear to be illegal but were undertaken to protect against foreign threats. Citing Lincoln’s example, Nixon said presidents have inherent power to authorize government officials to break laws if the president decides that doing so is in the national interest.

“When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal,” Nixon claimed.

And following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney took actions that violated statutory limits on issues like torture and surveillance based on an expansive and disputed vision of the power their lawyers said the Constitution gives the president in his role as commander in chief.

While national security cases rarely get litigated, when they have, the Supreme Court has been skeptical of sweeping theories of presidential power — striking down President Harry S. Truman’s attempted seizure of steel mills as a Korean War measure, for example.

In any case, Mr. Trump’s moves so far have largely not been in the realm of national security. Rather, he has been attempting to stamp out pockets of independence that Congress created within the executive branch in order to centralize greater power in the White House over issues that are largely ones of domestic policy.

Mr. Trump and some of his allies have pushed the political argument that the nation has been under siege from what they characterize as leftist policies and values, and has fallen into a spiral of decline that must be reversed by any means necessary.

Among them, Mr. Trump’s budget chief, Russell Vought, wrote an essay in 2022, declaring that the United States was already in a “post-Constitutional moment” and that to push back against liberals, it was necessary to be “radical in discarding or rethinking the legal paradigms that have confined our ability to return to the original Constitution.”

Mr. Trump is spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., about 200 miles south of the Daytona International Speedway. The White House has not confirmed his attendance, but the Federal Aviation Administration issued “temporary flight restrictions for V.I.P. movement” for the area for part of Sunday. This year’s race already has a grand marshal, though: Anthony Mackie, the star of the film “Captain America: Brave New World.”

Mr. Trump’s appearance at Daytona on Sunday would cap a whirlwind week of mixing sports with politics. Last Sunday morning, the president played a few holes with the Hall of Fame golfer Tiger Woods in Florida, as they’ve been working on a merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit. In the afternoon, on Air Force One, he signed a proclamation making it “Gulf of America Day,” reinforcing his Jan. 20 executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico. And then, before attending the Super Bowl in New Orleans in the evening, he met with families of the victims of the New Year’s Day terror attack in the city.