A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to pay at least a portion of the nearly $2 billion in owed foreign aid for previously completed projects by 6 p.m. Monday, an expeditious ruling that comes just one day after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s request to continue its freeze.

The decision from U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali came after a more than four-hour court hearing Thursday, where he grilled both parties on their proposed repayment plans, and a timeframe for the government to comply with the $1.9 billion in owed foreign aid that has been completed.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Ali ordered the government to pay at least a portion of the $1.9 billion by Monday at 6 p.m.

‘I think it’s reasonable to get the plaintiffs’ invoices paid by 6 p.m. on Monday,’ said Judge Ali. ‘What I’ll order today is the first concrete step that plaintiffs have their invoices paid … [and] work completed prior to Feb. 13 to be paid by 6 p.m. on Monday, March 10th.’

That order previously set a deadline of Feb. 26 at 11:59 p.m. for the Trump administration to pay its outstanding debt to foreign aid groups.

The Justice Department had argued that the timeline was ‘impossible’ to comply with— a notion seemingly rejected by Judge Ali during Thursday’s hearing.

At one point, an attorney for the Justice Department asked for more time to get the payments out, citing the potential difficulty of getting financial transactions approved or completed over the weekend. In response, Judge Ali noted that the government had successfully paid out more than $70 million in the hours between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, noting that this ‘ought to be possible’ as well.

Judge Ali stressed during the Thursday hearing that the Feb. 26 deadline he previously set for the government to pay the $1.9 billion in foreign aid had passed.

Now, he said, the job given to him by the Supreme Court is to clarify the government’s role in repayment— instructions, he noted, that he tends to take ‘very seriously.’

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision one day earlier remanded the case back to the D.C. federal court, and Judge Ali , o hash out the specifics of what must be paid, and when. Judge Ali moved quickly following the high court’s decision, ordering both parties back to court Thursday to weigh plausible repayment schedules. 

But the early hours of Thursday’s hearing focused more on the government’s role and review of all foreign aid contractors and grants, which Trump administration lawyers told Judge Ali they had already completed and made final decisions for.

Stephen Wirth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, objected to the administration’s ‘breakneck’ review of the contracts and grants, arguing that they ‘had one objective— to terminate as many contracts as possible.’

Lawyers were also pressed over whether the Trump administration can legally move to terminate projects whose funds are allocated and appropriated by Congress. 

This could eventually kick the issue back up to the Supreme Court.

At issue in the case was how quickly the Trump administration needed to pay the nearly $2 billion owed to aid groups and contractors for completed projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at a time when the administration has issued a blanket freeze on all foreign spending in the name of government ‘efficiency’ and eliminating waste.

President Donald Trump has stated plans to cut some 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts and to slash an additional $60 billion in foreign aid spending.

In a Supreme Court filing, acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris said that while the plaintiffs’ claims were likely ‘legitimate,’ the time Judge Ali gave them to pay the outstanding invoices was ‘not logistically or technically feasible.’

Plaintiffs have argued that the lower court judge had ordered the Trump administration to begin making the owed foreign aid payments more than two weeks ago — a deadline they said the government simply failed to meet, or to even take steps to meet — indicating that the administration had no plans to make good on fulfilling that request.

President Trump on Thursday exempted most goods from Canada and Mexico covered under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) from his 25% tariffs for the next month.

The tariffs went into effect earlier this week and will now be reinstated April 2. 

On Tuesday, Trump imposed the 25% tariffs on the United States’ largest trading partners. 

‘If you are the administration and are trying to achieve — the outcomes they are trying to achieve, refused fentanyl, lower border crossings — these are a tool in the arsenal,’ Dan Greenhouse of Solus Alternative Asset Management told Fox News Thursday. 

Doug Holtz-Eakin, the president of the American Action Forum, didn’t agree. 

He told Fox News, ‘In the end, we’ve got taxes on American consumers and businesses. Those taxes are substantial. I think people underappreciate that this round taken at face value would be roughly four times larger than anything he did in his first presidency. The impacts would be substantial.’

Holtz-Eakin said it would add to inflation and slow economic growth.

‘Those are not things that the American people want,’ he said.  

Canada said earlier this week it will issue 25% retaliatory tariffs. 

A Canadian source told Reuters the country wouldn’t respond until it had seen the entirety of Trump’s amended tariff order. 

Trump announced the tariffs on his first day in office in January after declaring fentanyl deaths a national emergency. He said the drug makes its way from China to the U.S. via Mexican and Canadian imports. 

‘I can confirm that we will continue to be in a trade war that was launched by the United States for the foreseeable future,’ Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who will step down Sunday, told reporters Thursday. 

Trump has also imposed a 20% tariff on all Chinese goods. 

Trump had mentioned an exemption for Mexico earlier Thursday, but the new amendment also covers Canada. 

‘After speaking with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, I have agreed that Mexico will not be required to pay Tariffs on anything that falls under the USMCA Agreement,’ Trump wrote Thursday before including Canada in the exemption.

‘This Agreement is until April 2nd. I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum. Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl. Thank you to President Sheinbaum for your hard work and cooperation!’ 

Reuters contributed to this report. 

Two moderate Democrats who voted against censuring Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, suggested they did not believe Congress should be focused on such matters.

Ten Democratic lawmakers broke from their party to vote on a House GOP-led resolution to formally admonish Green for protesting during President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. 

The majority of those 10 are considered frontline Democrats in more moderate districts, while others, like Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., are generally known to cross the aisle and work with Republicans.

Fox News Digital reached out to nine other Democrats representing moderate areas, who were part of the 198 total who opposed censuring Green.

Of those, just two – Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Josh Riley, D-N.Y. – offered responses.

‘In today’s environment, censure tends only to give a greater platform to the censured legislator. So I tend to lean in favor of free speech unless a clear red line is crossed,’ Golden told Fox News Digital.

The Maine Democrat’s written statement also included a link to a reference of his vote in favor of censuring ‘Squad’ member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over her anti-Israel comments.

He did, however, offer criticism for Green’s interruption of Trump’s speech.

‘I voted against censuring Rep. Green because I don’t believe he crossed that line – and I don’t believe it’s in the House’s interest to draw even greater attention to his misguided behavior,’ Golden explained.

Riley’s statement did not remark directly on Green but more broadly dismissed attention-seekers in Washington.

‘Upstate New Yorkers sent me to Congress to lower costs, create jobs, and ensure they get a fair shot. I wish we’d spent this morning focused on that instead of the drama and political theater in Washington,’ the first-term House Democrat said.

Riley won his seat in November by unseating former Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., in a district that spans much of central New York state.

Green was censured in a 224 to 198 vote on Thursday morning after repeatedly disrupting the beginning of Trump’s primetime speech.

He shouted, ‘You have no mandate!’ at Trump and shook his cane in the air as the president touted Republican victories in the House, Senate and White House. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., after giving a warning, had Green removed from the chamber.

The 77-year-old Democrat was unrepentant, posting on X on Thursday afternoon, ‘Today, the House GOP censured me for speaking out for the American people against [Trump’s] plan to cut Medicaid. I accept the consequences of my actions, but I refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice.’

The 10 Democrats who voted to censure Green are Reps. Ami Bera, D-Calif.; Ed Case, D-Hawaii; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; Laura Gillen, D-N.Y.; Jim Himes, D-Conn.; Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.; Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio; Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.; and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.

Green himself voted ‘present,’ as did first-term Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Ala.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would rescind security clearances and access to certain federal resources for Perkins Coie. It’s the law firm that hired the company responsible for crafting the so-called ‘Steele dossier’ containing salacious material about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia, which the president has denied. 

‘This is an absolute honor to sign,’ Trump told reporters Thursday. ‘What they’ve done, it’s just terrible. It’s weaponization. You could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again.’ 

Specifically, the executive order suspends security clearances for Perkins Coie employees until a further review evaluating its access to sensitive information is complete to determine if it aligns with the national interest. 

Additionally, the order cuts off access to sensitive information facilities for Perkins Coie employees and will limit the company’s access to government employees. The order also the federal government from hiring Perkins Coie employees without specific authorization. 

Likewise, the federal government is prohibited from hiring contractors that use the law firm.

The international law firm represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 election and former President Joe Biden after Trump challenged Biden’s win in the 2020 election.

Perkins Coie first came under scrutiny after Marc Elias, the former chair of the firm’s political law practice, hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research into presidential candidate Trump in April 2016 on behalf of Trump’s opponent, Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.

Fusion GPS then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who composed the so-called ‘Steele dossier.’ The document included scandalous and mostly unverified allegations, including details that Trump engaged in sex acts with Russian prostitutes.  

Trump repeatedly denied allegations included in the dossier and filed a lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence, a company Steele co-founded. Trump’s legal team claimed he ‘suffered personal and reputational damage and distress’ as a result of the dossier, but a judge in London pitched the lawsuit in February 2024. 

The dossier first became public in 2017 when BuzzFeed News published it. The Justice Department’s inspector general lambasted the agency and the FBI in 2019 for using the document to make a case in securing surveillance applications against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page as part of the agency’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Still, the inspector general determined that no political bias motivated the surveillance of Page or the launching of Russia investigations. 

Requests for comment by Perkins Coie were not immediately answered. 

Hamas’ treatment of the hostages it has been holding in captivity in the Gaza Strip is ‘intolerable,’ U.S. envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said Thursday, warning that ‘it’s not going to be tolerated by President Trump.’ 

Witkoff spoke outside the White House a day after President Donald Trump met with eight former hostages in Washington and posted what he called a ‘last warning’ to Hamas on his Truth Social platform. 

‘We’re not going to sit here, do nothing and tolerate this kind of inhumane conditions,’ Witkoff said. ‘They lived in a terrible situation. By the way, who keeps dead bodies? Who does that? Who keeps people chained up downstairs? Who murders in front of other hostages? What’s happened here is intolerable, and it’s not going to be tolerated by President Trump.’ 

‘We had a wonderful day with the hostages yesterday… they got a treat a lifetime, they got to spend some time with President Trump. And we thought it was going to be a short period of time because his day was busy, but he ended up spending about an hour with them, with each of the hostages, pictures, and spent a lot of time listening to their stories about what happened to them in captivity. And he was clearly emotional about it as anybody would be,’ Witkoff also said. 

‘The president was pretty blunt,’ Witkoff added. ‘It’s time for Hamas to start acting in a responsible and reasonable way. And we don’t think that they have been doing that.’ 

However, the Palestinian terrorist group on Thursday dismissed Trump’s latest threat and refused to release more Israeli hostages without a permanent ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip. 

Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua said the ‘best path to free the remaining Israeli hostages’ is through negotiations on a second phase of the ceasefire agreement.  

The first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, ended on Saturday. A second phase was supposed to begin in early February, though only limited preparatory talks have been held so far. 

‘‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose,’ Trump said on Wednesday. ‘Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.’ 

Trump added that he is ‘sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job,’ and that ‘not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say. 

‘Also, to the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages,’ the president wrote. ‘If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!’ 

Fox News’ Stephen Sorace and the Associated Press contributed to this report.