The Latest: Trump called Netanyahu ‘crazy’ and says Israel is complicating peace talks with Iran

President Donald Trump, in an interview released Wednesday, confirmed an earlier report that he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "crazy," and says he's "a little bit perturbed" that Israel's fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon is holding back peace talks with Iran.

The Trump administration is sticking with a deal to permanently drop tax claims against Trump, an extraordinary flex of executive power that could help shield the president from further examination of his finances and legal conduct, even as it scraps a $1.8 billion fund to compensate the Republican president's allies amid a fierce political backlash.

Trump's endorsements helped end the political careers of two senators and a congressman deemed insufficiently loyal, but he couldn't lift Rep. Randy Feenstra to victory in Iowa's Republican primary, setting up a Democratic opportunity to pick up a governorship. See other AP coverage of Tuesday's primary results here.

The Latest:

During the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Thom Tillis asked Bessent about his past reported conflicts with Bill Pulte, the current head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Trump picked Pulte for director of national intelligence.

"Did you actually tell Bill Pulte you were going to punch him in the face?" the North Carolina Republican asked Bessent.

"I actually said I was gonna kick his ass," Bessent said. "That was last summer, the summer of '25."

Tillis has stated he doesn't support Pulte for the intelligence role.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela's transition to democracy is progressing but needs more time to consolidate and advance the reforms it has made since the U.S. ouster of former President Nicolas Maduro in early January.

In response to questions from lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, Rubio stressed that it had only been five months since Maduro had been deposed and that conditions for free and fair elections - including the creation of independent media and political parties - are still works in progress. Rubio did say that Venezuela's oil revenue had increased significantly under U.S. supervision since January.

"It's not where it needs to be, but it is a long ways from where it was five months ago and poses not nearly the threat it once posed to America's national security. We're not satisfied with where it is, but we've come a long way," Rubio said.

Speaker Mike Johnson said he spent three hours at the White House with the president, Vance and Rubio, as Trump is working on "that final piece" to reopen commerce.

"I am, all of us, are calling on our allied nations and friends - the Arab states in the region, and NATO partners and everyone else," the Republican told reporters at the Capitol about the Monday meeting. "The entire world has an interest in the Strait of Hormuz being reopened for commerce. That's what he's working on."

Johnson also defended the president for suggesting the war's unpopularity and the resulting high gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections aren't impacting his decision-making. The speaker said Trump, who fielded phone calls from reporters during the lengthy meeting, is "laser focused" on domestic issues.

In a video posted to his TikTok account, the president offered a history lesson on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, noting that it was built to be a temporary structure for the 1889 World's Fair.

"They said, you know we sort of like it, let's leave it up a little bit longer," he said. "And then they said, let's leave it up longer and longer and longer. Well, they never took it down."

Trump drew a parallel with the UFC octagon being built on the White House's South Lawn for a June 14 bout celebrating America's 250th anniversary.

"You know, we're building something in front of the White House that's quite attractive to a lot of people," Trump said in a video posted on Tuesday. "It's going to have the big UFC fight on June 14. And I'm looking at it, and maybe we'll never ever take it down."

He was asked what Treasury is doing to address sanctions evasion as the Trump administration pressures Iran into accepting a deal to end the war.

"We have seized a substantial amount of crypto assets," Bessent told lawmakers. "We have sanctioned ships, and in fact, the Navy has seized some of these ships, and we are tracking mostly the IRGC funds, and we are freezing those for the day that they can be given back to the Iranian people."

Detailing progress on the wall the Trump administration is building separating the U.S. and Mexico, Mullin said the first layer - referred to as the "primary wall" - will be finished by "this time next year."

On some stretches of the border, Customs and Border Protection is building a secondary wall so that people trying to cross the border would have to go through two layers. That "secondary wall" will be finished by the summer of 2028, he said.

Homeland Security received $46 billion last summer from Congress to finish the wall along the border from San Diego to the Gulf of Mexico. Most of that will be protected by a physical wall, but CBP says 535 miles (860 kilometers) of remote, rugged border terrain will solely rely on detection technology.

CBS News fired Pelley a day after he reportedly said Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was "murdering the show" and accused Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison of casting aside the show's reputation "apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration."

Pelley criticized management Monday during a fiery staff meeting with Nick Bilton, the program's new executive producer installed by Weiss last week, according to a detailed report on the Status website. In a termination notice obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press, Bilton, a technology journalist and filmmaker with no traditional broadcast news experience, accused Pelley of carrying out an "ambush" in a "performative display of hostility."

Pelley said in a statement that "60 Minutes" has lost its DNA and that the new management had asked him to "inject falsehoods and bias" into his work.

About 60 names were on the ballot to succeed Democrat Gavin Newsom as governor. Under California's primary system, all candidates appear on a single ballot and the top two finishers advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

Republican Steve Hilton campaigned with Trump's endorsement, and in the final days of the campaign, Democratic attention focused on Xavier Becerra, a former congressman and state attorney general who was health secretary under President Joe Biden, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire known for his climate activism.

The three have been leading in early returns after polls closed. If Becerra were to advance to one of the two slots on the fall ballot, he presents a natural choice for voters more comfortable with a traditional candidate. Steyer and Hilton have both presented themselves as advocating significant changes.

Democratic Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada pushed Rubio to explain Iran's military capabilities. Trump and others claim American forces have decimated the Islamic Republic's military, and yet ships are still being attacked in the Strait of Hormuz, she said.

"So is the war still on or is the war off?" Titus asked.

Rubio acknowledged that Iran still has small boats with machine guns as well as some drone capabilities. But he said Iran lacks the ability to attack targets with swarms of drones as it once did.

Titus noted that the U.S. military has been using expensive weapons systems to take down the drones. Rubio said "that needs to change."

California Rep. Ted Lieu displayed several clips of what he described as Trump sleeping while Rubio spoke during Cabinet meetings, saying they reflect concerns about the president's health. The short clips show Trump with his eyes closed on several instances during meetings from the last few months.

"I'm going to ask you to come clean with the American people and the White House as well: There's something wrong with Donald Trump's health or cognitive abilities," Lieu said.

In response, Rubio said, "I don't even know how to respond to that other than to tell you that it's absurd and ridiculous."

Mullin was asked about his threat to remove Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in cities that don't typically cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Mullin said he isn't "punishing" places dubbed sanctuary cities by the Trump administration.

But he blamed those cities for "refusing to allow local and state enforcement officers to respond when we called" and said he needs to protect his staff. "If that means I gotta pull them out of Customs and Border Protection from processing international flights, I will," Mullin said.

Mullin did not say when he might implement his threat, which has sparked criticism from the travel industry for its potential to cause chaos just ahead of the World Cup.

In a rare example of a Republican criticizing the Trump administration's deportation program, Rep. Carlos Gimenez urged Mullin to put more emphasis on apprehending violent criminals.

"I think you need to use your discretion a little bit more as to who is being deported, who's being arrested, etc. Let's go after the worst of the worst," said Gimenez, whose South Florida district has a large heavy Cuban population.

Referring to a comment from Democratic Rep. Lou Correa, Gimenez said it's unacceptable that ICE recently failed to take six criminal suspects into custody in Orange County, California.

Mullin said ICE only has 48 hours after defendants are booked into local jails to take them into custody, a difficult deadline if not immediately informed of arrests.

"There's no excuse for it, but we just don't have the resources to get there like we need to," Mullin said.

The power of Trump's endorsement helped end the political careers of Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. But even though Trump jumped into Iowa's Republican primary by backing Rep. Randy Feenstra for governor, GOP voters nominated Zach Lahn instead.

Democrats nominated Rob Sand, whose rural roots are rare among Democrats. Sand also is a proven winner in a Republican-leaning state, having been elected twice as auditor.

Lahn was not well known in Iowa politics when he launched his campaign in November, but he built support among conservatives by championing a total ban on abortion, keeping liberal ideology out of public school classrooms and developing a following with the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, which opposes the Trump administration's embrace of pesticides.

Democrats stunned by how Trump has remade American politics have spent the past decade debating which type of candidate is best positioned to energize voters and win elections, not moral victories.

Iowa marked the latest stop in this sometimes agonizing conversation.

The party's establishment supported Josh Turek, a state representative who presented a compelling personal biography that included competing for the United States in four Paralympics. State Sen. Zach Wahls had offered himself as a more disruptive figure, refusing to back Chuck Schumer of New York as the Senate Democratic leader if he were elected.

Democratic voters united behind Turek, who will face Republican Ashley Hinson in November.

Oil prices are rising Wednesday following the latest flare-up in fighting to threaten the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, and U.S. stocks are stalling near their records.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% from its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 339 points, or 0.7%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower.

Weighing on the market was a climb of 1.1% for the price of a barrel of Brent crude to $97.07. It rose after the U.S. military said Iran fired missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain. The United States said it then struck an Iranian military ground control station on an island in the Strait of Hormuz. Hope seems to be remaining on Wall Street that the United States and Iran will ultimately reopen the strait.

Trump praised the possibility of Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio running as a ticket in the 2028 presidential election.

"They're both very talented," Trump said on the "Pod Force One" podcast. "I like them together. You know, it'd be great. I don't know how you beat them if they're together. That would be a great team."

The president has previously talked up this combination. How Vance and Rubio feel about it is unclear. "They'd have to agree to it, right?" Trump said.

There is still "a long time left" before the 2028 presidential election, Trump cautioned. But he said he observes how his aides and Cabinet officials interact and called the relationship between Vance and Rubio "good."

The Homeland Security secretary said his agency is ready to help protect security at World Cup games across the U.S., but still has "a lot of work to do" ahead of the first game June 12 in Los Angeles.

"I feel very comfortable where we're at, and we feel like we have a zero-fail mission. But it's going to be complicated," Mullin told the House Committee on Homeland Security on Wednesday.

Millions of fans will be coming to the U.S., for the equivalent of "78 Super Bowls in 38 days," he said, and "we have some very complicated countries that are going to be playing each other that have a tremendous amount of dislike against each other."

He credited state and local officials at host sites for their cooperation with federal agencies, and said "I hope when FIFA is over, we can show that we can work together and continue to keep our cities and our streets safe."

The secretary of state says he hopes the latest round of high-level political talks between Israel and Lebanon will result in a joint statement on ending hostilities.

In testimony before lawmakers that started Wednesday shortly after the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the U.S. began meeting at the State Department for a second day of negotiations, Rubio said the aim of the talks is to "produce a joint statement and an action plan on a track for security in that country, independent from Hezbollah, independent from nefarious influence."

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which is not participating in the talks, has become a major sticking point in efforts to end the war in Iran. Wednesday's discussion is the fourth between the two countries and follows a meeting focused on security issues that was held at the Pentagon on Friday.

On the second day of back-to-back Capitol Hill hearings, Rubio was pressed by a senior Democrat on whether he warned Trump about the scope of Iran's response if the U.S. were to strike.

"Did you warn President Trump, before the Iran war began, that this conflict would drive up cost on gas, food, travel and the president? Yes or no?" asked Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"The president and the full administration was aware that there would be consequences to action," Rubio responded. "But the consequences of Iran having a nuclear weapon were worse."

Rubio's comments come despite reporting that Trump and U.S. officials underestimated Iran's retaliation to an attack, including its closure of the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on Gulf countries. The president himself has previously said no one thought Tehran would close the critical waterway.

Wyden questioned Bessent on whether the Trump administration would drop the IRS plan to confer audit immunity on Trump, as part of a settlement agreement to end the president's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

Wyden referred to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's Tuesday testimony to lawmakers that the Trump administration is scrapping plans for a $1.8 billion fund that would have compensated allies of the Republican president.

Wyden asked Bessent: "Does the IRS audit immunity given to Trump, his family, and his businesses still stand?"

"There's continuing litigation and I'm unable to comment on ongoing litigation," Bessent said.