Brazil's Lula to Push Fiscal Plan Forward Despite Setbacks in Congress
Brazil's government has no immediate plans to develop new fiscal measures amid setbacks in Congress, and will instead seek to persuade lawmakers against blocking proposed tax increases, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation.
The lower house of Congress on Monday moved forward with an initiative to overturn a governmental decree that increases so-called IOF taxes on some financial transactions, threatening to deliver a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's efforts to meet fiscal targets and shore up Brazil's budget.
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The Hill
44 minutes ago
- The Hill
3 in 4 want legally required, publicly disclosed presidential health tests: Survey
Three in four Americans want health test requirements for presidents that would be released to the public, a new survey released on Friday found. Seventy-four percent of respondents agreed there should be legal requirements for the sitting president to share health records, in an Axios/Ipsos poll, and 72 percent of respondents thought most elected officials aren't honest about their own health. Additionally, 81 percent of respondents said there should be age limits in place for federal officials, including presidents, Supreme Court justices and members of Congress. Only 40 percent of respondents said former presidents should legally have to share health records. The issue of health and cognitive abilities of sitting presidents has been in the spotlight since former President Biden's disastrous debate in June and eventual decision not to run for reelection. He was 82 when he left office and recently announced he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans accused former Biden Cabinet officials, Democratic members of Congress and the media of participating in a massive 'cover-up' to hide what they claim was the former president's obvious and alarming cognitive decline during his final two years in office. President Trump, who just turned 79 last week, is the oldest president to be inaugurated. He underwent an annual physical exam in April and his physician wrote in a memo that he was in 'excellent health.' The memo confirmed that Trump took the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test commonly used to detect memory issues or cognitive impairment, and scored a 30 out of 30. Since he first left office in 2020, Trump had released limited information about his physical health. His campaign released a letter in November 2023 from his personal physician, with little specifics. Nikki Haley, Trump's former U.N. ambassador who challenged him in the 2024 GOP primary, called for cognitive tests for politicians over 75. 'To most Americans, this is common sense. But many political and media elites scoff at these ideas,' she wrote in May 2023. The survey was conducted June 13 to 16 and included 1,104 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Trump 'doesn't need permission' from Congress to strike Iran, expert says
Print Close By Alex Miller Published June 20, 2025 While lawmakers argue over their position in the command chain as President Donald Trump mulls a possible strike on Iran, one expert believes that the president is within his constitutional authority to move ahead with a bunker-busting bomb. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are embroiled in debate over where they are in the pecking order. Some argue they should have the sole authority to authorize a strike, let alone declare war, while others believe that is within Trump's purview if he wanted to join Israel's bombing campaign against Iran. 'INSTINCTS FOR RESTRAINT': SENATE DIVIDED OVER WHO GETS TO DECLARE WAR The predominant argument on the Hill is that the entire point of supporting Israel is to prevent the Islamic Republic from creating or acquiring a nuclear weapon. However, a legal scholar who helped to craft the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which authorized the usage of the U.S. armed forces to engage with the entities that then-President George W. Bush believed were behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack in New York City, argued that there was a difference between Congress' constitutional authority to declare war and the president's authority to use force abroad. "The position we took then, I think, is the same one that Trump should take now," John Yoo told Fox News Digital. "As a legal matter, the president doesn't need the permission of Congress to engage in hostilities abroad. But as a political matter, it's very important for the president to go to Congress and present the united front to our enemies." THUNE WARNS IRAN SHOULD RETURN TO NEGOTIATING TABLE 'IF THEY'RE SMART' The Constitution divides war powers between Congress and the White House, giving lawmakers the sole power to declare war, while the president acts as the commander in chief directing the military. Nearly two centuries later, at the height of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was born, which sought to further define those roles. Yoo agreed that the Constitution was clear that Congress has the sole authority to declare war, which effectively changes the legal status of the country. However, he countered that "the framers did not think that language meant that the President and Congress are like the two weapons officers on a nuclear sub and have to turn the keys at the same time to use force." "The founders were very practical men, and they knew that Congress is slow to act, that Congress is a large body that deliberates, but it's the president who acts swiftly and decisively in defense of the nation," he said. Adding fuel to the debate in Washington are a pair of resolutions in the Senate from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and the House, from Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would require debate and a vote before any force is used against Iran. The measures are designed to put a check on Trump's power and reaffirm Congress' constitutional authority. 'ANOTHER ENDLESS CONFLICT': DEMOCRAT ECHOES TRUMP'S ANTI-WAR STANCE AS MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS ESCALATE Yoo said that the resolutions appeared to be forms of "political opportunism" and noted that when former President Joe Biden wanted to send aid to Ukraine, when former President Barack Obama engaged abroad or when Trump authorized a drone strike to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, there was no resolution demanding Congress have a say. "People on the Hill are conflating what's constitutionally necessary with what's politically expedient," Yoo said. "Two very different things." Congress' real power over war, he said, was the power of the purse, meaning lawmakers' ability to decide whether to fund the Pentagon and military in their appropriations process. Republicans are currently working to ram Trump's "big, beautiful bill" through Congress and onto his desk by Independence Day. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Included in the colossal bill is roughly $150 billion in funding for the Defense Department. "If Congress really doesn't want us to, doesn't want Trump to, get deeper involved in the Israel-Iran war," Yoo said. "All they got to do is not fund the military." "The ironic thing is, you have people who are voting to give extra tens of billions of dollars to the Defense Department, who are then turning around and complaining that they don't have the ability to vote on war," he said. "Every time they vote for funding, they're voting to make war possible." Print Close URL
an hour ago
Judge rules Trump administration can't require states to help on immigration to get transport money
BOSTON -- A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in transportation funds from states that don't agree to participate in some immigration enforcement actions. Twenty states sued after they said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to cut off funding to states that refused to comply with President Donald Trump's immigration agenda. U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. barred federal transportation officials from carrying out that threat before the lawsuit is fully resolved. 'The Court finds that the States have demonstrated they will face irreparable and continuing harm if forced to agree to Defendants' unlawful and unconstitutional immigration conditions imposed in order to receive federal transportation grant funds,' wrote McConnell, the chief judge for the federal district of Rhode island. 'The States face losing billions of dollars in federal funding, are being put in a position of relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers, are at risk of losing the trust built between local law enforcement and immigrant communities, and will have to scale back, reconsider, or cancel ongoing transportation projects.' On April 24, states received letters from the Department of Transportation stating that they must cooperate on immigration efforts or risk losing the congressionally appropriated funds. No funding was immediately withheld, but some of the states feared the move was imminent. Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont filed the lawsuit in May, saying the new so-called 'Duffy Directive' put them in an impossible position. 'The States can either attempt to comply with an unlawful and unconstitutional condition that would surrender their sovereign control over their own law enforcement officers and reduce immigrants' willingness to report crimes and participate in public health programs — or they can forfeit tens of billions of dollars of funds they rely on regularly to support the roads, highways, railways, airways, ferries, and bridges that connect their communities and homes,' the attorneys general wrote in court documents. But acting Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom told the judge that Congress has given the Department of Transportation the legal right to set conditions for the grant money it administers to states, and that requiring compliance and cooperation with federal law enforcement is a reasonable exercise of that discretion. Allowing the federal government to withhold the funds while the lawsuit moves forward doesn't cause any lasting harm, Bloom wrote in court documents, because that money can always be disbursed later if needed.
