Donald Trump Withdraws US From World Health Organization, Bans Birthright Citizenship For Immigrants

President Donald Trump has announced on Monday the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization, a significant move cutting ties with the United Nation’s public health agency on his first day in office.

Trump has long been critical of the WHO, and his administration formally withdrew from the organization in July 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to spread.

The text of the executive order cites the “organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states,” as reasons for the US withdrawal.

“That’s a big one,” Trump told an aide as he began to sign the executive order, pointing to his 2020 decision and his belief that the US was paying too much money to the organization compared to other countries.

The order also says that the WHO “continues to demand unfairly onerous payments” from the US.

President Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Agreement just as his executive order on birthright citizenship prohibits federal agencies from issuing certain documents that would normally be provided to a US citizen.

The order, which applies to children born after 30 days of the measure, applies in circumstances where parents are unlawfully present in the US, and in situations where the mother is temporarily on the US, like on a visa, and the father is a noncitizen.

“It requires the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, as the primary distributors and custodians of citizenship-related identification materials and benefits, to take all appropriate implementation and enforcement steps,” the fact sheet states.

The order hinges on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th amendment. Some immigration hardliners have argued that children of undocumented immigrants are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US and shouldn’t be considered citizens under the Constitution.

Legal experts previously told CNN they were skeptical such an argument would fly in court, arguing that such the relevant language was aimed at children of foreign diplomats who were subject to US laws, and at situations where a foreign nation has invaded and is occupying part of the country.

Trump allies and officials are keenly aware that the action will likely get legally challenged and eventually land before the Supreme Court.

“Something has to kick off the legal battle,” one source previously told CNN.

In one fell swoop, President Donald Trump ended all of the nearly 1,600 cases stemming from the January 6 US Capitol attack.

He signed a proclamation Monday pardoning nearly all 1,270 people convicted in the January 6 attack, directing the Justice Department to drop about 300 pending cases, and ordering the release of a small group of 14 other defendants who were charged in the most serious sedition cases. (Trump misspoke earlier tonight when he said the pardon would cover about 1,500 people.)

These actions go farther than many — including Trump’s own advisers and GOP allies — were expecting. Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson said in recent days that Trump should only pardon nonviolent offenders.

But the proclamation he signed, granting a “full, complete and unconditional pardon,” covers roughly 600 people with felony convictions for assaulting police officers or impeding police during a riot.

That group includes convicted rioters like Julian Khater, who assaulted US Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and later pled guilty to assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon; Devlyn Thompson, who hit a police officer with a metal baton; and Robert Palmer, a Florida man who attacked police with a fire extinguisher, a wooden plank and a pole.

Trump commuted the sentences for 14 of far-right extremists from the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who were convicted or charged with seditious conspiracy. The commutation will pave the way for their imminent release from prison, though the clemency isn’t as far-reaching as a pardon.

The order also directs the US attorney general to dismiss all pending cases, which would cover about 300 cases that are still pending in court.

As he promised Sunday, President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive action that delays enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days.

The action directs the US Justice Department not to enforce the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and was signed in April by former President Joe Biden. The law required that starting January 19, TikTok be banned in the United States unless it sells to a buyer from America or one of its allies.

The law gives the president broad discretion on how to enforce the ban. Trump’s promise in a Truth Social post that he would sign an executive action Monday so that the law will not be enforced served as a sufficient enough pledge that TikTok, which took itself offline for more than 12 hours Saturday night into Sunday, went back online Sunday afternoon.

But TikTok’s ultimate fate in America remains in doubt. It’s unclear that TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, would want to sell to a buyer, even if it were a deal brokered by Trump.

President Donald Trump says he plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin once talks are set up, a process he said was already underway.

After saying as a candidate he could end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, Trump noted he still had half a day to accomplish the goal.

“We’re going to try and get it done as quickly as possible. You know, the war with Ukraine and Russia should have never started,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said earlier Monday that he couldn’t put a timeframe on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine but told reporters that each side would have to concede “something,” as a natural part of resolving any conflict — while also acknowledging Russia as “the aggressor.”

Trump signs order revoking security clearances of former officials who signed Hunter Biden laptop letter

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order Monday revoking the security clearance of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a 2020 letter arguing that emails from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden carried “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Many of the 51 former officials are long retired and no longer hold active clearances — meaning that the move may have limited practical impact on their careers — but the order nevertheless suggests that Trump intends to act on threats he’s made to penalize national security and intelligence professionals whom he deems to be his enemies.

“They should be prosecuted for what they did,” Trump said of the 51 former officials who signed the letter, at a campaign rally in June.

The letter was signed by a number of top former officials from both the Obama and Bush administrations, including former director of national intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, and former acting CIA directors John McLaughlin and Michael Morell.

In the four years since the letter was written, its authors have become a key target for Republican lawmakers and supporters of Trump. GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill have made the origins of the letter a key focus point, calling up a number of signatories to testify behind closed doors and issuing several reports on the matter.