Trump’s nominee, conservative Colorado federal judge Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice on Friday after Senate Republicans used the “nuclear option” to lower the threshold from 60 votes to a simple majority. The seat has been vacant since the death of Antonin Scalia over a year ago because Republicans refused to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. [The New York Times]
Twitter has dropped its lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security after the department withdrew a summons request for details about an anonymous Twitter account that has been critical of Donald Trump. [Reuters]
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the billionaire school voucher enthusiast who suggested schools might need guns because of “the grizzlies,” has been assigned a security detail by the US Marshals Service due to concern over her safety. The agency estimate that it will cost the Department of Education $7.8 million through September. [The New York Times]
After two years of legal battles, the Trump Organization has settled a lawsuit with celebrity chef José Andrés, who backed out of a lease to open a restaurant in Trump’s hotel after Trump insulted Mexican immigrants on the campaign trail [The Washington Post]
Ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the National Security Council has proposed several approaches to deal with North Korea’s nuclear program, the scariest of which includes the US planting nukes in South Korea. [NBC]
Former SNL star Taran Killam said that when Trump guest-hosted SNL, Trump “struggled to read at the table read,” adding to the theory that Donald Trump maybe cannot really read….? SNL’s Pete Davidson made similar remarks in 2015 when he said that Trump didn’t “really know how to read” the script. [Brooklyn Magazine]
Here are some tweets that the president was allowed to publish:
