Tesla Shares Drop on $25 Billion AI Spending Plan

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

The Senate funds ICE and Border Patrol, pushing past Democratic calls to reform how immigration enforcement is carried out. Plus, another shakeup of the Pentagon's top brass and the NIMBY movement finds its next target.

Fred Bernstein (0:48)

Americans are hiding lots of stuff in self-storage facilities, but now we have to hide the self-storage facilities.

Luke Vargas (0:55)

It's Thursday, April 23rd. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

We begin in Washington, where senators pulling an all-nighter have pushed forward a budget plan to fund DHS, in spite of Democratic opposition and calls for restrictions on enforcement operations. The bill, which passed by a 50 to 48 margin, will hand ICE and Border Patrol an additional $70 billion and see them funded through the end of Trump's term. The bill now heads to the House.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Navy Secretary John Phelan in the latest shakeup at the Pentagon after Hegseth's dismissal of nearly two dozen military officers and amid an ongoing feud with the Secretary of the Army. Phelan didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Joining me with more is Journal Washington coverage chief Damian Paletta. Damian, we report that Pentagon officials told Congressional aides that Hegseth had fired Phelan because he felt he wasn't moving quickly enough on President Trump's shipbuilding priorities. That priority will now fall on current Navy Undersecretary Hung Kau who's being elevated to Secretary. What do we need to know about all this?

Damian Paletta (2:13)

So in getting rid of the Navy's Secretary, he's getting rid of someone who is in the middle of this Iran conflict, in the middle of this naval blockade that's core to the White House's strategy of trying to pressure Iran. And it's very unusual in the middle of a war to do something like this with someone so senior. The reason that this appeals to President Trump, though, is because part of his whole agenda, his economic agenda, is reviving, and his military agenda quite frequently, is reviving the shipbuilding industry in the United States after really decades of lower output. And the naval secretary who was just fired actually was very plugged in with President Trump. They would meet at Mar-a-Lago and talk quite often. But President Trump believes that the shipbuilding industry needs to be reborn much faster than is happening.

Luke Vargas (2:57)

Damian, it seems telling how big a challenge this could all be of someone like Whalen, who said he regularly texted with Trump in the middle of the night about shipbuilding and was actually the one to pitch him on the idea of new Trump class warships, couldn't get this done.

Damian Paletta (3:10)

Right. Well, it's one thing to be able to talk to President Trump and text him about it. It's another thing to actually build the ships. And so maybe that's what after months and months the president is looking for. President Trump envisions this Trump fleet of naval ships. You know, he has a personal identity now that he wants associated with these ships. But it's very complicated, expensive, and it quite frankly is going to need a lot of cooperation from Congress if they're going to get the kind of output that President Trump is envisioning. And whether the fired naval secretary's successor can pull this off is an open question.

Luke Vargas (3:42)

That was The Journal's Damian Paletta. And a Virginia judge has blocked a new voter approved measure to redraw the state's congressional map, siding with the Republican National Committee, which had contended that the referendum was procedurally invalid. Virginia's attorney general said he would appeal the injunction and look forward to spending the election in court. If upheld, this week's redistricting vote would give a big boost to Democrats' efforts to reclaim the US. House in November.

Meanwhile, the conflict with Iran has entered a damaging new phase that leaves the Strait of Hormuz closed and the prospect of escalation looming. Although President Trump has agreed to an indefinite extension of a ceasefire with Iran, tensions are nevertheless continuing to flare in the vital waterway the US and Iran are now boarding ships and taking control of commercial vessels. Drew Dowell is the Journal's Middle East editor.