Twenty-three states sue Trump administration over decision to rescind billions in health funding – live

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Attorney general Pam Bondi directs prosecutors to seek death penalty against Luigi Mangione

US attorney general Pam Bondi announced that she has irected federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione, the man accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a Manhattan hotel in December.

A statement by Bondi reads:

Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America. After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.

The top Democrat on the House armed services committee says he is not confident that the defense department will get to the bottom of the Signal group chat where senior US government officials discussed plans to bomb Yemen in front of a journalist.

Last week, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate armed services committee requested the defense department (DOD) inspector general investigate the chat.

It’s unclear if that inquiry has started, but Democratic congressman Adam Smith said he did not think the department’s independent watchdog was up to the task.

“President Trump fired all of the inspector generals, as we know, including the one at DOD, and I think he made it very clear what he expected out of them”, Smith told a press conference at the Capitol, referring to one of the first moves the president took after being sworn in.

Is the inspector general’s process going to be legitimate in light of the Trump administration’s clear effort to fire people who don’t give them the answers they want? I think the answer to that question is highly in doubt.

The inspector general’s investigation would likely be the only one to happen anytime soon. Donald Trump, along with senior officials on the group chat including defense secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz, have denied any wrongdoing, and Congress’s Republican leadership appears disinterested in pressing the matter further.

From Jenny Peek in Madison, Wisconsin, where voting is under way in an election that will decide majority control of the state’s supreme court:

Voters streamed into Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday morning. It’s the state’s capital city and a Democratic stronghold.

Jeannine Ramsey, 65, said it’s her civic duty to vote, and she does so in every election.

The Madison resident voted for liberal-backed candidate Susan Crawford shortly before 9am. She said the “Elon Musk-supported Brad Schimel” wouldn’t rule fairly on the issues most important to her.

“I think it’s shameful that Elon Musk can come here and spend millions of dollars and try to bribe the citizens,” Ramsey said.

I don’t think it should be allowed. He doesn’t live in our state, and I don’t think he should be able to buy this election. It makes me angry.

Ramsey pointed to redistricting, the state’s civil rights era abortion ban and collective bargaining as major issues the Wisconsin supreme court could hear in the coming months. And despite living in a liberal city, she’s cautious about getting her hopes up.

“I live in a very blue bubble and I’ve been very disappointed in the past,” she said.

I thought I knew what people were thinking and feeling, and I was really surprised that people would send a convicted felon back into the presidential office.

Nearly two dozen states sue Trump administration over decision to rescind billions in health funding

A group of Democratic-led states have sued the Trump administration over its decision to cut $11bn in federal funds that they were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the lawsuit, attorneys general and governors from 23 states and the District of Columbia argue that Department of Health and Human Services lacks the authority to unilaterally claw back funding the states had already built health programs around.

The “sudden and reckless cuts violate federal law, jeopardize public health, and will have devastating consequences for communities nationwide,” the lawsuit writes.

The lawsuit asks the court to immediately stop the Trump administration from rescinding the money, which was allocated by Congress during the pandemic and mostly used for Covid-related efforts such as testing and vaccination, Associated Press reports.

At a press conference in the Capitol, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson brushed off Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could run for a third term.

“There’s a constitutional path. You have to amend the constitution to do it, and that’s a high bar,” Johnson said, adding that “the president and I have talked about this, joked about it.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters at the Capitol, in Washington, Tuesday, 1 April 2025. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP

“We take him at his word,” Johnson continued, before downplaying the possibility that any change to the constitution would succeed.

I understand why so many Americans do wish that he could run for a third term, because he’s accomplishing so much in this first 100 days that they wish it could go on for much longer. But I think he recognizes the constitutional limitations, and I’m not sure that there’s a move about to amend the constitution.

Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer praised Senator Cory Booker for his “strength”, “fortitude” and “clarity”.

“All of America is paying attention to what you’re saying,” Schumer said during his question to Booker, adding:

Our whole caucus is behind you. We admire your stamina, your strength, your passion, your intelligence.

Some of Senator Cory Booker’s fellow Democrats have helped support him during his monologues, with several asking questions that have allowed Booker to have a break without yielding the floor.

Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer was the first to pose a question to his New Jersey colleague, and he praised Booker for his “strength and conviction”.

“You’re taking the floor tonight to bring up all these inequities that will hurt people, that will so hurt the middle class, that will so hurt poor people, that will hurt America, hurt our fiscal conditions, as you document,” Schumer said in his own question to Booker.

Just give us a little inkling of the strength – give us a little feeling for the strength and conviction that drive you to do this unusual taking of the floor for a long time to let the people know how bad these things are going to be.

Booker's Senate floor speech stretches into 15th hour

Senator Cory Booker, whose marathon overnight speech on the Senate floor began at 7pm last night and is still happening, warned of what he called the “grave and urgent” that Donald Trump’s administration poses to democracy and the American people.

Booker decried the Trump administration’s spending cuts, its attempt to abolish the Department of Education, the president’s attempts to bypass the judicial system and the removal of people from the US who speak out against the administration.

Booker’s speech has been supported with reams of quotes from speeches by the late American politicians John McCain and John Lewis, as well as excerpts from newspaper articles.

Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J. speaks on the Senate floor, Tuesday morning, 1 April 2025. Photograph: AP

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, said Cory Booker was “giving people hope” and that her colleague was “an alarm clock right now for this country”.

“We’ve seen people realize this isn’t a bunch of campaign rhetoric that’s going on,” Klobuchar said as Booker yielded for a question on the Senate floor.

People are stepping up. They’re fighting it in the courts. They’re fighting it in Congress.

She praised Senator Booker for “standing in a snowstorm”. “You’re the kind of person that gives me strength,” she said.

Senator Raphael Warnock said he was “very proud” of his Democratic colleague, Cory Booker, for his marathon speech on the Senate floor.

Warnock, speaking as Booker yielded for a question, said he had fought to expand Medicaid in his state of Georgia. The Trump administration is not working for ordinary people, he said.

The administration is working for billionaires. They’re working for people like Elon Musk.

Senator Cory Booker thanked his Minnesota colleague Tina Smith for her question, saying she “weighs into some difficult waters”. He said he had read “horrible stories, painful stories” about people “trapped” in the immigration system that were a “betrayal of American values”.

Booker said the Trump administration was “violating the very first words” of the constitution. He said:

[Donald Trump] wants to take power from our Congress. And the thing that is killing me, that is actually breaking my heart, is that we’re letting him take our power.

On the subject of foreign policy, Booker said Trump had left US allies feeling “abandoned”, “degraded” and “insulted” while leaving its adversaries “emboldened”.

In the short time President Trump has been in office for his second term, Americans have already been put in harm’s way because of the reckless approach of the administration.

Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, accused Donald Trump of using the immigration system “as a tool to restrict first amendment freedoms, to subvert due process and to further weaken America’s global standing”.

Smith, speaking as Senator Cory Booker yielded for a question on the Senate floor, said Trump was “seek(ing) to emulate the authoritarian regimes that he so openly admires”.

She noted the number of international students targeted for arrest and deportation in recent weeks because of their participation in protests in support of Palestine.

“These are young people who play by all the rules,” Smith said.

Their views on the war in Gaza may differ sharply from mine or others, but I believe that the first amendment guarantees them the right to express those views without facing punishment or reprisal from our government.

She said the arrests had been carried out in a manner “that seems calculated to maximize fear and intimidation in immigrant and activist communities”. Smith said:

Does punishing people for their political speech seem consistent with American democratic values? I can’t believe that.

Senator Cory Booker, who is now more than 13 hours into his marathon speech on the Senate floor, accused the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress of “putting profits over people”. Booker said:

They are trying to gut Medicaid and Medicare, programs on which nearly a third of our country rely – all to pay for tax cuts to billionaires and corporations.

Booker also said social security “is not the government’s money to spend” but the “hard-earned savings of working Americans that belongs to Americans,” adding:

[Donald] Trump and [Elon] Musk need to keep their hands off of money that isn’t theirs to take.

Staff at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have started receiving notice that their jobs are being cut, Reuters reports.

The news agency, citing an FDA employee, reports that staff on Tuesday morning had to present their badges at the building entrance and those who had been fired were given a ticket and told to return home.

Fired staff at the CDC worked for the National Center for Environmental Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), it says.

Mass layoffs begin at federal health agencies

Some employees at federal health agencies began receiving notices of dismissal on Tuesday morning, according to reports, days after the US department of health and human services (HHS) announced it planned to cut 10,000 full-time jobs.

An email addressed to an employee at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obtained by CNN, reads:

This action does not reflect directly on your service, performance or conduct.

The email states that the person would be placed on administrative leave and would no longer have access to building as of Tuesday, the outlet reports.

HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy announced the planned cuts as part of a sweeping organization of the department which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half of the country, Associated Press reports.

The layoffs are expected to shrink HHS to 62,000 positions, lopping off nearly a quarter of its staff – 10,000 jobs through layoffs and another 10,000 workers who took early retirement and voluntary separation offers, according to the news agency.

Eric Berger

Rightwing groups around the US are pushing legislation that would place new limits on what books are allowed in school libraries in a move that critics decry as censorship often focused on LGBTQ+ issues, race or imposing conservative social values.

Caught up in the attempts at suppressing books are classics like The Color Purple and Slaughterhouse-Five.

Opponents of such bills argue that they would actually hinder individual rights because the proponents would be imposing their beliefs on parents and children who do not share their views. Those campaigning for the restrictions say it would prevent children from being exposed to what they label sexually explicit and obscene content and increase parental rights.

There are at least 112 proposed state bills concerning school – and public – libraries that seek to expand the definition of what is deemed obscene or “harmful to minors” and to limit librarian staff’s ability to determine which books are in their collections, according to the American Library Association.

Democratic senator Cory Booker holds marathon speech to highlight 'recklessness' of Trump policies

Senator Cory Booker has been giving a marathon speech on the Senate floor that has lasted into the early hours of Tuesday morning, highlighting what he described as the “recklessness” of the Trump administration.

The New Jersey Democrat began his address on Monday night and said he would continue to speak for as long as he could “physically endure”. By 7.30am ET, Booker was still going.

The focus of his remarks are concerns over president Trump’s proposed cuts to programs like Medicaid.

At the start of his speech, Booker said:

I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our nation is in crisis.

He went on:

In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people for – from our highest offices – a sense of common decency.

These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.