Trump admin live updates: White House drops NASA nominee with Musk ties

Trump wrote on social media late Saturday night that he withdrew the nomination of Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator after he conducted a “thorough review of prior associations,” adding that the new nominee will be “mission aligned.”

Isaacman has recently donated to key Democrats, including Sens. Mark Kelly and Bob Casey, and to the California Democratic Party, according to public filings.

He donated $2,900 two times to Kelly in October 2022 and July 2021, according to Federal Election Commission campaign finance data. Isaacman donated $3,300 to Casey’s Senate run in July 2024, $2,900 in March 2022, and $15,400 to Casey Keystone Victory Fund in July 2024. In October 2024, he donated $5,000 to the California Democratic Party.

Isaacman also donated to the Michigan Democratic Party on July 22, just nine days after Trump’s attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.

But he also donated $2 million to Trump’s inauguration committee.

The NYTimes cited three unnamed sources saying that Trump told associates he intended to pull Isaacman’s nomination after being told that he had donated to prominent Democrats.

-ABC News’ Selina Wang, Kelsey Walsh and Luc Bruggeman

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, posted an “apology” for remarks she made at a town hall meeting on Friday, in which she responded to someone in the audience shouting “People are going to die!” from cuts to Medicaid by saying, “Well, we all are going to die.”

On Saturday, Ernst posted an Instagram in which she appears to be sincere, saying, “I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. A woman who was extremely distraught screamed out from the back corner of the auditorium, ‘People are going to die!’”

“And I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth,” she continued. “So I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well.”

Ernst faced a backlash over her town hall remarks, including from Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who said on CNN on Sunday, “I think everybody in that audience knows that they’re going to die. They would just rather die in old age at 85 or 90, instead of dying at 40. And the reality is that, when you lose your health care, you are much more at risk of early death.”

The White House withdrew Saturday the nomination of Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator just days before his scheduled confirmation vote in the Senate.

"It’s essential that the next leader of NASA is in complete alignment with President Trump’s America First agenda and a replacement will be announced directly by President Trump soon," Liz Huston, a spokesperson for the White House said in a statement.

Isaacman, who is the CEO of the payment processing company Shift4, has had a long history with Musk and worked with SpaceX on commercial flights into space.

During his confirmation hearing in April with the Senate’s Commerce Committee, Isaacman stated he would "prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars."

Isaacman attempted to distance himself from Musk during his confirmation hearing as he was getting grilled by Democrats on the committee.

Musk and Trump have emphasized their desire to prioritize Mars, whereas Isaacman clarified during questioning that a lunar landing would take precedence over a Mars mission.

In a post on social media, Trump confirmed he had pulled the nomination.

"After a thorough review of prior associations, I am hereby withdrawing the nomination of Jared Isaacman to head NASA," Trump said without elaborating. "I will soon announce a new Nominee who will be Mission aligned, and put America First in Space."

-ABC News' Kelsey Walsh

President Donald Trump on Friday touted a "blockbuster agreement" between U.S. Steel and Japanese company Nippon Steel that he said would keep the iconic U.S. steelmaker in Pittsburgh -- though he previously opposed such a merger and offered few details on the intricacies of the deal.

Trump discussed the deal during a rally at the Irvin Works plant in Allegheny County on Friday evening.