— Robert Prevost becomes first American pope and takes name Leo XIV: American Robert Prevost was announced today as the new pope , taking the papal name Leo XIV. He will be the first American pope. Leo waved to the crowd assembled in St. Peter’s Square, greeting them with the words “Peace be with all of you.” Born in Chicago, to a French father, the 69-year-old has spent much of his clerical life abroad in Peru, and is fluent in Spanish and Italian. He was expected to garner support from Latin American and U.S. cardinals. He has been president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America since 2023, the same year he became a cardinal. ****WATCHING THE COMPLEXITY OF FEMA'S EMERGENCY RESPONSE, EXPERIENCE & QUALIFICATIONS ARE UNDERSTANDABLE. IT WOULD SEEM THAT RED STATES HAVE SUFFERED THE GREATEST CATASTROPHES. BUDGET CUTS TO FUND TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY HAVE PRIORITY OVER PROTECTING PEOPLE, SAVINGS LIVES & RESTORING COMMUNITIES!**** — FEMA chief is fired: The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was fired this morning, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, has told people that he was terminated, leaving the nation’s disaster agency without a top official three weeks before the start of the Atlantic hurricane season and as Congress scrutinizes FEMA’s proposed budget for fiscal 2026. Hamilton was summoned to Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington this morning and told of his termination by Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and Corey Lewandowski, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge.
excerpts: The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was fired Thursday morning and replaced by a Trump administration official with no disaster response experience. Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, was summoned to Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, where he was terminated by Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to President Donald Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the events. Hamilton returned to FEMA headquarters a few miles away, collected his belongings and left. His biography was removed from FEMA’s website and his official X account was archived. The firing occurred a day after Hamilton testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee, where he seemed to contradict recent comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about potentially eliminating FEMA. “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton said at the hearing on Wednesday. In response to questions from POLITICO’s E&E News, FEMA’s press office confirmed that Hamilton had been fired. “Effective today, David Richardson is now serving as the Senior Official Performing the duties of the FEMA Administrator,” a spokesperson said in an email, referring to the assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office. “Cameron Hamilton is no longer serving in this capacity.” Neither FEMA nor DHS, which oversees the agency, gave a reason for Hamilton being fired. Former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen said Hamilton’s firing “further erodes the confidence that state emergency managers and the American people are going to have in the nation’s emergency management.” Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, considered resigning about two months ago, until FEMA staffers convinced him to stay, according to a person who was granted anonymity to discuss personnel issues. In late March, Hamilton was given a lie-detector test by Homeland Security officials to determine if he leaked information about a private meeting he had with Noem and Lewandowski at DHS headquarters. The test cleared Hamilton. More recently, Hamilton appeared to be growing into his job, speaking at conferences and building rapport with lawmakers. In public appearances, Hamilton could come across as friendly and occasionally funny. In April, Hamilton sent the White House a six-page memo with options to reduce FEMA’s role in responding to natural disasters. Hamilton’s suggestion to sharply curtail the number of natural disasters that FEMA would provide help for has drawn widespread attention. His firing comes at a tumultuous time as Trump looks to overhaul or potentially abolish the agency that gives states and individuals roughly $45 billion a year to help recover from natural disasters. While Hamilton was being fired, Noem was fielding questions about FEMA’s future at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing. “We have seen an upheaval at FEMA that is going to put lives in jeopardy,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told Noem. “We are losing indispensable staff just weeks away from fire and hurricane season.” After the hearing, Murray told POLITICO’s E&E News that she didn’t know about Hamilton’s firing and said, “I don’t like the appearance of it. But I don’t know if there’s more behind it.” In a separate interview, Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, said, “I worry very much about what happens when natural disasters hit.” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican whose state was badly damaged during Hurricane Helene last year, said he was “disappointed” when told of Hamilton’s firing. “I thought he was a good leader,” Tillis said. At the Wednesday budget hearing, Hamilton said he was “not in a position” to decide the future of FEMA. “That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body.” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that Hamilton “was fired when he told the truth and refused to toe the administration line with its plans to eliminate FEMA.” Hamilton became FEMA’s acting administrator indirectly. Trump initially named him to a senior agency position, the appointee to which becomes FEMA acting administrator if the agency has no permanent administrator or deputy administrator. Both jobs have been vacant since Trump took office. Hamilton was never nominated for the top role because he lacks the emergency management experience required under federal law. “The uncertainty with the leadership with FEMA as we are in the middle of spring flood season and approaching hurricane season is concerning,” said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “There is a reason the law requires the administrator of FEMA to have state emergency management experience, and we would hope that the administration will be progressing on getting somebody with those kinds of qualifications in that position soon,” he added. Richardson, the new FEMA acting administrator, served in the Marine Corps, commanding artillery units in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa, according to his homeland security biography. Andy Picon and Jennifer Scholtes contributed reporting.
****U.K. TRADE DEAL!**** — Trump announces ‘very large’ trade deal with UK: President Donald Trump announced the framework for a trade deal with the U.K. , the first agreement the White House has reached since launching steep new global tariffs last month. “The final details are being written in the coming weeks,” Trump said during an event in the Oval Office, adding that the deal would provide new market access in the U.K. for American agriculture, chemicals, machinery and many other industrial products. The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access, “especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers,” Trump claimed. But Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins acknowledged during the White House event that many of the thorny details of any future agriculture access have yet to be negotiated. excerpt: The deal includes billions of dollars of increased market access, “especially in agriculture, dramatically increasing access for American beef, ethanol and virtually all of the products produced by our great farmers,” Trump claimed. But Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins acknowledged during the White House event that many of the thorny details of any future agriculture access have yet to be negotiated. And a spokesperson for Starmer’s office made clear U.K. leaders “are not going to lower British food standards” — the main barrier to U.S. ag exports there. As its part of the bargain, the Trump administration agreed to lower its 25 percent additional tariff on auto and auto parts to 10 percent for the first 100,000 cars entering the U.S., and to replace a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum imports with a new “alternative arrangement” the two countries will negotiate. Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden, negotiated an alternative steel and aluminum arrangement with the U.K., along with Japan and the European Union, but Trump abandoned all of those earlier this year. The framework announced Thursday leaves in place the 10 percent baseline tariff that Trump imposed on the U.K. and all other trading partners with his so-called “Liberation Day” action on April 2 — a fact that Democrats were quick to jump on. “When I heard the news about a quote-unquote ‘deal’ with the U.K., I was skeptical. After today’s press conference, I still am,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said in a statement. “The details aren’t even finalized. There’s not much THERE, there. Howard Lutnick has said the 10 percent tariffs Trump slapped on the UK aren’t even going away. That means American families and businesses are going to keep getting hammered with Trump’s reckless global tariffs that are driving up prices,” Wyden said. The U.K. concessions included eliminating its tariff on ethanol, a victory for U.S. corn farmers who produce the feedstock for the fuel. Britain also agreed to a tariff-free quota for 13,000 metric tonnes of U.S. beef. But the British government’s insistence that it will not weaken its food standards suggests the quota will not be available for beef from cattle raised with the use of artificial growth hormones, a common U.S. production practice that many other countries find objectionable. The U.S. Commerce Department estimated the agreement will provide $5 billion worth of new export opportunities for U.S. farmers, ranchers and manufacturers. That includes fruits, vegetables, animal feed, tobacco, shellfish and textiles, in addition to chemicals, ethanol and beef. If realized, that would provide about roughly a 6 percent increase in U.S. exports to the U.K., which totaled about $80 billion in 2024. However, it would boost overall U.S. exports, which totaled $2 trillion last year, by just a fractional amount. The White House said the increased export projections include more than $700 million in ethanol exports and $250 million in beef and other agricultural products. Other provisions make it easier for U.S. firms to compete in the U.K.’s procurement market, streamline customs procedures for U.S. exports, establish high standard commitments in the areas of intellectual property, labor, and environment and create a secure supply chain for pharmaceutical products, according to the White House. The deal also boosts the competitiveness and security of the U.S. aerospace supply chain “through preferential access to high-quality UK aerospace components,” the White House said. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who joined Trump’s Oval Office event by speakerphone, said the deal was “hugely important” for U.K. sectors like car manufacturing, autos and steel, which have been hit by some of the tariffs that Trump has imposed. “With this president and this prime minister, we’ve managed to achieve what many people have tried to achieve for years,” Starmer said. “It feels completely historic.” The deal appears to fall far short of the full-fledged free trade agreement the U.K. hoped to negotiate with the United States when it left the European Union. The two sides began talks on such a pact during Trump’s first term in office but were unable to finalize a deal before Trump left office. Two-way trade between the United States and the U.K. totaled about $148 billion last year, accounting for just 3 percent of U.S. trade with the world. That’s dwarfed by the much bigger U.S. trade relationships with Mexico, Canada, China and the European Union, which the U.K. departed via Brexit during Trump’s first term. In addition, the United States runs a trade surplus with the U.K., instead of the deficit it has with most countries. That likely helped London in its talks with the U.S. The broad framework will likely set the tone for deals with countries in the coming weeks, as Trump eyes countries in Asia economically close to China, such as India, South Korea and Vietnam in the coming weeks. ***RFK JR THE MOST INCOMPETENT & UNQUALIFIED TRUMP APPOINTMENT THAT SENATE REPUBLICANS EMBRACED!**** — RFK Jr. set to name new top HHS spokesman: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to tap Rich Danker as the department’s new top spokesman , three people familiar with the decision told POLITICO. The selection comes two months after Kennedy’s first assistant secretary for public affairs, Tom Corry, abruptly quit just days into his tenure over disagreements with Kennedy’s senior team and Kennedy’s handling of the measles outbreak. Danker is a former first-term Trump official who served in senior adviser roles at the Treasury Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He was most recently a senior vice president at Virginia-based Chain Bridge Bank.
excerpt:
The addition comes at a crucial moment for Kennedy, who has faced criticism over his public messaging on the measles spread and the firings of thousands of employees across HHS and its subagencies. The disjointed communications operation has worried even some allies and prompted scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Kennedy is set to testify in front of the Senate HELP Committee next week for the first time since his confirmation, where he’s expected to address a budget proposal that calls for deep funding cuts and the consolidation or elimination of several health offices. Democrats and some Republican senators on the panel, including Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have warned the cuts could hurt key services and questioned the strategy behind the reductions. ****TRUMP BUNGLING!**** — Trump pushes for 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, threatens sanctions: President Donald Trump said he was proposing a 30-day unconditional ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war today — and threatened additional sanctions if the pause in fighting isn’t respected. Trump wrote in a social media post that he will “stay committed” to peace between Ukraine and Russia, a departure from comments by him and his administration last month stressing that the U.S. could back out of talks if negotiations did not progress. After pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the beginning of his term, the Trump administration has recently been amping up pressure on Russia, as Trump’s patience has grown thin after being unable to end the war in his first 100 days.
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