عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

Donald Trump Endorses Jim Jordan to Succeed Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a Manhattan courthouse, where he attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, in New York City, US, October 3, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz REFILE
Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a Manhattan courthouse, where he attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, in New York City, US, October 3, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz REFILE
TT
TT

Donald Trump Endorses Jim Jordan to Succeed Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker

Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a Manhattan courthouse, where he attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, in New York City, US, October 3, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz REFILE
Former US President Donald Trump speaks at a Manhattan courthouse, where he attends the trial of himself, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James, in New York City, US, October 3, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz REFILE

Former President Donald Trump is officially backing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious House Judiciary Committee chairman and longtime Trump defender, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.
“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after midnight Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
The announcement came hours after Texas Rep. Troy Nehls said Thursday night that Trump had decided to back Jordan's bid and after Trump said he would be open to serving as interim leader himself if Republicans couldn't settle on a successor following McCarthy’s stunning ouster, The Associated Press said.
Trump, the current GOP presidential front-runner, has used the leadership vacuum on the Hill to further demonstrate his control over the Republican Party. House Republicans are deeply fractured and some have been asking him to lead them — a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he also promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out McCarthy as speaker.
Trump had been telling people in recent days that he preferred Jordan for the post, according to two Republicans familiar with his thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it. But it was unclear whether he intended to announce it before Nehls' tweet.
“Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Nehls wrote late Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In an interview later with The Associated Press, Nehls, who had been encouraging Trump to run for the post himself, said the ex-president instead wanted Jordan.
“After him thinking about it and this and that ... he said he really is in favor of getting behind Jim Jordan," Nehls said. “He believes Jim Jordan is right for the job."
Jordan is one of two leading candidates maneuvering for speaker along with Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both are trying to lock in the 218 votes required to win the job and need the support of both the far-right and moderate factions of the party. It’s unclear whether Trump's endorsement will force Scalise, the current GOP majority leader, out of the race, or if either can reach the threshold.
Indeed, Nehls said that if no current candidate succeeds in earning the support needed to win, he would once again turn to Trump. “Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get to 218,” he said in the interview.
Trump earlier in the day had been in talks to visit Capitol Hill next week ahead of a speakership vote that could happen as soon as Wednesday, according to three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement. Trump confirmed the trip to Fox News Digital and said he would travel Tuesday to meet with Republicans.
The trip would have been Trump’s first to the Capitol since leaving office and since his supporters attacked the building in a bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has been indicted in both Washington and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.
Nehls, however, said it was unlikely Trump would make the trip following the endorsement.
Jordan is one of Trump’s biggest champions on the Hill and has been leading the investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former president. He was also part of a group of Republicans who worked with Trump to overturn his defeat ahead of Jan. 6.
Scalise has also worked closely with Trump over the years.
One of the people familiar with the planning had cautioned earlier Thursday that, if Trump did go ahead with the visit, he would be there to talk with Republican lawmakers and not to pitch himself for the role.
Still, Trump continued to stoke speculation, telling Fox News Digital Thursday that he would accept a short-term role as speaker — for anywhere from 30 to 90 days — if another candidate doesn’t have the votes to win.
“I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he told the outlet. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the speakership until they get somebody longer-term, because I am running for president.”
In a social media post earlier in the day, he added that he “will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made - A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Republican conference is filled with members generally supportive of Trump, but whether they’d back him to serve as speaker remained to be seen. The role is a demanding position — effectively running the Capitol and dealing with hundreds of lawmakers — and requires an attention to the arcane details of legislating that Trump showed little interest in even when he was president.
While he is dominating his GOP presidential rivals, Trump is also still traveling to early primary states to campaign and has been spending much of his time focused on the four criminal indictments and several civil cases he is facing.
While there is no requirement that a person be elected to the House to serve as speaker, every one of the 55 speakers the House has elected has been a member of the chamber. From time to time, lawmakers have thrown their votes to those outside of Congress, often as a protest against the candidates running.
Trump helped McCarthy win the speakership in January after 15 rounds of voting. But he exhorted Republicans to impeach Biden and to reject deals that McCarthy negotiated. Last month, he urged the right flank to support a government shutdown if Republicans did not win deep spending cuts, declaring on social media that the GOP “lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”
McCarthy ultimately moved to keep the government open for 45 days without the cuts demanded by hard-right conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and longtime Trump ally, cited that decision as reason to move to depose the speaker.
Among those who had pushed Trump for speaker was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump ally who didn’t vote to remove McCarthy. She posted on X that she believed “he would take the job.”
Nehls, the Texas Republican who was among the first to promote Trump for the job, said before his Thursday evening conservation with Trump that he’d been contacted “by multiple Members of Congress willing to support and offer nomination speeches for Donald J. Trump to be Speaker of the House.”
“Next week,” he wrote on X, “is going to be HUGE.”

Most Viewed

 
 
World

Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
TT
TT

Washington Post Publisher Will Lewis Stepping Down Days after Big Layoffs

A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
A person walks outside The Washington Post headquarters in Washington, DC, USA, 04 February 2026. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

Washington Post publisher Will Lewis said Saturday that he’s stepping down, ending a troubled tenure three days after the newspaper said that it was laying off one-third of its staff.

Lewis announced his departure in a two-paragraph email to the newspaper's staff, saying that after two years of transformation, “now is the right time for me to step aside.” The Post's chief financial officer, Jeff D'Onofrio, was appointed temporary publisher, The Associated Press reported.

Neither Lewis nor the newspaper's billionaire owner Jeff Bezos participated in the meeting with staff members announcing the layoffs on Wednesday. While anticipated, the cutbacks were deeper than expected, resulting in the shutdown of the Post's renowned sports section, the elimination of its photography staff and sharp reductions in personnel responsible for coverage of metropolitan Washington and overseas.

They came on top of widespread talent defections in recent years at the newspaper, which lost tens of thousands of subscribers following Bezos' order late in the 2024 presidential campaign pulling back from a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, and a subsequent reorienting of its opinion section in a more conservative direction.

Martin Baron, the Post’s first editor under Bezos, condemned his former boss this week for attempting to curry favor with President Donald Trump and called what has happened at the newspaper “a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.”

The British-born Lewis was a former top executive at The Wall Street Journal before taking over at The Post in January 2024. His tenure has been rocky from the start, marked by layoffs and a failed reorganization plan that led to the departure of former top editor Sally Buzbee.

His initial choice to take over for Buzbee, Robert Winnett, withdrew from the job after ethical questions were raised about both he and Lewis' actions while working in England. They include paying for information that produced major stories, actions that would be considered unethical in American journalism. The current executive editor, Matt Murray, took over shortly thereafter.

Lewis didn't endear himself to Washington Post journalists with blunt talk about their work, at one point saying in a staff meeting that they needed to make changes because not enough people were reading their work.

This week's layoffs have led to some calls for Bezos to either increase his investment in The Post or sell it to someone who will take a more active role. Lewis, in his note, praised Bezos: “The institution could not have had a better owner,” he said.

“During my tenure, difficult decisions have been taken in order to ensure the sustainable future of The Post so it can for many years ahead publish high-quality nonpartisan news to millions of customers each day,” Lewis said.

The Washington Post Guild, the union representing staff members, called Lewis' exit long overdue.

“His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution,” the Guild said in a statement. “But it’s not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.”

Bezos did not mention Lewis in a statement saying D'Onofrio and his team are positioned to lead The Post into “an exciting and thriving next chapter.”

“The Post has an essential journalistic mission and an extraordinary opportunity,” Bezos said. “Each and every day our readers give us a roadmap to success. The data tells us what is valuable and where to focus.”

D'Onofrio, who joined the paper last June after jobs at the digital ad management company Raptive, Google, Zagat and Major League Baseball, said in a note to staff that "we are ending a hard week of change with more change.

“This is a challenging time across all media organizations, and The Post is unfortunately no exception,” he wrote. “I've had the privilege of helping chart the course of disrupters and cultural stalwarts alike. All faced economic headwinds in changing industry landscapes, and we rose to meet those moments. I have no doubt we will do just that, together.”

World

US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
TT
TT

US Concerned About Expansion of Terrorism in Sahel, West Africa

Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)
Members of the Nigeria Armed Forces interact with residents following an attack in Woro, Kwara State, on February 5, 2026. (Photo by Light Oriye Tamunotonye / AFP)

The United States is concerned by the “expansion” of al-Qaeda affiliates in the Sahel and West Africa, including Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz shared the concern in his remarks at this week’s UN Security Council Briefing on Terrorist Threats to International Peace and Security caused by terrorist acts.

Highlighting JNIM and ISIS-Sahel’s territorial gains and use in particular of kidnapping for ransom, Waltz said the threats are increasingly diffuse and complex as they involve foreign fighters converging in multiple conflict zones.

The diplomat cited the latest Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report, which showed that terror cells continue to adapt and exploit instability across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Waltz said ISIS’ growing focus on Africa, and the resilience of its cells in Syria and Iraq, and the persistent threat from ISIS-K in Afghanistan, truly reinforces the need for sustained, coordinated counterterrorism efforts.

Washington is particularly concerned by terrorist groups’ exploitation of new technologies, such as commercial satellite communications, artificial intelligence, drones and cryptocurrencies, he said.

“All of these further complicates the threat landscape and it requires our vigilance, vigilance from Member States and particularly where I think there is room for all of us to improve – is our coordination with the private sector as we face this threat,” Waltz added.

The ambassador called for further disruption of terrorist financing networks, saying the recent successes in Somalia and in West Africa demonstrate that following the money and stopping the money to these various groups can have bold decisive effects.

He said the US commends UN Member States whose counterterrorism operations have constrained ISIS and al-Qaeda, especially in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia.

He also urged all states to strengthen cooperation, including intelligence sharing and joint operations, and to support the effective implementation and evolution of the 1267 sanctions regime.

“Member States should collaborate on screening and information sharing to prevent terrorist movement across borders, in support of UN Security Council Resolution 2396,” Waltz noted.

Last November, the United Kingdom, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, expressed similar concern about the proliferation of terrorist groups in the Sahel and West Africa.

The US has sent a small team of troops to Nigeria, the general in charge of the US command for Africa said on Tuesday, the first acknowledgment of US forces on the ground since Washington struck by air on Christmas Day.

General Dagvin RM Anderson, head of the US military's Africa Command AFRICOM, said the US team was sent after both countries agreed that more needed to be done to combat the terrorist threat in West Africa.

“That has led to increased collaboration between our nations to include a small US team that brings some unique capabilities from the United States,” he told journalists during a press briefing in Dakar on Tuesday.

World

Kim Expected to Issue Major Policy Goals at NKorea Party Congress

This picture taken on February 1, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on February 2, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the inauguration ceremony of the Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm in North Pyongan Province, North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 1, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on February 2, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the inauguration ceremony of the Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm in North Pyongan Province, North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
TT
TT

Kim Expected to Issue Major Policy Goals at NKorea Party Congress

This picture taken on February 1, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on February 2, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the inauguration ceremony of the Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm in North Pyongan Province, North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on February 1, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on February 2, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attending the inauguration ceremony of the Sinuiju Combined Greenhouse Farm in North Pyongan Province, North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korea will convene a major political conference later this month, the country’s state media said Sunday, where leader Kim Jong Un is expected to outline his domestic and foreign policies for the next five years.

The ruling Workers’ Party congress, which Kim previously held in 2016 and 2021, comes after years of accelerated nuclear and missile development and deepening ties with Moscow over the war in Ukraine that have increased his standoffs with the United States and South Korea.

According to The Associated Press, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the party’s political bureau met under Kim's supervision and decided the congress would be held in late February. State media did not immediately specify a date or release agenda details.

The congress will likely continue for days as a highly choreographed display of Kim’s authoritarian leadership. In recent weeks, Kim has inspected weapons tests and toured military sites and economic projects as state media highlighted his purported achievements, crediting his “immortal leadership” with strengthening the country’s military capabilities and advancing national development.

His recent activities and comments suggest Kim will use the congress to double down on economic development through “self-sustenance” and mass mobilization while announcing plans to further expand the capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, including upgrading conventional weapons systems and integrating them with nuclear forces.

Kim also could highlight his increasingly assertive foreign policy based on closer ties with Moscow and Beijing while hardening an adversarial approach toward rival South Korea as he continues to embrace the idea of a “new Cold War,” experts say.

Kim's willingness to resume diplomacy with the US is unclear. Relations derailed in 2019 after his second summit with US President Donald Trump due to disagreements over sanctions against his nuclear weapons program.

Kim has rejected Trump’s overtures for dialogue since the US president began his second term in January 2025. Kim insists Washington abandon demands for the North to surrender its nuclear weapons as a precondition for future talks.

Entering his 15th year in rule, Kim finds himself in a stronger position than when he opened the previous congress in 2021 during the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. Navigating what was seen as his toughest stretch in a decade of power, Kim acknowledged his previous economic policies failed and issued a new five-year development plan through 2025.

He called for accelerated development of his nuclear arsenal and issued an extensive wish list of sophisticated assets including solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, multi-warhead systems, tactical nuclear weapons, spy satellites and nuclear-powered submarines.

Kim has exploited geopolitical turmoil to his advantage. He used Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a window to accelerate weapons testing and align himself with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has accepted thousands of North Korean troops and large quantities of military equipment for the war.

Kim also has pursued closer ties with China, traditionally the North’s primary ally and economic lifeline. He traveled to Beijing in September for a World War II event and the first summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in six years.

While Kim’s strict information blockade prevents precise assessments, South Korean analysts say the North's economy appears to have improved over the past five years, possibly due to a gradual recovery in trade with China and an industrial boost from arms exports to Russia.