Speaker Mike Johnson said today that while no changes to President Donald Trump’s agenda bill have been “ultimately and finally decided,” he’ll be working with different House Republican factions this week to reach consensus, downplaying the deep division remaining in the conference.

This comes as House GOP leaders are still trying to resolve major internal battles over sticking points, including over Medicaid, clean energy tax credits and state and local tax deductions.

Johnson noted the “multiple caucuses and multiple subgroups who have made requests and suggestions” for last minute changes to the bill before GOP leadership hopes to bring it to the floor later this week for a vote.

“None of that has been ultimately and finally decided, because as everyone knows around here, we have to build consensus around all those ideas,” he said, adding that he had shared that message with House Republicans on a call this morning and he’s “very optimistic we will find the right equilibrium point to get this bill delivered.”

He said there are a “lot of moving parts and a lot of preferences and ideas on how to handle all that,” though he said leadership had “anticipated” this was how the process would play out and “minor modifications” would be able to “clean up things.”

US President Donald Trump announced after a two-hour call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.”

“Russia wants to do largescale TRADE with the United States when this catastrophic ‘bloodbath’ is over, and I agree. There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth. Its potential is UNLIMITED,” Trump continued. He also said that Ukraine “can be a great beneficiary on Trade.”

Trump said he immediately informed the following leaders about the contents of the call after it ended: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

“The Vatican, as represented by the Pope, has stated that it would be very interested in hosting the negotiations. Let the process begin!” Trump added.

Monday’s call with Putin marks the third known time the two leaders have spoken by phone since Trump was inaugurated in January and comes as the US president has grown increasingly frustrated with the Russian president’s refusal to strike a peace deal with Ukraine.

President Donald Trump is considering nominating Emil Bove, his former personal attorney who currently holds a senior role at the Justice Department, as a federal appeals judge, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

Bove is under consideration for a vacancy on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit based in New Jersey. He’s emerged as one of Trump’s most trusted aides at the Justice Department who, as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s main principal, has been tasked with carrying out some of the administration’s more controversial moves.

It’s not clear whether Trump has made a final decision. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

If confirmed by the Senate, Bove would have a lifetime appointment. The New York Times first reported on Trump considering Bove for the judgeship.

When Bove served as the acting deputy attorney general, he and others submitted the filing to dismiss the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, sparking a wave of resignations from the Southern District of New York and the Justice Department’s public integrity section. Before joining Trump’s defense team when he was out of office, Bove worked in the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

GOP Rep. Don Bacon, a swing-district Nebraska Republican, is concerned about the direction of the negotiations between conservative hardliners and House GOP leaders over President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill — namely targeting Medicaid and green energy tax credits.

“No secret deals,” Bacon told CNN, saying “yes” he’s concerned about the way the talks have been proceeding.

Among the matters under discussion to win over hardliners: Moving up the timeframe to implement new work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries and more quickly phasing out green energy tax credits enacted under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Bacon said if the hardliners get their way, there could be a recession in rural parts of the Midwest.

“The Midwest is very biofuels and wind oriented,” Bacon told CNN. “Wind is fairly established so some normalization can occur.” The Republican said the “Midwest needs the biofuels energy to thrive” or could face a recession.

US President Donald Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin has concluded, according to a US official and Russian state media TASS.

The call lasted nearly two hours, according to a US official. The official said Trump will provide a readout shortly.

Putin said the conversation with Trump was “frank and substantive,” according to TASS.

TASS also reported that Putin “expressed his position on the ceasefire during the conversation.”

Putin thanked Trump for US support in “resuming the direct talks between Russia and Ukraine,” following the high stakes phone call.

Earlier today, Trump also held a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Ukrainian presidency.

This post has been updated with more of Putin’s remarks on the call.

A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration unlawfully removed the board of the US Institute of Peace earlier this year and that subsequent actions taken by officials installed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cripple the agency are therefore “null and void.”

The lengthy ruling from US District Judge Beryl Howell is the latest defeat for the Trump administration in its attempts to exert authority over independent agencies.

USIP is not a federal agency within the executive branch. It was created by Congress as a nonpartisan, independent body in 1984 and owns and manages its headquarters.

In March, the Trump administration fired most of USIP’s board and acting President George Moose. The three remaining board members — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — said they were installing Kenneth Jackson as acting USIP president.

Days later, DOGE personnel, accompanied by Washington, DC, police, gained access to the headquarters after having been turned away during an earlier attempt. Some USIP officials remained in the building after DOGE’s arrival, including Moose, a retired career diplomat. He was later forced to exit the building by DC police.

Shortly after, USIP filed suit against the administration in an effort to stop its dismantlement and to try to stop the transfer of its private building and endowment to the federal government.

“This Administration then went even further, taking severe actions to dissemble USIP, including terminating its appointed Board members, its expert management, its dedicated staff and contractors located in both Washington, DC, and around the world, and dispersing its assets and headquarters building,” the judge wrote. “These actions against USIP were unlawful.”

The Supreme Court today allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to move toward ending temporary deportation protections for potentially hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

At issue is a move earlier this year by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to end a form of humanitarian relief known as temporary protected status for Venezuelan migrants.

Seven Venezuelan nationals who are covered by Temporary Protective Status, or TPS, and a group that represents others challenged the move, arguing in part that Noem’s decision was motivated by racial and political hostility.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to note her dissent.

House Republican leaders are negotiating over GOP members’ conflicting demands before an expected floor vote on the GOP’s massive tax and spending cuts package later this week.

Among several sticking points is the timeframe over when new Medicaid work requirements would kick in and whether to change the federal-state cost sharing program for Medicaid.

Nearly 80 million children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, parents and adults without dependents rely on Medicaid and the related Children’s Health Insurance Program. Most US adults say they don’t want to see decreases in Medicaid spending, according to a recent KFF poll.

Republican lawmakers voted to pass a budget blueprint in April that gave the House Energy and Commerce Committee instructions to shave $880 billion in funding from programs in the committee’s jurisdiction. They have said they want to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. It’s uncertain, however, whether Republican lawmakers’ Medicaid revamp will achieve their topline goal for the cuts needed to help finance President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending cuts agenda.

More than 60 House Republicans represent districts with higher-than-average Medicaid enrollment, according to a CNN analysis of Medicaid enrollment data and 2024 election results.

While most Republican districts aren’t heavily reliant on the program, Speaker Mike Johnson’s historically tight margin in the House means that he can only afford a handful of Republican “no” votes to pass any changes to Medicaid without Democrats’ help.

Read more about districts throughout the country that depend on Medicaid.

CNN’s Manu Raju contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump’s phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin is underway, a US official says.

Earlier today, Vice President JD Vance said he believes Trump will ask Putin whether he is “serious” about peace with Ukraine during the phone call. Vance stressed that the United States is “not going to spin its wheels” in its attempts to reach a resolution.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today that Trump has “grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” adding that his goal “is to see a ceasefire and to see this conflict come to an end.”

CNN’s Kit Maher contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump held a phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, according to the Ukrainian presidency.

Trump had been expected to start his diplomacy on Monday with a call to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

House Republican leaders are still trying to resolve major internal battles over President Donald Trump’s massive domestic policy bill even as House Speaker Mike Johnson is engaged in last-ditch negotiations to win over GOP members’ conflicting demands before an expected floor vote later this week.

Among the major issues that are still unresolved: The timeframe over when new Medicaid work requirements would kick in, whether to change the federal-state cost sharing program for Medicaid, when green energy tax credits would be phased out and how much Americans can deduct from the state and local taxes they pay.

There are also big questions such as how much the sweeping bill will add to the deficit and how many Americans would lose access to benefits like Medicaid and food stamps, since the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has yet to release an official estimate on the bill’s impact to the debt and the economy.

House GOP leadership aides said on Monday morning that key decisions have not been finalized even though Johnson wants the bill passed out of his chamber by Thursday.

“Everything is in plan all the way until the end,” said one leadership aide, noting the talks are “extremely difficult” given the narrowness of the majority and the diversity of the demands. But aides contended that “95%” of the bill had been agreed to among House Republicans.

The bill calls for first-time work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries to be implemented by 2029, but GOP hardliners are demanding that timeframe be moved up — something that is causing angst among more moderate members. Moreover, some of the hardliners want to pare back the amount of money the federal government pays into state-run Medicaid programs, a change that moderates have long resisted.

Johnson is expected to continue talks on Monday with his members.

Vice President JD Vance said he believes that President Donald Trump will ask Russian President Vladimir Putin if he is “serious” about peace with Ukraine in a phone call this morning.

Vance stressed that the United States is “not going to spin its wheels” in its attempts to reach a resolution.

While Vance said “it’s hard to pinpoint one” obstacle to reaching a ceasefire, he reiterated how “one open question” is whether Putin is serious about negotiating peace.

“I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin has a strategy himself for how to unwind the war, of course, that’s been going on for a few years now,” Vance added, saying he thought “the president would agree” with that.

Vance also said that the US is still “more than open to walking away.”

“We want to see outcomes, and the first major outcome that we wanted to see, which we were glad about, is that we wanted to see the Russians and the Ukrainians to put a real peace proposal on the table. What would you need to do in order to stop fighting? That happened. The second thing is that they needed to agree to talks with one another,” he said.

While Putin didn’t show up for direct talks that he proposed last week, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Turkey on Friday and agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who agreed to meet with Putin directly, criticized him for sending a “low-level” delegation and said the Russian leader was “afraid.”

Ahead of Trump’s 10 a.m. ET call, Vance said, “I was just on the phone with him. I know he’s looking forward to it and I wish him all the best. I think he’s the right guy to negotiate for the country.”

During a briefing with reporters on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has “grown weary and frustrated with both sides of the conflict,” adding that his goal “is to see a ceasefire and to see this conflict come to an end.”

Pressed on whether the president still wants to meet with Putin, as he told reporters last week in the Middle East, Leavitt said it will depend on today’s call.

Vice President JD Vance said he thought about visiting Israel after his trip to Rome, but cited logistical and security reasons as the obstacle, rather than Israel’s expanding military operation in Gaza.

“Logistically, it was just a little bit too hard on basic things like, who the hell is going to take care of our kids if we take another couple of days overseas?”

Axios had reported that Vance considered traveling to Israel on Tuesday but decided against it due to the expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, citing a senior US official. CNN has not independently confirmed this reporting.

“But on some more serious things like, how do we provide security? How do we make sure that we get all the assets that we need in order to do the right official delegation? So, I’m sure we’ll visit Israel sometime in the future, but not today,” Vance said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said today that the controversial Qatari plane that President Donald Trump said he plans to accept is “the Air Force’s project” and that Trump “has nothing to do with it.”

Leavitt pushed back on reports that the Qatari royal family will gift the Trump administration the luxury plane, which would be retrofitted and used as Air Force One during Trump’s second term. She criticized the media for what she called “a lot of misinformation” around the gift.

“Let’s be very clear, the government of Qatar, the Qatari family, has offered to donate this plane to the United States Air Force, where that donation will be accepted according to all legal and ethical obligations,” Leavitt said. “It will be retrofitted to the highest of standards by the Department of Defense and the United States Air Force – this plane is not a personal donation or gift to the president of the United States, and everyone who wrote that last week should go and correct their stories, because this is a donation to our country and to the United States Air Force.”

CNN has reported that the Department of Defense plans to accept the luxury Boeing 747-8 jet, which would be retrofitted for the president’s use with security features and modifications before being donated to Trump’s presidential library after he leaves office. Trump has denied that he would use the plane after his term concludes.

Trump suggested in an interview that aired last week that the Qataris approached him directly with the possibility of gifting a luxury jet replacement for Air Force One, claiming that one Qatari official said: “If I can help you, let me do that.”

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have raised concerns about the plane. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Tuesday that the plane “poses significant espionage and surveillance problems.” And Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said accepting it would pose “immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems and communications.”

President Donald Trump’s spokesperson voiced confidence Monday in the White House Medical Unit and professionals at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center amid questions about whether physicians there missed signs of former President Joe Biden’s prostate cancer.

“The White House physician we have here is phenomenal, and the team of physicians that take care of the president, particularly at Walter Reed Medical Center, are great,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a White House briefing.

Biden’s White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, left the White House Medical Unit when Biden left office. Dr. Sean Barbabella, the current physician to the president, provided a readout of Trump’s medical exam earlier this year showing he was fit to serve in office.

“He’s in great health, and he trusts his physicians,” Leavitt said.

She said to the best of her understanding, Trump was screened for prostate cancer during his physical exam. Usual medical advice is to not test men over the age of 70, but it’s not unusual to apply different standards to presidents.

Biden’s office revealed Sunday the former president had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Some MAGA-world allies, including Donald Trump Jr., have suggested without evidence that Biden’s team tried to cover up the medical issue.

President Donald Trump has invited Pope Leo XIV to the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing on Monday.

The president’s invitation to the first American pontiff was delivered in a letter via Vice President JD Vance, who attended the pope’s first Mass on Sunday and later met with the pontiff.

The White House declined to weigh in on comments from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that Israel will take “control of the entire Gaza Strip,” during a briefing with reporters Monday.

Earlier Monday, Netanyahu said that Israel plans to take control of all of Gaza, less than 24 hours after the country’s military launched an extensive ground operation in the territory, in addition to an air campaign that intensified last week.

“We have intense, massive fighting going on – intense and immense. There is progress. We are going to take control of the entire Gaza Strip – that’s what we’re going to do,” Netanyahu said Monday.

The UN and prominent aid organizations have raised the alarm over the new offensive, saying it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the assault. More than 300 people have been killed and over 1,000 others have been injured after Israel ramped up intense airstrikes since Thursday, according to a CNN count of this week’s Palestinian Ministry of Health data.

While traveling in the Middle East last week, Trump once again proposed the idea of the US taking over Gaza, offering the idea of a “freedom zone” as he continued to muse about redeveloping the war-torn enclave.

CNN’s Dana Karni and Kara Fox contributed reporting to this post.

The sweeping bill aimed to advance President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda will not add to the deficit, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed today – despite multiple nonpartisan reports that say otherwise.

Asked by CNN’s Alayna Treene if the president is alright with the bill potentially adding to the deficit, Leavitt pushed back and said, “This bill does not add to the deficit.”

A preliminary estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, however, said the package would add $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next decade. And annual deficits would jump from $1.8 trillion in 2024 to $2.9 trillion by 2034 as the federal government would continue to spend more than it would raise in revenue, the committee projected.

Leavitt went on to claim that the bill, which includes a slew of provisions on taxes, the border and energy, “will save $1.6 trillion,” according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

The press secretary added that “the president absolutely understands and hears the concerns of fiscal conservatives and of Americans who want to get our fiscal house in order. That’s what the intention of this bill is.”

The primary issue with getting aid into Gaza is logistical — not political — and the Trump administration does not want to see a humanitarian crisis unfold there, US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.

Describing President Donald Trump as a “humanitarian,” Witkoff said that “everyone is concerned about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” adding that “logistically … I don’t think there’s any daylight between President Trump’s position and (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu’s position.”

“I think the issue now is, how do we logistically get all of those trucks into Gaza? How do we set up the aid stations? There are many things — initiatives that we are working on to address this. The Israelis have indicated that they’re going to begin to allow a lot more of these trucks to get in,” he said.

Witkoff’s comments came hours before Israel announced Sunday that they would allow a “basic amount of food” to enter Gaza, which would end an 11-week blockade of all aid into the territory, which has been criticized by many in the international community.

On Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that “a policy of siege & starvation makes a mockery of international law.”

The House Rules Committee has set the key vote to take up the rule on President Donald Trump’s massive domestic policy bill for 1 a.m. on Wednesday.

That will give House Speaker Mike Johnson today and tomorrow to negotiate final changes to the bill before that key meeting. At that meeting, an amendment would be added to the bill to make the changes to win over holdouts in his conference.

The rule outlines the parameters for floor debate and must pass the full House before the chamber can take up and pass Trump’s bill along party lines.

Johnson wants to pass the bill in the House on Thursday.