Trump admin live updates: White House drops NASA nominee with Musk ties

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Elon Musk's criticism of President Donald Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill Act" to fund his legislative agenda. Musk had said the bill would add to the deficit and undermine the work of the Department of Government Efficiency.

"Well, the president is very proud of the one big beautiful bill, and he wants to see it pass. He wants to set it to get to work on it and send it to his desk as quickly as possible," Leavitt said.

"Of course, as you know, Elon Musk announced last night his departure as an official government employee from the Trump administration. We thank him for his service. We thank him for getting DOGE off of the ground and the efforts to cut waste, fraud and abuse will continue," she continued.

Asked again to respond directly to Musk's criticisms, Leavitt only said the White House believes the bill will lead to savings.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza.

"I can confirm that Special Envoy Witkoff and the president submitted a ceasefire proposal to Hamas that Israel backed and supported," Leavitt told reporters. "Israel signed off on this proposal before it was sent to Hamas. I could also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home, and that's been a priority from this administration from the beginning. I won't comment further as we are in the midst of this right now."

Asked if Hamas has accepted the proposal, Leavitt said not to her knowledge but if that becomes the case there will be an announcement from the administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt opened her press briefing on Thursday by railing against the recent court rulings against President Donald Trump's global tariff policy.

Leavitt called the legal setbacks "judicial overreach" and claimed "activist judges" were responsible. The first court ruling blocking Trump's tariff policy came from a three-judge panel with members appointed by Presidents Barack Obama, Trump and Ronald Reagan.

"These judges are threatening to undermine the credibility of the United States on the world stage," Leavitt said. "The administration has already filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay to strike down this egregious decision. But ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country."

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told President Donald Trump that policy decisions would rely on "non-political analysis" during a meeting on Thursday, the Fed said in a statement.

"Chair Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy, except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook," the Fed added.

The announcement follows repeated public statements from Trump urging the central bank to lower interest rates, including a social media post last month saying Powell's "termination cannot come soon enough."

Days later, Trump said he would not fire Powell but reiterated his call for lower rates.