WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick is resigning from Congress rather than be formally disciplined by the House as part of an ethics investigation into her use of campaign funds.

Explaining her decision in an extended social media statement on Tuesday, the Florida Democrat decried the internal investigation process as unfair. She said the House Committee denied her and her new attorney adequate time to prepare a defense.

“Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away,” she wrote.

Members of the House Ethics Committee on Tuesday had been set to weigh what punishment to recommend after they found she committed 25 violations of House rules and ethical standards, including breaking campaign finance laws.

Republicans had already called for the expulsion of Cherfilus-McCormick, who was in her third term and was running for reelection in a southeastern Florida district. She is also facing federal criminal charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in coronavirus disaster relief funds and using the money to buy items such as a 3-carat yellow diamond ring.

Cherfilus-McCormick has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and says she is not guilty of ethics violations, either.

The allegations against the congresswoman center on how she received millions of dollars from her family’s health care business after Florida mistakenly overpaid the business by roughly $5 million with COVID-19 disaster relief funds. She is accused of using that money to fund her 2022 congressional campaign through a network of businesses and family members.

Cherfilus-McCormick declined to testify during a previous Ethics Committee hearing, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Her attorney, William Barzee, sparred with some of the lawmakers and argued that they should have allowed a thorough ethics trial, at which he could present witnesses and evidence to counter the conclusions of House investigators.

A group of supporters in Cherfilus-McCormick’s congressional district had weighed in on her behalf with the lawmakers who lead the Ethics Committee, urging committee leaders to proceed with caution.

“Our communities deserve stability. Our voices deserve to be heard. And our right to representation must be protected,” said one of the letters sent to the committee signed by about a dozen local faith leaders, union officials and others.

In all, the panel’s two-year investigation led to the issuance of 59 subpoenas, 28 witness interviews and a review of more than 33,000 pages of documents.

Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, had said he would move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick once the Ethics Committee made a determination on what punishment it would recommend.

That move could in turn prompt Democrats to seek the expulsion of Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who is the subject of a wide-ranging investigation by the Ethics Committee that includes whether he violated campaign finance laws, misused congressional resources and engaged in sexual misconduct or dating violence. That investigation is ongoing. Mills has denied any wrongdoing.

The focus on lawmaker wrongdoing comes just one week after two lawmakers resigned during ethics investigations into alleged sexual misconduct. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California and Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas headed off possible expulsion votes with their resignations.

House Democratic leaders had declined to condemn Cherfilus-McCormick, saying they wanted to see the ethics process play out. Potential punishments included a reprimand or a censure, which serve as forms of public rebuke. The committee could also have recommended a fine. The most severe form of punishment was expulsion, but the House has historically been reluctant to serve as the final arbiter of a lawmaker’s career, preferring to give that final say to the voters.

Only six members of the House have been expelled. The first three fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and were expelled for disloyalty. The next two had been convicted of crimes. The final one was George Santos, the scandal-plagued freshman who was the subject of a blistering ethics report on his conduct as well as federal indictment. Santos, a New York Republican, served time in prison for ripping off his campaign donors before President Donald Trump granted him clemency, and he has apologized to his former constituents.

Under the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the House has to vote for expulsion for it to occur, a high threshold that requires enormous bipartisan support.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters last week he believes the House will move to expel Cherfilus-McCormick.

“The facts are indisputable at this point, and so I believe it’ll be the consensus of this body that she should be expelled,” Johnson said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are moving this week to try and reopen the Department of Homeland Security and end the longest partial government shutdown in history.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate will hold the first votes Tuesday to move forward with a new workaround to unlock the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. Democrats have blocked money for those agencies since mid-February, demanding policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents.

Republicans are trying to fund the two agencies through a complicated, time-consuming process called budget reconciliation, a maneuver that they also used to pass President Donald Trump’s package of tax and spending cuts last year with no Democratic votes. With months of DHS negotiations stalled and temporary stopgap funding nearly exhausted, Thune said that Republicans “have run out of time to play the Democrats’ games.”

The budget process only requires a simple majority in the Senate, bypassing filibuster rules that require Republicans to find 60 votes on most bills when they only hold 53 seats. But it also comes with increased scrutiny from the Senate parliamentarian and an open-ended series of amendment votes that could potentially alter the bill.

“It’s not my preference, but it is reality,” Thune said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the budget workaround a “partisan sideshow” and said the resolution will pour money into immigration enforcement “without putting any restraints on these rogue agencies’ rampant violence in our streets.”

The Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday released the estimated $70 billion resolution to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years, through the rest of Trump’s term. Thune and other GOP leaders say they hope to keep the bill narrowly focused and pass it by the end of the month.

But that could prove difficult as many in the party see it as the last real chance this year to enact their priorities. Republicans in both the Senate and House have pushed to add other items, including money for farmers and Trump’s proof of citizenship voting bill, called the SAVE America Act.

Republican leaders say they would do a second partisan budget reconciliation bill to deal with some of those issues. But many of their colleagues are skeptical, especially with thin GOP margins in both chambers of Congress and an election approaching.

Senators who have been pushing for more to be included in the original resolution say they are preparing amendments to try and add them on the Senate floor. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said he’ll try to add parts of the SAVE America Act and proposals related to the economy.

“A lot of Americans are very worried about the cost of living and we need to address it,” Kennedy said Monday.

But at a lunch meeting on Tuesday, Republican senators were mostly united around Thune’s plan.

“I think people recognize that we have to act quickly,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. “The more you add the more that slows the process down.”

Democrats say any funding bill should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

“After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, people across the country demanded ICE be reined in,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “But instead of working with Democrats to enact real reform, Republicans rejected the most basic accountability measures, and now they’re rushing to give ICE billions of dollars more.”

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But the DHS funding lapsed with no agreement on changes to his administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

In March, the Senate passed legislation by voice vote that would separate out ICE and Customs and Border Protection and fund the rest of the department, including the Transportation Security Administration as security lines grew long at some airports. But Republicans in the House refused to vote for it, saying they wouldn’t support any bill that didn’t include money for immigration enforcement.

Congress then left town for a two-week recess, leaving the issue unresolved. Trump has used executive orders to pay some department salaries in the meantime, but some of those will soon run out.

During the recess, Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that they would pursue a two-track approach — pass the Senate bill that includes most of the department’s funding through regular order and use the party-line bill to pass ICE and CBP funding.

Johnson has said the House will move on the rest of the funding once the Senate has made progress on the budget resolution. But he has not announced next steps, and it is unclear if members of his GOP conference will unite behind the narrowed bill.

“We’ll figure this out,” Johnson said. “We’ve got lots of discussion today and in the coming days to make sure we can get that through and I think we will.”

___

Associated Press writer Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – A group of 37 Democratic U.S. senators on Tuesday urged the U.S. Postal Service not to comply with a March 31 executive order issued by President Donald Trump tightening rules ‌on mail‑in voting.

The senators, including Gary Peters, Alex Padilla, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Maria Cantwell, said the order illegally seeks to transform USPS “into an election administration agency with the power to determine who can vote by mail and to establish ballot specifications.”

USPS did not immediately comment.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)

By Nolan D. McCaskill

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned on Tuesday, minutes before a congressional committee was set to hold a hearing on her punishment for ethics violations.

Her departure immediately expands Republicans’ narrow majority to 217-213 with an independent who caucuses with Republicans and four vacancies.

In a social media post announcing her resignation, Cherfilus-McCormick slammed the chamber’s ethics review as a “witch hunt,” calling it an unfair process that gave her insufficient time to defend herself.

“I simply cannot stand by and allow my due process rights to be trampled on, and my good name to be tarnished,” Cherfilus-McCormick said. “Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so that I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th district.”

In her resignation letter, Cherfilus-McCormick said it was in the best interest of her and her constituents to step down but that she remained committed to a smooth transition to ensure continuity of service for those in her district.

The Ethics Committee was poised to take up sanctions against Cherfilus-McCormick, who was charged by the Department of Justice with allegedly stealing federal disaster funds. Cherfilus-McCormick has denied wrongdoing.

The hearing lasted less than five minutes.

Two seats for Cherfilus-McCormick and her attorney remained empty as Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican, announced the panel no longer had jurisdiction over the case given Cherfilus-McCormick’s resignation. But he defended the committee’s work, saying the panel investigated “extremely serious” and “complicated” allegations without a rush to judgment.

A congressional subcommittee found “clear and convincing evidence” that Cherfilus-McCormick was guilty of 25 violations related to campaign finance laws and regulations, ethics laws and regulations and House of Representatives rules.

The Department of Justice indicted Cherfilus-McCormick in November, charging her with stealing $5 million in federal disaster funds and using the money to support her congressional campaign. 

The DOJ said Cherfilus-McCormick’s family healthcare company was overpaid $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds in July 2021. Prosecutors alleged Cherfilus-McCormick and others funneled the money through multiple accounts and used them as campaign contributions for her congressional run. 

Cherfilus-McCormick, whose federal trial is set to begin in February, faces up to 53 years in prison, if convicted.

Her resignation comes the week after two lawmakers – Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, and Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican – resigned in disgrace following accusations of sexual misconduct. Another member, Republican Representative Cory Mills of Florida, is also under an ethics investigation for alleged sexual misconduct.

  Asked whether to expect Mills to soon resign, a House Republican leadership aide replied: “These are individual cases and every member will get due process.” 

Guest told reporters after the brief hearing that the investigation into Mills is ongoing. But he said he hopes the rising number of resignations in recent days signal to Americans that Congress will hold its members accountable.

“Members that conduct bad conduct – whatever that conduct may be … those members are going to be held accountable,” Guest said. “This body is willing to expel members who violate the rules and who bring distrust upon this institution.”

(Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill ; Additional reporting by David Morgan and Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Chris, Michael Learmonth and Alistair Bell)

By Michael S. Derby

April 21 (Reuters) – Federal Reserve chief nominee Kevin Warsh came under fire from Democrats in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday over his plans to divest tens of millions of dollars in financial assets if confirmed to lead the U.S. central bank.

“So that there’s no question about my independence, no question about the clarity of my financial record, I agreed to divest virtually all of my financial assets, the large majority of which will be divested” before taking office, Warsh said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

Warsh added that he had gone “above and beyond” what was required on the asset divestment plan for no other reason than that “the Fed needs to re-establish its credibility.”

He was actively challenged by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren about what he plans to sell and how he plans to sell it, a line of questioning that follows the release of financial disclosure documents filed by Warsh that showed massive wealth in a variety of investments, much of which is incompatible with Fed rules that govern what officials can hold.

In response to questions about how these investments would be sold or who might buy them, the 56-year-old lawyer and financier also declined to say what many of his assets were.

Warsh, who served on the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, said he has an agreement with the government to sell assets within 90 days of being sworn into office. He rejected the idea that he had not made his holdings fully public, saying “I’ve shared all information about assets that I control and that I can share,” which met the “satisfaction” of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Warsh noted that selling his holdings comes with challenges. He said that when that process was completed, he would have “virtually no financial assets” and “we’ll be sitting in something like cash.”

Warren, however, questioned him about the divestment plan. “Do we have any way to verify that, in fact, these sales will occur if we have no idea what’s in them?” she asked.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who has said Warsh will not get a confirmation vote until the Trump administration’s criminal probe of Fed Chair Jerome Powell and a central bank renovation project are ended, defended Warsh after another Democratic senator said it appeared the Fed chief nominee would be out of compliance with central bank ethics rules.

“I thought it felt like a cheap shot to say, he’s out of compliance when in fact he’s not,” Tillis said.

Tillis, however, repeated that Warsh’s confirmation would be delayed as long as the probe of Powell was ongoing.

(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Paul Simao)

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON, April 21 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing a series of permitting policies that wind and solar energy industry groups say have stymied the development of new energy generation projects.

Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued a preliminary injunction sought by nine advocacy groups and industry trade associations that argued the administration had imposed unlawful roadblocks that have halted the development of wind and solar energy projects nationwide.

The judge said the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing the U.S. Department of Interior and other agencies adopted a series of unlawful policies that had led to renewable energy developers canceling or delaying numerous wind and solar projects nationwide.

Her ruling applies to members of the plaintiff organizations, which include RENEW Northeast and Alliance for Clean Energy New York.

“This is an undeniable victory for members of our coalition and the broader clean energy industry, as well as American households and businesses,” the groups said in a joint statement.

The Interior Department in a statement said that while it does not comment on litigation, “America sets the global standard for energy production.”

The ruling was the latest in a series of judicial rebukes to the Trump administration’s efforts to block federal approvals for wind energy projects or stop work on multibillion-dollar offshore wind farms under construction on the East Coast.

The Republican president has sought to boost government support for fossil fuels and maximize their output in the United States, the world’s top oil and gas producer, after campaigning for the presidency on the refrain of “drill, baby, drill.”

Trump on Monday invoked the Defense ​Production Act as he signed ‌a series of energy-related presidential memorandums aimed at further boosting production of oil, coal and natural gas, citing the need for “defense readiness.”

Groups supporting wind and solar power sued in December, seeking to block government actions they said placed wind and solar technologies into what one of their lawyers described as a “regulatory second-class status.”

Those actions included a policy the Interior Department adopted in a July memorandum that requires nearly every step in the wind and solar permitting process to receive approval from three senior political appointees, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

The memorandum cited directives and orders Trump had signed aimed at blocking offshore wind development and directing the Interior Department to eliminate “preferences” for “expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar.”

The plaintiffs argued the policy created a bottleneck that ground permitting to a halt and was adopted without any explanation for why it was needed, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Casper, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed, saying none of the directives the department cited explained or justified the three-tiered review process.

She also blocked policies the plaintiffs said disfavor energy projects that are “capacity dense,” as wind and solar ones would be deemed, and the Interior Department’s adoption of an interpretation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that imposes stricter standards for offshore wind projects. 

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, David Gaffen, Bill Berkrot and Deepa Babington)

By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers on Tuesday that he was not under instructions from the White House to stop publicly bringing up vaccines or other controversial positions ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Kennedy, appearing in his fourth Congressional hearing this week, again highlighted nutrition and food safety in his opening statement but omitted mention of his efforts to overhaul nationwide vaccination ‌policy or his work to identify the causes of autism.

“Yes or no. Did Susie Wiles, or anyone in the White House instruct you or suggest that you stop talking about your controversial vaccine skepticism,” asked Representative Marc Veasey, referring to President Donald Trump’s chief of staff. Kennedy’s response was a curt “no.”

Veasey, a Democrat from Texas, asked if Kennedy had seen a Trump administration internal memo referencing polling showing his anti-vaccine rhetoric was unpopular with voters. Kennedy said he had not.

Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month that the White House recently urged health officials to redirect policy discussions toward more popular topics, as Trump and his Republican Party seek to shore up support for their slim majorities in ​Congress.

Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, faced a setback last month, when a court ruling derailed key elements of his efforts to rewrite U.S. vaccine policy and revamp a CDC advisory ​panel on immunizations.

Separately, close Kennedy ally and White House food policy adviser Calley Means also denied on Tuesday that the secretary and his allies have been instructed to stop bringing up vaccines.

“I think that these are just ongoing conversations about where to prioritize on what’s leading to a problem in American healthcare,” Means said during an appearance at the Politico Health Care Summit in Washington. “We’re not apologizing for what’s happened on vaccines.”

Kennedy also said on Tuesday that he had vetted Erica Schwartz’s position on vaccines before she was nominated to run the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kennedy, testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee, said he had not spoken to Trump directly before the president nominated Schwartz.

Trump said on Thursday he would nominate Schwartz to be the next CDC director following multiple leadership shakeups at the health agency. She had served as deputy surgeon general during the ‌COVID-19 pandemic in Trump’s first administration. 

Her nomination represents a far more traditional pick, as the White House seeks to focus on more popular issues such as lowering drug prices and ​food safety, rather than Kennedy’s controversial vaccine policies, with control of Congress up for grabs in November.

Kennedy said on Tuesday that his agency had sent Schwartz’s name up to the White House.

He also said he is reforming the U.S. Preventive ‌Services Task Force, the advisory panel that decides access to ​free preventive healthcare that last met over a year ago. His Department of Health and Human Services will be putting a notification in the Federal Register this week soliciting new members of the task force, Kennedy said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Michael Erman and Chris Prentice in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republicans will move forward this week on a budget blueprint that would boost funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agencies for the next three years, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Tuesday.

Thune’s comments come as the Republican-controlled Congress aims to end a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. 

“The budget resolution before us this week will unlock funding for law enforcement border security at DHS for the next three years,” Thune said in a speech to the Senate.

An additional $70 billion sketched out in the budget plan for DHS would be available at least through the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office on January 20, 2029.

It was unclear whether the legislation, as it moved through various committees, ultimately would contain cost-savings in other programs or the $70 billion would add to federal budget deficits.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer attacked the legislation, saying it would “pour” money into “ICE and Border Patrol without putting any restraints on these rogue agencies’ rampant violence in our streets.”

Trump has surged ICE and Border Patrol agents into big cities, amid protests and violent encounters with residents.

Two U.S. citizens were shot dead early this year in Minneapolis by agents.

Democrats have been pushing for a series of new constraints on ICE and Border Patrol, which operate under the direction of DHS, before signing off on any additional funds for them. They have argued that ICE and Border Patrol should be subject to the same operational rules as police forces across the United States, including a requirement that judicial warrants be obtained before agents can enter private homes.

Negotiations over several weeks between Republicans and Democrats on such changes did not bear fruit, causing partial shutdowns of some DHS agencies.

Now, Republicans have opted to end the deadlock and ram the new funding through the Senate using a rarely used procedure that allows some budget-related legislation to bypass Democratic opposition.

Most bills need a supermajority of at least 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to advance to passage. Republicans currently control the Senate with a 53-47 majority.

If this non-binding budget blueprint passes the Senate and House of Representatives, committees will fill in the details on how the $70 billion would be spent in separate legislation that Trump would have to sign into law before it becomes effective.

 Most of DHS shut down in mid-February with negotiations over Democratic demands for ICE reforms deadlocked. The Senate has since passed legislation to fund DHS operations other than ICE and CBP. But the measure has stalled in the House, where hardline Republicans have demanded funding for ICE and Border Patrol as well.

Since then, Trump signed an emergency order to temporarily pay ICE and Border Patrol salaries. Last year Republicans passed legislation providing around $130 billion in funding for these two agencies, separate from their annual appropriations and the $70 billion now being advanced in Congress.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Doina Chiacu, William Maclean and Andrea Ricci )

By Mike Stone

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – The Pentagon on Tuesday unveiled more details of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027, by far the largest year-over-year increase in defense spending in the post-World War Two era.

In a new wrinkle, the Pentagon has created a category it is calling “presidential priorities,” covering Golden Dome missile defense, drone dominance, artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, and the defense industrial base, Pentagon officials told reporters.

Last year, Trump asked Congress for a national defense budget of $892.6 billion then added $150 billion through a supplemental budget request, sending the total price ​tag over $1 trillion for the first time in history.

On shipbuilding, the budget includes over $65 billion to procure 18 warships and 16 support ships made by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries as part of what the Pentagon is calling the “Golden Fleet” initiative, the largest shipbuilding request since 1962, the officials said.

The budget ramps up Lockheed Martin F-35 procurement to 85 aircraft per year and includes $102 billion for aircraft procurement and research and development, a 26% increase over the prior year, the officials said. Development of next-generation systems like the Boeing Co F-47 fighter jet is also a priority, while $6.1 billion is requested for Northrop Grumman’s B-21 bomber.

On drones, senior officials described the request as the largest investment in drone warfare and counter-drone technology in U.S. history. The budget requests $53.6 billion for autonomous drone platforms and warzone logistics, along with $21 billion for munitions, counter-drone technologies and advanced systems.

The Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, which previously received roughly $225 million, would see its funding balloon to approximately $54 billion. Senior officials said the vast bulk of that money is aimed at applying technology that exists today, not long-range basic research, and confirmed the group has effectively absorbed the Pentagon’s earlier Replicator drone initiative.

The budget proposes multi-year procurement contracts for more munitions programs, arguing longer contracts give both large defense firms and their small and medium-sized suppliers the stability needed to expand production.

The request includes a pay raise weighted toward junior enlisted troops, getting a 7% increase, 6% for their superiors and 5% for the top ranks. The budget also proposes expanding the force by 44,000 additional service members in fiscal 2027, following the addition of more than 20,000 in fiscal 2026.

Notably, the budget does not include funding for the conflict with Iran. A senior Pentagon official said the timing of the appropriations process means a supplemental budget request will likely be needed to address near-term operational costs and replenishment needs arising from the conflict.

The Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion total is split between a $1.15 trillion funding request, and a $350 billion supplemental budget request – requiring the passage of a reconciliation bill akin to a format used last year.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, William Maclean)

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday Anthropic was “shaping up” in the eyes of his administration, opening the door for the AI company to reverse its blacklisting at the Pentagon.

 Trump directed the government in February to stop working with Anthropic. The Pentagon followed up by declaring the firm a supply-chain risk, dealing a major blow to the artificial intelligence lab after a showdown over guardrails for how the military could use its AI tools. 

The company disputes that it poses a risk and filed suit against the Defense Department in March over the determination.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last Friday to attempt to repair the relationship. The White House called the meeting productive and constructive.

“They came to the White House a few days ago, and we had some very good talks with them,” Trump told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “And I think they’re shaping up. They’re very smart, and I think they can be of great use. I like smart people … I think we’ll get along with them just fine.”

When asked if a deal was on the horizon with the Pentagon, Trump said, “It’s possible. We want the smartest people.”

Anthropic, asked for comment, referred to its Friday statement describing its White House meeting as productive and focused on how the two “can work together on key shared priorities such as cybersecurity, America’s lead in the AI race, and AI safety.”

The remarks from Trump are the clearest sign yet of a rapprochement between his administration and Anthropic, whose Claude models are highly regarded for coding.

It comes just weeks after Anthropic unveiled Mythos, its most advanced AI tool, with a potentially unprecedented ability to identify cybersecurity ​vulnerabilities ⁠and devise ways to exploit them, experts have said.

Anthropic has said Claude Mythos Preview will not be made generally available. Instead, the company ​announced Project Glasswing, in which it invited major tech companies, cybersecurity vendors and U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase, along with several dozen other organizations, to privately evaluate the model and prepare defenses accordingly.

Anthropic Co-founder Jack Clark said last week the firm was discussing its frontier AI model Mythos with the Trump administration without providing details.

Anthropic, which Republican Trump still characterized as employing “the radical left,” in his Tuesday comments, ran afoul of the Trump administration after it sought assurances from the Pentagon that its AI tools would not be used to surveil Americans or operate autonomous weapons.

The Pentagon’s ban on Anthropic forbade Defense Department employees and private sector contractors from using the company’s AI tools after a six month period, though the rule contained important exemptions for national security, Reuters reported.

A Washington, D.C., federal appeals court earlier this month declined to block the Pentagon’s national security blacklisting of AI ‌company Anthropic for now, a win for the Trump administration that came after another appeals court came to the opposite conclusion in a separate legal challenge by Anthropic.

(Reporting by Jacob Bogage and Alexandra Alper; Editing by David Ljunggren, Rod Nickel and Nick Zieminski)