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Senate Republicans are disavowing former President Trump’s call to let the federal government default on its debts unless President Biden agrees to “massive” spending cuts, dismissing Trump’s suggestion as something far too risky to seriously consider.  

The cold reception to Trump’s bold statement is the latest sign of the widening rift between Trump and his party’s Washington establishment.

While Trump maintains strong influence in the House, where he helped Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) nail down enough votes to be elected Speaker, it’s a different story in the Senate.  

GOP senators largely ignored Trump’s participation in a CNN’s town hall Wednesday and later dismissed the former president’s claim that failing to raise the debt ceiling by next month’s deadline might not be a big deal.  

“I don’t think anybody suggesting that ‘we have to do a default’ is wise policy, wise strategy for this country,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), adding that Trump “certainly doesn’t impact” her view.  

She argued it would be far more productive to encourage Biden and McCarthy to work together to reach a compromise rather than pushing a default as a viable option.  

“Right now, the talks are going on with the top four and of course the White House, and now the staffs. What we want to do is encourage that every step of the way,” she said. 

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said “most people recognize we need to strike a deal here” and predicted that Trump’s impacts won’t get much traction among GOP lawmakers. 

“I don’t think we want to go there with the potential consequences,” he said of a potential default.  

Asked about Trump’s comments, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate GOP leadership team, said: “Nobody thinks default is a good idea. Nobody.”  

McCarthy on Thursday distanced himself from Trump’s comments. 

“The only thing I see right now is that the Republicans made sure default is not on the table. We’ve raised the debt limit,” he said, referring to the bill House Republicans passed last month to raise the debt ceiling to $1.5 trillion and cut spending by $4.8 trillion. 

“The only person talking about default right now is President Biden. His actions, he’s ignored this problem, just like he’s ignored the border, that means more Americans are gonna die from fentanyl. You had 11,000 people just yesterday come across,” he said.

Those are much different tones than the one Trump struck at the CNN town hall, where he declared: “I say to the Republicans out there — congressmen, senators — if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re gonna have to default.” 

He went on to say that a federal default might not have as big an impact on the U.S. economy as experts predict.  

Trump said the consequences of failing to extend the debt limit by the deadline “could be maybe nothing” or result in only “a bad week or a bad day.” 

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), when asked about Trump’s comments, said: “Yeah, well, we can’t do a default but we should find a way to reach a compromise. That’s what you expect a president to do.” 

Romney said Trump is rooting for a default because it’s in his political interests.  

“If there were a default, the one person who might be tempted to celebrate politically would be Donald Trump, because he’d say, ‘If I were president, this would have never happened,’” he said.

Romney said Trump’s CNN town hall appearance showed a person “untethered to the truth and untethered to the constitutional order.” 

He also criticized Trump for saying he would pardon the people who invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and for not expressing support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.  

“A crime is a crime. I believe in juries, and people who’ve been convicted of a crime ought to pay the penalty that the jury or the court imposed and [that] they agreed to, in some cases,” Romney said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said he wasn’t that surprised that Trump advised Republicans to let the nation default.  

“It doesn’t surprise me he’d say that,” Cassidy said. “The president is a candidate trying to run on a very populist base, and I think he feels like that will position him in place he gets more votes, and I think he’ll say whatever he needs to, to get more votes.”

Cassidy said he wasn’t sure how it would influence Trump’s allies in the House. 

“I don’t have their temperature,” he said. 

A Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on Trump said senators would ignore the advice.  

“I don’t know about the House, but I don’t think there are a lot of senators who wait for his instructions,” the lawmaker said. 

But the senator expressed uncertainty whether Trump might push House conservatives to take a harder line in the talks. 

“I don’t know,” the senator said. “We need to be working together.” 

House Republicans mostly dodged Trump’s call to let the nation default if Democrats refuse to agree to massive cuts, but they were less critical of Trump’s comments than some of their Senate Republican colleagues. 

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, said a default is what House Republicans are trying to avoid.  

“Obviously, if there’s not a deal, then there’s default. That’s what we’re all trying to prevent,” he said.  

He downplayed Trump’s influence by noting, “obviously, he’s not part of this negotiation.”  Tesla recalls more than 1 million vehicles in China Flesh-eating ‘zombie drug’ saturating Los Angeles streets, officials say

Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) said he views Trump’s willingness to let the nation default as campaign rhetoric.  

“I forget who said it, but you know, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. … Candidates talk about things differently than people who are trying to get to a deal,” he said, referring to the political maxim made famous by late New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.  

Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks contributed.  

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Kim Kardashian arrives at court to ‘confront’ her alleged attackers in Paris robbery trial

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Kim Kardashian arrives at court to 'confront' her alleged attackers in Paris robbery trial

Kim Kardashian has arrived at court to face a group accused of robbing her at gunpoint nearly a decade ago.

Wearing a black skirt suit, sunglasses, and with her hair pulled back into a chignon, the US reality star walked up the steps accompanied by her mother Kris and a large entourage.

The US reality star greeted the judge with a soft “Hello,” thanking the French authorities for “allowing me to tell my truth”.

Kim Kardashian waves as she arrives to testify regarding a robbery of millions of dollars in jewels from her Paris hotel room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)
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Kim Kardashian waves as she arrives at court. Pic: AP

She began by telling the court of her love for Paris, calling it a “magical place,” before becoming tearful when describing the robbery, and talking of her “confusion” when two men entered her room dressed as police officers, accompanied by the handcuffed concierge.

She told the court: “I had fallen asleep naked with a robe on, I was flustered.”

Kardashian will face 10 defendants who it is alleged pulled off one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history in the early hours of 3 October 2016.

Ahead of her in-person appearance, Kardashian’s lawyers said she was ready to “confront” the defendants and intended to do so “with dignity and courage”.

More on Kim Kardashian

It’s alleged that five masked men posing as police officers stormed the residence, with two entering Kardashian’s room and robbing her at gunpoint.

Kim Kardashian.
Pic: Reuters
Image:
Kim Kardashian. Pic: Reuters

Police say the men escaped on bicycles, with around $9m of jewellery, including a $4m engagement ring from Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West. Most of the jewellery was never recovered.

Earlier on Tuesday, in Paris’s central criminal court, Kardashian’s stylist Simone Harouche described the moment she was woken by the US star’s screams of terror and feared she had been “raped or violated”.

Ms Harouche, 45, who says she has worked for Kardashian for many years and has been friends with her since she was 12, told the court she was woken by “a sound I had never heard from Kim… It was terror”.

Sleeping in a separate apartment, on the next floor down from Kardashian’s, she went on: “What I heard specifically was [Kim saying], ‘I have babies and I need to live – that is what she kept saying… Take everything. I need to live'”.

She told the judge: “When I realised something terrible was going on upstairs and I realised it was not friends [in Kim’s room], I started looking for my telephone and I started looking for something to help save mine and Kim’s life.”

Simone Harouche.
Pic: Virisa Yong/BFA.com/Shutterstock
Image:
Simone Harouche pictured last year. Pic: Virisa Yong/BFA.com/Shutterstock

She went on to lock herself in her bathroom and hide in her shower, where she called Kardashian’s sister Kourtney and texted her security guard, Pascal Duvier, telling them, “Something is very wrong… Kim is upstairs with men and we need help.”

She says minutes later, Kardashian “hopped” into her room, explaining: “To see my friend with her feet taped and a very light robe with nothing under, and all messed up and pulled, I thought she could have been raped or very violated.”

She said she removed the tape from Kardashian’s feet, and her friend was “beside herself”, adding, “I’ve never seen her like that before. She was screaming, ‘We need to get out, what do we do if they come back? We need to jump from the first floor, we need to get out'”.

Later, when questioned by the lawyer of one of the defendants on why she did not come out of the bathroom, she said: “I’m the kind of person to hide, [Kardashian’s] the kind of person to take care of other people.”

‘Just because a woman wears jewellery, doesn’t make her a target’

When asked by the judge whether she or Kardashian had believed at the time that wearing and sharing images of such expensive jewellery would be a risk, Ms Harouche says: “Just because a woman wears jewellery doesn’t make her a target. That’s like saying because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped”.

She went on to say: “I think that that moment changed [Kardashian’s] life forever… In terms of security, she doesn’t go alone to places anymore.”

Read more: Everything you need to know about the Paris trial

Following the robbery, Ms Harouche says she quit her job as a stylist as the experience “made me fearful of all the things that could happen to celebrities, and being around them”.

Asking for ‘forgiveness’

At the end of her time in the witness stand, the judge attempted to play a video message from one of the defendants, Yunice Abbas.

Pic: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/Shutterstock
Image:
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/Shutterstock

Mr Abbas, who has admitted his part in the heist, published a book in 2021, titled “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian”. A court has since ruled he will not benefit financially from it.

A tech issue meant the message would not play, so instead, the judge read out the statement from Mr Abbas, asking for “forgiveness” for his actions. When asked by the judge if she had a reaction to the apology, Ms Harouche answered, “No”.

The trial, which is being held in front of three judges and six jury members, is due to conclude at the end of this week.

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Cristobal: QB Beck cleared for summer workouts

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Cristobal: QB Beck cleared for summer workouts

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — Miami coach Mario Cristobal said Monday that quarterback Carson Beck has been cleared to participate in all team summer activities and is approaching 100 percent following elbow surgery last year.

Cristobal said Beck has been throwing for the past three weeks as part of his rehab regimen. Beck missed all of spring practice and has yet to throw to Miami’s receivers as part of organized team activities. But that is all about to change when Miami begins summer workouts next week.

“He’s good to go,” Cristobal told ESPN at the ACC spring meetings. “He’s exceeding every benchmark.”

Beck underwent surgery on his right elbow to repair his ulnar collateral ligament, which he injured on the final play of the first half in second-ranked Georgia‘s 22-19 overtime win against Texas in the SEC championship game Dec. 7.

Beck started at Georgia for two seasons, going 24-3, and ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. had him rated as the No. 5 quarterback for the 2025 draft. But given his injury and inconsistent performance in 2024, Beck entered the portal in January. He quickly opted for Miami, where he will replace No. 1 NFL draft pick Cam Ward.

Beck threw for 7,426 yards over his two seasons as Georgia’s starter, fifth most among all FBS passers since 2023, with 57 total touchdowns and 23 turnovers.

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NCAA prez is open to Trump’s idea of commission

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NCAA prez is open to Trump's idea of commission

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — NCAA president Charlie Baker said Monday he was “up for anything” when asked about a President Donald Trump-proposed commission on collegiate athletics.

Reports surfaced last week that Trump was going to create the commission.

While his conversations at ACC meetings with league football coaches, men’s and women’s basketball coaches, athletic directors and other school officials focused on governance and the pending House settlement, Baker was asked during an informal media availability for his thoughts on the presidential commission.

“I think the fact that there’s an interest on the executive side on this, I think it speaks to the fact that everybody is paying a lot of attention right now to what’s going on in college sports,” Baker said.

“I’m up for anything that can help us get somewhere.”

Baker noted the NCAA has already spent time in Washington asking for congressional help that is focused on three big issues. Among the biggest: a patchwork of state laws that relate to how collegiate athletics work in individual states; and whether student-athletes should be considered employees.

“I think [Congress] can help us. I really do,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said during an interview with ACC Network. “We have been very bold in the desire for a national standard when it comes to name, image and likeness. We need to make sure that we have something that comes out of Washington that connects all 50 of the states because we’ve had a piecemeal project and it’s really undermined college sports. It’s been a race to the bottom. So that’s one. Two is we need some legal protection. We cannot sustain one legal case after another legal case after another legal case. A reaffirmation that these are student-athletes. Those three things to me will be very important to see if that can come out of the commission.”

Baker said, “People in our office have talked to folks who are working on this, but I don’t think they’ve decided the framework around who they want to put on.”

When asked whether he felt the creation of a commission would enhance the NCAA’s chances at legislative relief, Baker said, “I don’t have a crystal ball on that one. I don’t know. I do think, though, that it’s quite clear at this point that there are a lot of people interested in college sports, and we do need some help at some point to create some clarity around some of these issues in Washington. Creating clarity one lawsuit at a time is just a really bad way to try to move forward.”

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