Billionaire Howard Lutnick to divest corporate holdings to assume commerce secretary post, documents show
CBSN
Howard Lutnick, the billionaire financial executive named by President Trump to head the Commerce Department, has agreed to divest his holdings in a range of business interests, including stepping down from his longstanding position as head of the brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.
Lutnick also agreed to step down from his position with the global brokerage and financial technology company BGC Group, Inc., which holds sizeable government contracts, and he has agreed to depart as chairman of Newmark Group, Inc., a commercial real estate firm, according to an ethics filing obtained by CBS News.
That document and a 92-page financial disclosure report Lutnick filed late Wednesday offer a glimpse into considerable challenges of divestiture facing the long list of super-wealthy executives who have sought positions in the incoming Trump administrations.
President Trump on Wednesday named Sean Curran to serve as director of the U.S. Secret Service.
Howard Lutnick, the billionaire financial executive named by President Trump to head the Commerce Department, has agreed to divest his holdings in a range of business interests, including stepping down from his longstanding position as head of the brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.
Meta is denying claims circulating on social media that it forced Facebook and Instagram users to follow President Trump's official accounts, saying the changes some users noticed were standard practices tied to the transition of the POTUS account from the previous administration to the incoming one.
Washington — The House approved the Laken Riley Act on Wednesday, signing off on the Senate's changes to the legislation aimed at expanding the federal government's mandate to detain immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Washington — Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right group the Oath Keepers, visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday, days after he his lengthy prison sentence was commuted by President Trump.
Washington — Trump administration officials are considering deploying as many as 10,000 soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border and using Department of Defense bases to hold migrants awaiting deportation as they plan their dramatic crackdown on illegal immigration, according to an internal government memo obtained by CBS News.
President Trump is threatening to use his powers to adjourn Congress so he can make recess appointments for at least some of his top Cabinet nominees and their deputies, enabling them to begin running the largest federal departments.
The Justice Department's new leadership directed prosecutors and law enforcement across the country to focus on enacting President Trump's immigration policies and said they should potentially charge state or local officials who impede their efforts, according to a memo sent to employees on Tuesday and obtained by CBS News.
A student shot at least two other students Wednesday at Antioch High School outside Nashville, Tennessee, police said. The shooter then shot himself, according to police.
Billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has a new target in its sights for trimming federal spending: the U.S. penny.
Washington — Citing President Trump's extraordinary move to close the American asylum system, U.S. border agents have been instructed to summarily deport migrants crossing into the country illegally without allowing them to request legal protection, according to internal government documents and agency officials.
JetBlue says travelers can now use Venmo to book flights, making it the first carrier to accept purchases through the payment app.
Washington — Senate Republicans are trudging through the process to confirm President Trump's picks for his Cabinet and top administration posts, facing delays by Democrats who are pushing back on their speedy approval.
As President Trump cemented his return to the White House, French President Emmanuel Macron told his European counterparts this week to "wake up" and spend more on the continent's defense to reduce the continent's reliance on the United States for security. You have to remember that Macron's vision is not really a detail-oriented, ready-to-go project. It is an idea that has been discussed in Europe, and throughout the last two years, but the general direction is that we are not building anything that would be competitive to NATO. Rather, we would be creating capabilities, especially defense capabilities, that would help and strengthen the European defense pillar of NATO. Poland currently buys 80% of all its military stocks from the United States. It's heavily dependent on American air missile defense systems. These are not things that you can detangle or unbundle from overnight. So the majority of countries — especially from the NATO eastern flank — will tell you we will absolutely not go alone without the United States. There is no way that France, and even less so Germany, can step up to deliver the type of technological capabilities that are needed to substitute for the Americans on the ground here in Europe. Maybe President Emmanuel Macron has some idea since [the U.S. election] that he can yet again push the idea that European strategic autonomy is really complete independent from the United States. But I will say it again: From countries that are on the forefront of this war [in Ukraine], for countries that will have to be the first battleground of this war, which is the NATO eastern flank, that is not negotiable. We have known for some time that the United States, under whatever leadership, would be asking Europeans to spend more on their defense, and what Trump's election has done has catalyzed that now. I think you have to take people at their word, and what Trump has said about NATO in the past and what people have said about European defense, rings true. I think he's [Macron] making the point that in the end, it's up to us. You're either a supplicant or you're making the weather. And there's no reason why we should just roll over and take the world as President Trump is going to try and define it. It will still, I'm absolutely certain, be in the interests of the West to act together, but we cannot take that for granted any longer, and I think Macron is right to seize upon it. I noticed that Macron's speech sort of offered the invitation to those outside the EU to be part of this wider European political community that the United Kingdom has made very clear it intends to be part of. I think the United Kingdom does have a role to play in this. Clearly our military is a very important part of NATO and will always be, but I would very much believe it is in the United Kingdom's interest to act with the wider European community. It bolsters them, strengthens them, and it's in our own interests. We at least have begun to spend more on defense. Other states will have more catching up to do but I do see it in the U.K.'s political and economic and military interests to be active in relation to what Macron has been saying. All the rhetoric has been absolutely right, we cannot afford to let Russia win. You have the Baltic states very anxious, you have [countries] with Russian enclaves that could allow Putin to say, there are Russian people here, so we will defend their interests just as we purported to do in Ukraine. How would [those countries] feel if there was some sense that Ukraine was not being supported? If there is to be some sort of U.S.-brokered negotiation [for Ukraine], clearly [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy wants to be in the strongest possible position. And to do that, he's got to be able to enter those negotiations with the clear determination of the rest of Europe behind him to say whatever happens, we won't let you down, but if it goes on for two, four, five years, who knows? Let's nail this for once and for all: There is one effective military alliance in Europe - a political-military alliance in Europe, in the trans-Atlantic region — and it's called NATO. NATO has a command structure. It has a doctrine. It practices regularly. It is used to moving and commanding military forces at real scale. What is the point of trying to create something where we've got 70 years, 75 years of experience with NATO? Now, of course, the problem is, what happens if America, under Trump, either pulls out of NATO, which is unlikely, or reduces its support to NATO, which is possible? There is one good thing, though, that the European Union can do, which is defense industries. If they can get a grip of European defense procurement in order to offset the current dependence on the Americans in order to standardize weaponry. It is ridiculous for the British to continue with its own cottage industry of making tanks, when actually the rest of Europe buys Leopard IIs, which is a perfectly good tank, from Rheinmetall [in Germany]. If you start building large numbers of European [non-NATO] headquarters, they've got to come from somewhere - a European command structure. What it means is that NATO will suffer. You know, I was the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, one of many Brits that go back to Montgomery. The Germans have the Chief of Staff. The Chairman of the Military Committee is a Dutchman at the moment, and he or she rotates the commanders of the joint force commands. Europe has a leading role in NATO. Europeans have leading roles in NATO. But it all comes down to really leaning in and being able to produce the troop numbers, the ships, the planes, that NATO needs to really provide an effective deterrence. I think this definitely now is the hour of Europe, a European moment, when we have to prepare that, quite probably, America, under the Trump presidency, will stop any financial or military support for Ukraine. But perhaps we also are going to see the attempt to strike a deal between Trump and Putin, so this now means that European security definitely has to become European. So either we stand up or we give up. We have to act in a very pragmatic way to quickly and more substantially support Ukraine, and this means that we have to compensate for the American support in terms of weapons and ammunition delivery and, in the short term, this would mean that the Europeans would have to buy weapons and ammunition on the international market, and in the mid- and longer term we will have to enhance our capabilities to better coordinate, to create bigger markets in order to scale our economies in the area of defense. Of course, it's in the European strategic interest to be a strong part of NATO, to keep the Americans in Europe. This is not against anybody, but it is only to contribute in a stronger way to what is at the heart and what is the core of NATO, and that is European security. He's been saying this for a long time, and in a sense the vision was right back then, and it's even more right now. He started talking about European strategic autonomy in 2017, and there wasn't a lot of appetite and traction behind the idea, given that it has traditionally been mistakenly interpreted as something that runs counter to the transatlantic relationship. So obviously now with Trump, a good idea that was good back then becomes politically relevant today. We're basically talking about 100 billion euros a year ($104 billion) for several years alongside all member states beginning to spend between 2-and-4% of GDP. This is not going to happen overnight.
A major winter storm that slammed Texas and blanketed the northern Gulf Coast with record-breaking snow moved east Wednesday, spreading heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and eastern Carolinas.
President Trump, who while campaigning vowed to end the "inflation nightmare," on Monday signaled his focus on the high cost of living in the U.S. by signing an executive order that requires "all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief" to Americans.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an underground website that the FBI once called "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet."
Four men have been arrested for allegedly breaking into Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow's home in Ohio last month, authorities said Tuesday.