Future Timeline

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump laid out some of his financial priorities on Monday and defended his planned 10% across-the-board tariffs, saying any resulting price increase for families could be offset by tax cuts and calling for his 2017 tax cuts to be extended.

The Republican U.S. presidential candidate, speaking in an interview on CNBC, also called for action on popular U.S. entitlement programs, including cuts, and indicated he was not likely to curb use of cryptocurrencies.

Asked about concerns over increased political polarization on the nation's financial stability, Trump said he was concerned about Fitch's 2023 downgrade but dismissed the credit rating downgrade's ties to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump's comments are his first extended remarks on his economic plans since he became the party's likely nominee following last week's "Super Tuesday" primary elections, setting up a rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden in November.

House Republican leadership appears to be officially backing down from their demand for lawmakers to address border security before any further aid was passed to support Ukraine in its war against a Russian invasion.

The news was made on Thursday at the House Republican retreat, with Speaker Mike Johnson telling reporters that bills to further fund both Ukraine’s defence and Israel’s military effort against Hamas would be brought up separately in the coming weeks. There was no indication that Republicans would continue baulking at the idea of passing either of them without first striking some kind of deal on immigration reform or border security that could pass both chambers of Congress.

In December of last year, Mr Johnson had made that demand explicit, telling the White House in a letter: “[S]upplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws”.

But legislation that would have at least made an effort at reaching that “transformative change” died in the Senate after House Republicans made clear that the bill, a bipartisan compromise hammered out by negotiators from both parties with GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s blessing, was dead on arrival in the lower chamber. The legislation would have allowed President Joe Biden to shut down the US asylum intake system were daily illegal border crossings to pass a certain threshold. Donald Trump’s demand for Republicans to kill the bill to prevent his opponent from scoring a political victory in an election year is widely credited with much of the GOP opposition in the House.

In a major case testing the role of the First Amendment in the internet age, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday hears arguments focused on the federal government's ability to combat what it sees as false, misleading or dangerous information online.

Last September, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative federal appeals court in the U.S., issued a broad ruling that barred key government officials from contacts with social media companies.

Among the personnel targeted in the order were officials at the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI and an important cybersecurity agency.

The appeals court said that individuals at those agencies likely violated the First Amendment by seeking to coerce social media platforms into moderating or changing their content about COVID-19, foreign interference in elections and even Hunter Biden's laptop. The Supreme Court has put that ruling on hold while it examines the tricky issues in the case.