Witkoff says US cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks over Hamas's ‘lack of desire'
'While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be co-ordinated or acting in good faith,' Mr Witkoff said.
'We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.'
He said it was 'a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way' and that the US is 'resolute' in seeking an end to the conflict in Gaza.
A breakthrough in talks on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded the Trump administration for months as conditions worsen in Gaza.
The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.
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CNN
27 minutes ago
- CNN
From flag poles to a $200 million ballroom: Inside Trump's ‘legacy project' at the White House
Donald TrumpFacebookTweetLink Follow President Donald Trump held plenty of meetings at the White House this summer: with foreign delegations striking trade deals, Cabinet members plotting a government overhaul and industry executives seeking tariff relief. But amid the various audiences, he's also found time for discussions of a different purpose. In recent weeks, Trump has gathered officials with varying responsibilities on the White House campus — including from the National Park Service, the White House Military Office and the Secret Service — to talk over his ideas for transforming the building and its grounds to his liking. His specifications have been exacting, including finishes that closely resemble his gold-trimmed private clubs — or, in some cases, have been shipped directly from Mar-a-Lago. His ambitions extend well beyond a temporary cosmetic makeover. 'It'll be a great legacy project,' he said Thursday of his plans to construct a 90,000-square-foot ballroom off the East Wing of the mansion. 'And I think it'll be special.' No president in recent memory has put his physical imprint on the executive mansion or its plot of land as much as Trump has done this year. Barely six months after reentering office, his aspirations to dramatically alter the White House have now entered an advanced stage. Two large flagpoles now tower over the North and South Lawns, their massive stars-and-stripes visible even to passengers landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport five miles away. Trump personally dictated the poles' galvanized steel, tapered design and interior ropes, and oversaw their installation in June. The Rose Garden has been stripped of its grass and paved over with stone, an attempt to replicate the patio at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump dines al fresco during his weekends away from Washington. The president made frequent check-ins this summer with the orange-shirted workers tearing out the grass and reinforcing the ground underneath, at one point inviting them into the Oval Office for a photo. Presidential seals have been embedded into the stone, and the drainage grates are styled like American flags. The Oval Office itself is adorned with lashings of gold decoration, which Trump ordered up from a craftsman in Florida who'd worked on his Palm Beach estate, people familiar with the matter said. Tiny gold cherubs looking down from above the doorways came straight from Mar-a-Lago. And soon, construction will begin on the new ballroom, whose footprint will amount to the first major extension of the White House in decades. Trump said he, along with other private donors, will foot the $200 million bill. (He also has said he paid for the flag poles and funded the Rose Garden renovations through private donations, without disclosing the price tag of either.) 'President Trump is a builder at heart and has an extraordinary eye for detail,' White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in a statement this week. 'The President and the Trump White House are fully committed to working with the appropriate organizations to preserving the special history of the White House.' Renderings provided by the White House depict a vast space with gold and crystal chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns, a coffered ceiling with gold inlays, gold floor lamps and a checkered marble floor. Three walls of arched windows look out over the White House's south grounds. The gold-and-white style closely mimics the Louis XIV-style main event room at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has not shied away from drawing comparisons to his clubs. 'No president knew how to build a ballroom,' Trump said last weekend, meeting the European Commission president in another of his crystal-draped ballrooms, this one at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. 'I could take this one, drop it right down there, and it would be beautiful.' Trump's impulse to make his own improvements is animated by several factors, he and his aides say. One is a builder's instinct, cultivated over decades in real estate and never quite extinguished when he entered politics a decade ago. 'I love construction,' Trump told reporters as he was watching his new flagpoles going up in June. 'I know it better than anybody.' Another is Trump's genuine belief that aspects of the White House can be improved, even as he voices reverence for the building itself. 'It won't interfere with the current building,' he said of the new ballroom this week, which the White House says will triple the amount of indoor ballroom space and eliminate the need for temporary tents to host state dinners. 'It'll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of. It's my favorite place.' The alternative, he said, was an unpleasant solution that he said didn't match the dignity of a state affair. 'When it rains, it's a disaster,' he said. 'People slopping down to the tent — it's not a pretty sight, the women with their lovely evening gowns, all of their hair all done, and they're a mess by the time they get (there).' Trump said last week that a new ballroom had long been an aspiration of his predecessors. But officials in previous administrations said the concept never arose. 'We never had the desire nor did I ever hear or participate in a conversation to build a ballroom on the White House lawn. We were focused on issues that actually affected people and communities,' said Deesha Dyer — who, as social secretary in President Barack Obama's administration, was responsible for organizing major events like state dinners. The vision of a new White House ballroom has been floating in Trump's mind dating back at least to 2010, when he called Obama's White House proposing to build one. Officials at the time weren't quite sure what to make of the offer. 'I'm not sure that it would be appropriate to have a shiny gold Trump sign on any part of the White House,' then-press secretary Josh Earnest, who confirmed the offer, said in 2015. Trump, however, was serious about it and seemed affronted to be turned down. 'It was going to cost about $100 million,' Trump said during his first term. 'I offered to do it, and I never heard back.' By the time he was in office for his first term, Trump has said he was too consumed with defending himself from his perceived enemies to get it done. 'I had to focus,' he said earlier this year. 'I was the hunted. And now I'm the hunter. There's a big difference.' Now in his second term, Trump says he is unencumbered by naysayers questioning his design ambitions. And he has forged ahead with the most extensive reshaping of the executive mansion in decades, dictated mainly by his own tastes. While his cosmetic changes to the Oval Office will likely go with him when he departs in 2029, the other changes he's made could be more lasting. Removing the flagpoles could risk appearing unpatriotic. Tearing out the Rose Garden pavers would be costly. And once a nearly quarter-billion-dollar, 650-person ballroom is built, it's unlikely to be torn down. 'People's tastes differ. I will say this about presidential changes: Some are long-lasting and embraced by the American people. And some just disappear,' said Tim Naftali, a presidential historian at Columbia University. He cited Theodore Roosevelt's addition of mounted moose and elk heads in the State Dining Room as a detail that didn't withstand time. 'What President Trump does inside the Trump ballroom may not survive the Trump presidency,' Naftali said. 'As long as the bones of the structure are good, future presidents will be able to redesign that space as they see fit.' In Trump's own telling, the additions will contribute to his legacy — akin to the Truman Balcony the 33rd president added to the second floor of the building, or the Lincoln Bedroom the 16th president used as an office. Nearly every president has put his own mark on the building, either through individual fancies or practical necessity, going all the way back to its construction in 1792. 'The White House has been shaped by the visions and priorities of its occupants, from Jefferson's colonnades to Truman's monumental gutting,' wrote White House Historical Foundation President Stewart McLaurin in a recent essay. 'Each change, whether Jackson's North Portico, Arthur's opulent redecoration, or Clinton's security measures—has sparked debate, reflecting tensions between preservation and modernization, aesthetics and functionality, and openness and security.' McLaurin said often, in time, the changes have come to be accepted by the public. 'Media and Congressional criticisms have often focused on costs, historical integrity, and timing, yet many of these alterations have become integral to the identity of the White House, and it is difficult for us to imagine The White House today without these evolutions and additions,' he wrote. For Trump, making the additions integral to the White House's identity is part of the plan. He has raised questions about the renovations even in meetings ostensibly meant for other purposes. 'Who would gold-leaf it?' he asked members of his Cabinet in early July, gesturing to ceiling moldings in the West Wing. 'Could you raise your hands?' One member of his Cabinet, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., offered a several-minute aside during the start of a speech this week to praise the president's updates. 'I've been coming to this building for 65 years and I have to say that it has never looked better,' said Kennedy, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline. Like Trump, Jackie Kennedy took intense interest in improving the White House. She undertook an extensive redecoration of the State Floor, including procuring antiques and paintings from wealthy philanthropists to improve the building's grandeur. Much of her designs remain in place today. She also oversaw a redesign of the Rose Garden with the help of heiress and famed horticulturalist Rachel 'Bunny' Mellon, turning the space into a grassy and floral respite from the Oval Office nearby. Now, the grass is mostly gone. Trump, who had voiced concern about women's high heels sinking into the soil during events, selected light-colored square pavers to replace the lawn. 'It's always extraordinary to go into that sacred space, but I have to say that it looked kind of drab in the pictures,' Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of looking back on old family photos of the Oval Office during his uncle's era. 'It looks the opposite of drab today.'
Los Angeles Times
28 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Ivy League universities paid hundreds of millions to settle with Trump. Is UCLA next?
University of California leaders face a difficult choice after the U.S. Department of Justice said this week that UCLA had violated the civil rights of Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests and federal agencies on Wednesday suspended more than $300 million in research grants to the school. Do they agree to a costly settlement, potentially incurring the anger of taxpayers, politicians and campus communities in a deep-blue state that's largely opposed to President Trump and his battle to remake higher education? Or do they go to court, entering a protracted legal fight and possibly inviting further debilitating federal actions against the nation's premier public university system, which has until now carefully avoided head-on conflicts with the White House? Leaders of the University of California, including its systemwide president, James B. Milliken; UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk and UC's 24-member Board of Regents — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is an ex-officio member — have just days to decide. In findings issued Tuesday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and the Justice Department said UCLA would pay a 'heavy price' for acting with 'deliberate indifference' to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who complained of antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, 2023. That's when Hamas attacked Israel, which led to Israel's war in Gaza and the pro-Palestinian student encampment on Royce Quad. The Justice Department gave UC — which oversees federal legal matters for UCLA and nine other campuses — a week to respond to the allegations of antisemitism. It wrote that 'unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement' to 'ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence,' the department would sue by Sept. 2. A day after the Justice Department disclosed its findings, the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and other federal agencies said they were suspending hundreds of grants to UCLA researchers. A letter from the NSF cited the university's alleged 'discrimination' in admissions and failure to 'promote a research environment free of antisemitism.' A Department of Energy letter cutting off grants on clean energy and nuclear power plants made similar accusations, adding that 'UCLA discriminates against and endangers women by allowing men in women's sports and private women-only spaces.' Initial data shared with The Times on Thursday night showed the cuts to be at least $200 million. On Friday, additional information shared by UC and federal officials pointed to the number being greater than $300 million — more than a quarter of UCLA's $1.1 billion in annual federal funding and contracts. UCLA has not released a total number. In a campuswide message Thursday, Frenk, the UCLA chancellor, called the government's moves 'deeply disappointing.' 'This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,' Frenk said. In a statement to The Times Friday, an official from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, said it would 'not fund institutions that promote antisemitism. We will use every tool we have to ensure institutions follow the law.' An NSF spokesperson also confirmed the UCLA cuts, saying Friday that the university is no longer in 'alignment with current NSF priorities.' A Department of Energy spokesperson also verified the cuts but did not elaborate outside of pointing to the department's letter to UCLA. The Times spoke to more than a dozen current and former senior UC leaders in addition to higher education experts about the rapid deliberations taking place this week, which for the first time have drawn a major public university system into the orbit of a White House that has largely focused its ire on Ivy League schools. Trump has accused universities of being too liberal, illegally recruiting for diversity in ways that hurt white and Asian American students and faculty, and being overly tolerant of pro-Palestinian students who he labels as antisemites aligned with Hamas. Universities, including UCLA, have largely denied the accusations, although school officials have admitted that they under-delivered in responding to Jewish student concerns. In the last two years, encampments took over small portions of campuses, and, as a result, were blamed for denying campus access to pro-Israel Jews. In a major payout announced Tuesday — before the Justice Department's findings — UCLA said it would dole out $6.45 million to settle a federal lawsuit brought by three Jewish students and a medical school professor who alleged the university violated their civil rights and enabled antisemitism during the pro-Palestinian encampment in 2024. About $2.3 million will be donated to eight groups that work with Jewish communities, including the Anti-Defamation League, Chabad and Hillel. Another $320,000 will be directed to a UCLA initiative to combat antisemitism, and the rest of the funds will go toward legal fees. Through spokespersons, Frenk and Milliken declined interviews on what next steps UCLA might take. Friday was Milliken's first day on the job after the long-planned departure of former UC President Michael V. Drake, who will return to teaching and research. But in public remarks this week, Newsom said he was 'reviewing' the Justice Department's findings and that UC would be 'responsive.' The governor, who spoke during an event at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento County on Thursday, said he had a meeting with Drake scheduled that day to discuss the Trump administration's charges. Newsom did not respond specifically to a question from The Times about whether UC would settle with Trump. 'We're reviewing the details of the DOJ's latest and then that deadline on Tuesday,' the governor said. 'So we'll be responsive.' In a statement Friday, Newsom said, 'Freezing critical research funding for UCLA — dollars that were going to study invasive diseases, cure cancer, and build new defense technologies — makes our country less safe. It is a cruel manipulation to use Jewish students' real concerns about antisemitism on campus as an excuse to cut millions of dollars in grants that were being used to make all Americans safer and healthier.' Senior UCLA and UC leaders, who spoke on background because they were not authorized to discuss legal decisions, said the university has been bracing for this moment for months. The university and individual campuses are under multiple federal investigations into alleged use of race in admissions, employment discrimination against Jews, and civil rights complaints from Jewish students. At the same time, leaders said, they were hoping the multimillion-dollar settlement with Jewish students would buy them time. 'It backfired,' said one senior administrator at UCLA, reflecting the sense of whiplash felt among many who were interviewed. 'Within hours of announcing our settlement, the DOJ was on our back.' Other senior UC officials said the system was considering suing Trump. It has already sued various federal agencies or filed briefs in support of lawsuits over widespread grant cuts affecting all major U.S. universities. UC itself, however, has not directly challenged the president's platform of aggressively punishing elite schools for alleged discrimination. It's unclear if a suit or settlement could wipe out all remaining investigations. Mark Yudof, a former UC president who led the system from 2008 to 2013, said he felt the Trump administration was targeting a public university as a way to 'make a statement' about the president's higher education aims going beyond Ivy League institutions. 'But this is not Columbia,' Yudof said, referring to the $221-million settlement the New York campus recently reached with the White House to resolve investigations over alleged antisemitism amid its response to pro-Palestinian protests. On Wednesday, Brown University also came to a $50-million agreement with the White House. The Brown payment will go toward Rhode Island workforce development programs. Harvard is also negotiating a deal with the government over similar accusations regarding antisemitism. 'The University of California is much more complex,' said Yudof, who lives in Florida and also led the University of Texas and University of Minnesota. 'For one, an issue that may affect UCLA is not going to affect UC Merced or UC Riverside. But do you come to an agreement on all campuses? If there is a settlement payment, does it affect all campuses, depending on the cost?' George Blumenthal, a former chancellor of UC Santa Cruz, said he 'just can't see UC making the kind of deal that Columbia did or that Harvard contemplates. Committing public funds to Washington to the tune of tens or hundreds of million dollars strikes me as politically untenable in California.' Pro-Palestinian UCLA groups said they don't agree with the premise of negotiations. They point out that many protesters in last year's encampment were Jewish and argue that the protest — the focus of federal complaints — was not antisemitic. 'We reject this cynical weaponization of antisemitism, and the misinformation campaign spinning calls for Palestinian freedom as antisemitic. We must name this for what it is: a thinly-veiled attempt to punish supporters of Palestinian freedom, and to advance the long-standing conservative goal of dismantling higher education,' said a statement from Graeme Blair, a UCLA associate professor of political science, on behalf of UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine. Higher education experts say UC's decision would set a national precedent. The university's finances include more than $50 billion in operating revenues, $180 billion in investments — including endowment, retirement, and working capital portfolios — and smaller campus-level endowments. The funds support facilities across the state, including multiple academic health centers, investment properties and campuses, as well as tens of thousands of former employees enrolled in retirement plans. Dozens of public campuses across the U.S. are under investigation or pressure from the White House to atone for alleged wrongdoing to Jewish students or to change admissions, scholarship programs and protest rules and more. But UC has long been a standard-bearer, including in academic and protest freedoms. 'If you are Trump, your target of Harvard or Brown is much easier — a snooty elite — than a public, even a UCLA or Berkeley,' said Rick Hess, an education expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Kenneth Marcus, who served as assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department during Trump's first term, said there would be benefits for UCLA and the UC system to enter into a 'systemwide agreement that would enable everybody to put this behind themselves.' The Justice Department's Tuesday letter said it was investigating all campuses but only issuing findings of violations so far at UCLA. Marcus, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said a systemwide agreement would 'provide the federal government with assurances that the regents are making changes across the board.' Staff writer Taryn Luna in Sacramento contributed to this report.
The Intercept
28 minutes ago
- The Intercept
Guess Who's Eligible for Student Loan Forgiveness: New ICE Agents
As President Donald Trump plots to halt student loan forgiveness for many government and nonprofit workers, his administration is offering a special type of debt relief to one category of workers: new ICE agents. The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday it will offer student loan forgiveness and repayment options to new Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruits — along with a $50,000 signing bonus. The announcement comes as the Trump administration works to limit the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program for groups the president considers political enemies. Since 2007, borrowers employed by the government or nonprofit organizations serving a wide range of public interest causes have been eligible for forgiveness through PSLF. But in July, the Department of Education took a major step in altering the program's rules to exclude certain employers in accordance with Trump's executive order 'Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness,' which claims the loan forgiveness 'has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means.' Under the revised rules, nonprofits that help transgender youth access gender-affirming care and attorneys who provide legal assistance to undocumented immigrants, among others, might no longer qualify, according to the press release from the Department of Education. Final language has yet to be published; before it takes effect, there will be an opportunity for public comment. Experts in higher education and student debt told The Intercept that the administration is deploying the financial aid system as a tool to advance its political agenda, punish perceived enemies, and reward allies. 'This just shows the lengths that the Trump administration will go to to weaponize Public Service Loan Forgiveness and debt more broadly to achieve their fascist objectives,' said Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center. Over the last few years, Republicans have fought to limit student debt relief for borrowers. Last year, Republican attorneys general successfully lobbied the Supreme Court to pause the SAVE Plan, an income-based repayment plan implemented by the Biden administration that allowed borrowers to make smaller monthly payments and achieve debt relief within a shorter time frame. The Big, Beautiful, Bill signed by Trump in July eliminates the SAVE Plan as of July 1, 2028, and replaces it with significantly less generous repayment options for student loans. 'We're going to see a wave of defaults happening, and we're going to see more people who can't afford their payments.' On Friday, the Department of Education resumed interest accrual on SAVE Plan loans, meaning nearly 8 million borrowers are now seeing their debt grow. On top of that, the spending bill creates new limits on federal borrowing for graduate students and parents taking out loans on behalf of their children — meaning families and people attending higher cost educational programs such as medical school will likely have to take out higher interest private loans. 'We're going to see a wave of defaults happening, and we're going to see more people who can't afford their payments,' said Sara Partridge, associate director of higher education at the Center for American Progress. Partridge said implementing changes that will make life harder for millions of borrowers while championing debt forgiveness for ICE agents is peak hypocrisy. 'It is hypocritical to provide additional funding for debt relief for certain categories of workers while seeking to deny it to everyday Americans,' said Partridge. Sam Alig, 36, a borrower enrolled on the SAVE Plan, said Republicans and the administration have left borrowers in chaos as they scramble to figure out how much they'll owe under the new income-based repayment systems. 'It's such a mess,' said Alig. 'Every single time I call, they tell me something else. … It's $400 [per month] now. Six months from now, it could be $800, I have no idea.' The irony of the new DHS announcement isn't lost on Alig. 'It's also funny that Republicans are going to get behind student forgiveness when it comes to ICE agents, because they're so against student loan forgiveness for the entire working and middle class.' It's not completely clear how the ICE loan forgiveness program will be funded. The departments of Homeland Security and Education did not respond to requests for comment. The influx of $170 billion for DHS from the new spending bill could be a mechanism to help pay off new recruits loans. Government agencies can use their own funding to offer loan assistance as a recruitment and retention strategy via a separate initiative, the Federal Student Loan Repayment program, which allows agencies to repay federal student loans for their employees up to $10,000 a year and $60,000 per employee. The contrast between how the Trump administration is treating most borrowers and ICE agents is 'shocking,' said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president at EdTrust, an education-focused nonprofit. 'The Department of Education is effectively putting other people's cancellations on hold, while fast-tracking this other group of folks who haven't done anything to warrant cancellation,' said Pilar. 'To me, it's outrageous, and it shows where the priority of this administration is.' The expected changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program will likely face legal challenge, Partridge said. 'I'm sure there's going to be a lawsuit against it, but still,' said Partridge, 'it's a major abuse of power for the government to wield this tool to advance its political ends and to propose denying loan forgiveness to borrowers who work for organizations that this administration disfavors.' The rule hasn't been published yet, but Partridge said it's expected to impact a wide range of people who have been targets in the Trump administration. 'This administration is wielding the power of the federal financial aid system to advance its ideological goals.' 'If enacted, [it would] deny Public Service Loan Forgiveness to people at organizations doing work that this administration disagrees with, particularly those who do things such as providing legal services to immigrants or providing gender-affirming care,' said Partridge. The vague language around 'substantial illegal purposes' also opens the door for more groups to be cut out of the program. 'It also would allow the administration to deny loan forgiveness to people who work at organizations that they say violate state law, and that includes trespassing, which we know historically has been used against protesters,' she said. 'So there are ways that this administration is wielding the power of the federal financial aid system to advance its ideological goals.' Weaponizing the cost of an education isn't a new tactic from the right. Amid nationwide campus protests against the Vietnam War, then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan and his political allies slashed the budget for public universities, forcing them to charge tuition, arguing that students had become too radical. 'We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. That's dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go through higher education],' Reagan's education adviser, Roger A. Freeman, told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'There is a very robust history about how debt has been used as a lever of social control,' said Yu. '[Student debt] is a force that can keep people in place, keep people in line. … That is why it is being wielded as a weapon against people who work in fields that they don't like, and rewarding folks who work in fields that they do like.'
