Closing summary
As Day 101 of the second Trump administration draws to a close, we are wrapping our live coverage here. But we will be back at it on Thursday morning. In the meantime, here’s an overview of the day’s developments:
Donald Trump dismissed concerns about the need for trade with China during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open’”, the president said, confusing empty shelves with open ones. “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” he continued. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally”.
During his confirmation hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, Trump’s nominee to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terrance Cole, claimed that tattoos on the hand of Kilmar Ábrego García, who was deported to El Salvador from Maryland by mistake, proved that he was associated with the gang MS-13. However, the photo Cole was shown clearly did not have the figures M,S,1 or 3, which Donald Trump insisted to ABC News were tattooed on Ábrego García’s knuckles. A Salvadoran journalist who has written a book on the gang says that the tattoos have no such meaning.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has defended Rodney Scott, Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after a Democratic senator and former CBP official accused him of mishandling the investigation into the 2010 death of an unauthorized border crosser.
The US Treasury department announced that the United States and Ukraine signed a deal on Wednesday to establish a reconstruction investment fund for the country. A Ukrainian official said that her nation would retain sole control of the country’s natural resources.
A Senate resolution to overturn Donald Trump’s tariffs, by declaring that there is no national emergency as the president says there is, narrowly failed to pass on Wednesday, with the vote count deadlocked at 49-49 as two senators who supported the move failing to vote.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to ensure immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay are given a chance to raise any concerns about their safety before deporting them to El Salvador or countries other than their places of origin.
Mohsen Mahdawi walked out of immigration detention after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. The Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University had been detained by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.
While the US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, triggering fears of an American recession and a global economic slowdown, Trump continued to blame Joe Biden for the figures. “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the contraction “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS”.
Kamala Harris expected to condemn Trump's stunning power grab in new remarks
Kamala Harris will step back into the political spotlight on Wednesday night to deliver a sharp critique of Donald Trump, warning that his presidency has put the US at risk of a constitutional crisis.
The former vice-president has mostly kept a low profile since leaving the White House in January following her bitter defeat to Trump. Now, a day after Trump celebrated 100 days in office with a rally in Michigan, she is expected to deliver a forceful renunciation of the president’s stunning power grabs that have prompted warnings of creeping authoritarianism.
In her remarks, Harris, 60, will warn of a looming constitutional crisis and urge Americans to collectively join the fight to protect rights and freedoms under threat by a president seeking unchecked powers, according to a person familiar with the content of her speech. She is expected to commend leaders whose dissent has galvanized the public, including Democratic senators Cory Booker, who delivered a record-breaking 25-hour speech to show resistance to Trump, and Chris Van Hollen, who secured a visit with a man wrongly deported to El Salvador by the administration.
She is also expected to emphasize that the chaos of Trump’s return to power is by design, laid out in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025. During the campaign, Trump sought to distance himself from the unpopular initiative but his actions as president follow the plan closely – from his chain-saw approach to downsizing the federal government, to his war on diversity, equity and inclusion policies and “gender ideology”.
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'I just think I'll be able to convince people how good this is', Trump says of widely unpopular tariffs
Phoning in to a town hall with News Nation on Wednesday night, Donald Trump was asked by one of the hosts, his old friend Bill O’Reilly, if he is concerned that the sharp drop in the economy following his imposition of tariffs on most of the world could deliver Congress to the Democrats next year. “That’s true”, Trump replied. “I just think I’ll be able to convince people how good this is.”
Trump went on to defend the policy in familiar terms, claiming that the system of largely free trade the US has pursued for decades had to end because, in his view, “we’ve been ripped off by every country practically in the world”.
But the president’s unshaken confidence in his ability “to convince people” of the wisdom of his policies, even as the economic indicators are all blinking red, does make sense of his near-constant presence on television since the start of his second term in office, as he attempts to sell the public on the idea that self-induced economic shock therapy is a good thing, no matter how small their 401(k) savings accounts are as a result.
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Trump dismisses concern over his trade war with China, saying American children can make do with fewer dolls
Donald Trump dismissed concerns about the need for trade with China during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Asked by a reporter when he would speak with China’s president, Xi Jinping, to resolve the trade war Trump launched by imposing massive tariffs on imports from China, the president said he was in no hurry, suggesting that Chinese exporters were “having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business”.
Chinese exporters made vast sums of money, Trump added, “selling us stuff, much of which we don’t need”.
To illustrate how trivial he thought the concerns of American consumers might be, the president continued:
“You know, somebody said, ‘Oh, the shelves are going to be open’ [sic]. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally”.
Why the president thinks the main import Americans will be missing from China is dolls, rather than, say, manufacturing equipment, electronics, pharmaceuticals or rare-earth minerals is not clear.
However, given that so much of what he learns about the world seems to come from watching Fox News, it is not impossible that he was misremembering a discussion on Fox & Friends from three weeks ago, about the impact of tariffs on a small business in Idaho that sells special needs toys imported from China. Among that retailer’s products are weighted stuffed animals designed for children with sensory processing disorders.
That retailer told the New York Post that he paid $26,000 in tariffs last year on products imported from China, but Trump’s new tariffs would mean that he would have to pay more than $346,000 for the same amount of orders this year.
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Trump officials contacted El Salvador president about Kilmar Ábrego García
The Trump administration has been in touch directly with the Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele in recent days about the detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The nature of the discussion and its purpose was not clear because multiple Trump officials have said the administration was not interested in his coming back to the US despite the US supreme court ordering it to “facilitate” Ábrego García’s release.
The contacts produced no new developments after Bukele rejected the outreach, the people said. The supreme court had ordered the administration to return Ábrego García to the US so that he would face immigration proceedings as he would have, had he not been sent to El Salvador.
The discussions appeared to be an effort by the Trump administration to window dress the underlying legal case and build a paper trail it could reference before the US district judge Paula Xinis, who previously ruled that Donald Trump raising the matter in the Oval Office was insufficient.
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Senate measure to overturn Trump's tariffs fails to pass by one vote, with two critical senators absent
A Senate resolution to overturn Donald Trump’s tariffs, by declaring that there is no national emergency as the president says there is, narrowly failed to pass on Wednesday, with the vote count deadlocked at 49-49 as two senators who supported the move failing to vote.
The two no-shows were Senator Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, who had both voted previously to terminate the national emergency Trump declared to give himself the power to impose tariffs.
Whitehouse was abroad, at the Our Ocean Conference in South Korea. A spokesperson for McConnell, David Popp, told Punchbowl News that the senator “believes that tariffs are a tax increase on everybody”, but did not explain why the senator, who is in poor health, failed to vote.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who cosponsored the resolution, “Terminating the national emergency declared to impose global tariffs”, voted for it, along with two more Republicans: Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
“We torched Biden for abusing emergency powers during COVID”, Paul posted in advance of the vote. “Now some Republicans want to do the same thing? If tyranny is wrong in blue, it’s still wrong in red.”
“If Republicans care about the American people, they will vote yes on our resolution today and turn off the fake emergency that Trump is using to impose his on-again, off-again, red-light, green-light tariffs, the tariffs that are pushing our economy off a cliff”, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat said during the debate before the vote.
“Leader Thune and Senate Republicans tonight voted to keep the Trump tariff-tax in place”, Senator Chuck Schumer said in a statement after the vote. “They own the Trump tariffs and higher costs on America’s middle-class families.”
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United States and Ukraine sign deal to create a reconstruction investment fund for the country, Treasury says
The US Treasury department just announced that the United States and Ukraine signed a deal on Wednesday to establish a reconstruction investment fund for the country.
A Treasury press release does not explicitly mention any US stake in Ukraine’s reserves of minerals. It does, however, suggest that the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund is some sort of payback for US support for Ukraine’s defense from the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.
“In recognition of the significant financial and material support that the people of the United States have provided to the defense of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion, this economic partnership positions our two countries to work collaboratively and invest together to ensure that our mutual assets, talents, and capabilities can accelerate Ukraine’s economic recovery” the Treasury statement said.
For his part, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, is quoted as saying that the agreement was made possible by “President Trump’s tireless efforts to secure a lasting peace”.
“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term”, Bessent added. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine”.
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X that she had signed the deal to “attract global investment into our country”.
The first in a list of key provisions of the agreement, Svyrydenko wrote, is: “Full ownership and control remain with Ukraine. All resources on our territory and in territorial waters belong to Ukraine. It is the Ukrainian state that determines what and where to extract. Subsoil remains under Ukrainian ownership – this is clearly established in the Agreement.”
“The Fund is structured on a 50/50 basis” she added. “It will be jointly managed by Ukraine and the United States. Neither side will hold a dominant vote – a reflection of equal partnership between our two nations.”
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Trump says he understands interest rates better than Fed chair Jerome Powell
Speaking to business leaders at the White House on Wednesday, Donald Trump once again criticized Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates. Powell has cited Trump’s massive tariffs on imports from nearly every country, except Russia, as a reason to fear inflation and so not lower rates.
“Mortgage rates are actually down slightly, even though I have a guy in the Fed that I’m not a huge fan of”, Trump said, apparently departing from his prepared remarks. “But that’s alright, these are minor details. Don’t tell him I said that please”.
“I mean, he should reduce the ener-- he should reduce interest rates” the president, who has relied on loans to finance his real estate purchases for decades, added. “I think I understand interest a lot better than him, because I’ve had to really use interest rates. But we should have interest rates go down, it would be positive, but it’s not going to matter that much, because ultimately what we’re creating has much more to do with other things than it does just pure interest rates, but it would be nice for people wanting to buy homes and things”.
During his 2016 campaign for the presidency, Trump boasted of his ability to build his real estate empire on loans. “Nobody knows debt better than me. I’ve made a fortune by using debt”, Trump told CBS News that year. He also suggested that part of his genius was finding ways to simply not repay his loans if his deals did not work out. “If things don’t work out, I renegotiate the debt” he said. “You go back and you say, ‘Hey, guess what? The economy just crashed. I’m going to give you back half’”.
Economists have noted that a central part of the appeal of buying US debt for investors is the promise that the country, unlike Trump’s businesses, would never fail to repay what it borrowed.
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Noem defends Trump's pick to lead CBP accused of ‘cover-up’ over death of man beaten by US agents
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has defended Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after a Democratic senator and former CBP official accused him of mishandling the investigation into the 2010 death of an unauthorized border crosser.
Scott’s confirmation hearing began a few minutes ago before the Senate finance committee, whose ranking member Ron Wyden last week wrote to Noem with concerns that his handling of the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas was “deeply troubling”.
“The minority’s uninformed account of Mr Scott’s alleged role in the 2010 investigation of the death of Mr Anastasio Hernandez Rojas was infuriating and offensive to read,” Noem wrote in reply.
Wyden had questioned Scott’s authorization of an administrative subpoena to obtain Hernández Roja’s medical records. Hernández Roja died after being beaten and tased by CBP agents who were preparing him for deportation, following his arrest for crossing into the San Diego area from Mexico.
Noem rejected Wyden’s attacks, saying: “Mr Scott did not impede any investigation, nor did he take steps to conceal facts from investigators” and that his use of the subpoena was “consistent with law and agency policy”.
The secretary also said that James Wong, a former top CBP internal affairs official who in a letter to Wyden accused Scott of orchestrating “a cover-up” was “assigned to a wholly separate component of CBP”.
“Your public disclosure of these false allegations demonstrates the reckless nature of partisan politics. The plain explanation offered to the committee in this letter would have been better addressed in private to avoid tarnishing Mr Scott’s sterling reputation,” Noem wrote to Wyden.
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'This is Biden's economy,' Trump says as GDP shrinks amid tariff disruption
At the start of a speech on the investment in the White House, Donald Trump just said that weak economic data released on Wednesday was not his fault, because “this is Biden’s economy.”
In a confusing, contradictory statement, Trump pointed out that what economists call “core GDP was up plus 3%”. While that is correct, Trump then immediately repeated, “but this is the Biden economy”.
As numerous commentators noted earlier in the day, after Trump posted: “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the president made the opposite claim when the stock market boomed during the Biden administration.
In an all-caps social media post in a January 2024, Trump wrote: “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.”
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Trump's nominee to lead DEA claims Kilmar Ábrego García’s tattoos are MS-13 related, but Salvadoran expert disagrees
During his confirmation hearing in the Senate on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, Terrance Cole, was asked to weigh in on the dispute over the meaning of the tattoos on the hand of Kilmar Ábrego García, the man who was deported to El Salvador from Maryland by mistake.
Cole was asked by Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican, to say if, “based on your time as a DEA agent in the field, particularly in Mexico, these tattoos are consistent with MS-13 associations”.
As he spoke Graham held up a printed out close-up image of the symbols tattooed on Ábrego García’s left hand: a marijuana leaf; a smiley face; a crucifix and a skull.
“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Cole answered.
“Do you know of any other set of combinations, that would suggest some other organization this represents,” Graham asked.
“With this particular one, no sir,” Cole answered, pointing at what appeared to a copy of the print out displayed by Graham.
An official White House account on the social media platform X posted video of this exchange in support of its campaign to tarnish the wrongly deported man by claiming that his tattoos are proof of his membership in the Salvadoran gang MS-13.
However, it is important to note that the image of the tattoos displayed by Graham at the hearing was not the same one that Trump held up in a social media post from the White House earlier this month. The image held up by Trump in that post showed the tattoos but also had text annotation added to interpret the symbols as representing M,S,1 and 3.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck pic.twitter.com/m0mA0MwlUp
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 19, 2025
In his contentious interview with Terry Moran of ABC News broadcast Tuesday, Trump repeatedly insisted that those letters and numbers were not added to the photo as annotation, but were actually tattooed onto Ábrego García’s knuckles. “He had “M, S, as clear as you can be, not ‘interpreted’”, Trump told Moran.
When Moran then tried to explain to Trump that there was no M, S, 1 or 3 on Ábrego García’s left hand in a photo taken during his recent meeting with Senator Chris Van Hollen in El Salvador, Trump refused to believe the correspondent. “But they’re there now,” Trump said. “He’s got MS-13 on his knuckles,” the president of the United States asserted with conviction, despite being wrong.
Cole’s claim appears to clash with what the Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez wrote two weeks ago, in response to the image of Trump holding up the annotated photo: “I covered MS-13 for over a decade: its history, crimes, symbolism, cruelty, pacts with Salvadoran governments. I wrote a book about it. Never, ever, did any of the hundreds of sources I spoke to say anything that would allow us to believe Trump’s strange interpretation of tattoos.”
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The day so far
It’s been a day of many twists and turns for the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the Trump administration has admitted it mistakenly deported to El Salvador and whose return to the US it has been instructed by the supreme court to facilitate. Federal judge Paula Xinis again directed the administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve him.
It came as Trump told a cabinet meeting that he didn’t know if El Salvador would return Ábrego García and said he had not spoken to president Nayib Bukele. That followed his comments last night to ABC that he “could” secure Ábrego García’s return but he wasn’t going to. As his administration officials continued to publicly express unwillingness to bring Ábrego García back to the US (homeland security secretary Kristi Noem repeated White House assertions that he would only be deported again anyway), the New York Times (paywall) reported that the Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials in El Salvador, citing sources, to inquire about releasing Ábrego García, to which Bukele had said no.
The Guardian has not independently verified the Times report and it is unclear if this was a genuine bid by the White House to address the plight of Ábrego García or if this was, per the Times, “an attempt at window dressing by officials seeking to give the appearance of being in compliance with the recent supreme court ruling ordering the White House to ‘facilitate’ his release”.
Elsewhere:
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to ensure immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay are given a chance to raise any concerns about their safety before deporting them to El Salvador or countries other than their places of origin.
Mohsen Mahdawi walked out of immigration detention after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. The Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University had been detained by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.
While the US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, triggering fears of an American recession and a global economic slowdown, Trump continued to blame Joe Biden for the figures. “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” the Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the contraction “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” However, economists said it was largely driven by an unprecedented surge in imports, as consumers and companies braced for the president to impose his controversial wave of tariffs.
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said Washington was “ready to sign” a minerals deal with Ukraine. “Our side is ready to sign,” Bessent said, adding that the Ukrainians had “decided last night to make some last-minute changes”. Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko was due to be in Washington today to sign the deal. But a source told Reuters that the US was pushing Ukraine to sign two additional documents as well as the main minerals deal. The Trump administration urged Ukraine to sign all three documents connected to the deal, but Kyiv felt they were not ready yet, Politico reported.
Donald Trump said Elon Musk, who has taken more of a backseat in the administration recently but was in attendance, could stay “as long as he wants” in his administration, before adding that “at some point he wants to get back home to his cars”.
House Republicans moved to block Democrats from forcing votes on the Trump administration’s use of Signal, potential conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk and the impact his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has had on local economies and communities.
The supreme court’s conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country’s first public religious charter school as they weighed a case that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem defended Rodney Scott, Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after a Democratic senator and former CBP official accused him of mishandling the investigation into the 2010 death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico.
Eleven people are under investigation for “illegal, unauthorized leaks to the media of classified intelligence”, the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said. The announcement, reported by ABC News, comes nearly a week after Gabbard said three intelligence officials were referred to the justice department for criminal prosecution.
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El Salvador rejected US request for release of Kilmar Ábrego García – report
The New York Times (paywall) reports that the Trump administration recently sent a diplomatic note to officials in El Salvador to inquire about releasing Kilmar Ábrego García, whose return to the US government officials have been ordered by the supreme court to facilitate, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
The Guardian has not independently verified the Times report, in which two of the people claimed that El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said no. The Bukele administration said the man should stay in El Salvador because he was a Salvadoran citizen, according to one of the people.
It remained unclear whether the diplomatic effort was a genuine bid by the White House to address the plight of Ábrego García, whom administration officials have repeatedly acknowledged was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month in violation of a court order expressly prohibiting him from being sent there.
The Times writes: “Some legal experts suggested that the sequence of events could have been an attempt at window dressing by officials seeking to give the appearance of being in compliance with the recent supreme court ruling ordering the White House to ‘facilitate’ his release.”
The story adds to the confusion about the Trump administration’s efforts, if any, to secure Ábrego García’s release and whether it is seeking to comply with court orders. As we’ve been reporting today, it continues to publicly express unwillingness to bring him back to the United States and even repeated suggestions that he would only be deported again if he was to return.
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Kristi Noem says Kilmar Ábrego García would be deported immediately if sent back to US
Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said that if Kilmar Ábrego García was sent back to the US, the Trump administration “would immediately deport him again”.
Noem repeated White House assertions about Ábrego García, whom the Trump administration has admitted was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month, in a new interview with CBS.
“[Ábrego García] is not under our control. He is an El Salvador citizen. He is home there in his country. If he were to be brought back to the United States of America, we would immediately deport him again,” Noem said of the 29-year-old who entered the US illegally around 2011 after fleeing gang violence.
Ábrego García was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador. Despite the order, on 15 March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deported Ábrego García to El Salvador where he was held in the Center for Terrorism Confinement, a controversial mega-prison.
Though the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error”, it has repeatedly cast him as an MS-13 gang member on television – a claim his wife, a US citizen, and his attorneys staunchly reject. Ábrego García has no criminal record in the US, according to court documents.
Since Ábrego García’s deportation, the Trump administration has refused to bring him back to the US – despite the supreme court unanimously ordering it to “facilitate” his release. On Wednesday a federal judged again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Ábrego García from El Salvador.
Trump officials claim that US courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because Ábrego García is a Salvadorian national and no longer in the US.
Judge re-ups demand that White House show efforts to retrieve Kilmar Ábrego García from El Salvador
A federal judge has again directed the Trump administration to provide information about its efforts so far, if any, to comply with her order to retrieve Kilmar Ábrego García from an El Salvador prison, the Associated Press reports.
The US district judge Paula Xinis in Maryland temporarily halted her directive for information at the administration’s request last week. But with the seven-day pause expiring at 5pm ET, she set May deadlines for officials to provide sworn testimony on anything they have done to return him to the US.
Ábrego García, 29, has been imprisoned in El Salvador for nearly seven weeks, while his mistaken deportation has become a flash point for Donald Trump’s immigration policies and his increasing friction with the US courts.
The president acknowledged to ABC News on Tuesday that he “could” call El Salvador’s president and have Ábrego García sent back. “And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump told ABC’s Terry Moran in the Oval Office, as he doubled down on his claims that Ábrego García is a member of the MS-13 gang. Asked by a reporter at his cabinet meeting on Wednesday if Nayib Bukele would respond to a request to return a Ábrego García, Trump said he did not know and he has not spoken to him.
Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return him nearly a month ago, on 4 April. The supreme court ruled on 10 April that the administration must facilitate bringing him back.
But the case only became more heated. Xinis lambasted a government lawyer who couldn’t explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done. She then ordered officials to provide sworn testimony and other information to document their efforts.
The Trump administration appealed. But a federal appeals court backed Xinis’s order for information in a blistering ruling, saying: “We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the supreme court’s recent decision.”
The Trump administration resisted, saying the information Xinis sought involved protected state secrets and government deliberations. She in turn scolded government lawyers for ignoring her orders and acting in “bad faith”.
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Federal judge limits Trump's ability to swiftly deport immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Wednesday to ensure immigrants held at Guantánamo Bay are given a chance to raise any concerns about their safety before deporting them to El Salvador or countries other than their places of origin, per Reuters.
The US district judge Brian Murphy in Boston issued the order after immigrant rights advocates argued the administration had violated a court order he issued by flying four Venezuelans held at the US naval base in Cuba to El Salvador on a flight conducted by the Department of Defense.
Murphy in late March had issued a temporary restraining order, which he later extended into an injunction, restricting the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to rapidly deport migrants to countries other than their own without allowing them to first raise concerns about their safety or potential torture.
Donald Trump’s administration argued it did not violate the judge’s order as it only applied to the Homeland Security Department, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), not the defense department.
The Department of Justice called three of the four immigrants members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and said the Department of Defense removed them to El Salvador without the knowledge or direction of the homeland security department.
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Trump says he does not know if El Salvador would return mistakenly deported Kilmar Ábrego García and hasn't asked
Donald Trump said on Wednesday he did not know how El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, would respond to a request to return a man his administration mistakenly deported from Maryland, adding he has not spoken to him.
At the cabinet meeting earlier, a reporter had pulled Trump up on his comments in his ABC News interview last night that he “could” secure Kilmar Ábrego García’s return but won’t do so, despite the supreme court’s ruling that his administration must facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US.
Trump said:
I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him. I really leave that to the lawyers and I take my advice from Pam [Bondi] and everybody that is very much involved. They know the laws and we follow the laws exactly.
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'Stay as long as you want,' Trump tells Musk at cabinet meeting as billionaire transitions away from Doge role
At his 100th day cabinet meeting earlier, Donald Trump said Elon Musk, who has taken more of a backseat in the administration recently but was in attendance, could stay “as long as he wants” in his administration, before adding that “at some point he wants to get back home to his cars”.
Musk is in damage control mode after Tesla reported a huge dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 amid backlash against his polarizing role in the White House. Tesla has also been hit by a wave of vandalization, attacks and protests during Musk’s time as Trump’s chainsaw-wielding sidekick. “Starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to Doge will drop significantly,” he said last week, adding that he expects to spend one to two days a week continuing his “critical work” at Doge “for as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it is useful”.
During the cabinet meeting, Trump said to Musk: “We just want to thank you very much. And, you know, you’re invited to stay as long as you want. At some point, he wants to get back home to his cars.”
The billionaire replied: “Great to work with you,” before donning his Doge hat and then his Gulf of America hat, before stacking them on top of one another. “I love the double hat by the way. He’s the only one who can get away with it,” said Trump, to which Musk replied: “I told you I wear a lot of hats. Even my hat has a hat.” All to avid laughter from those in attendance, I kid you not.
"Well, Mr. President, they say I wear a lot of hats. It's true. Even my hat has a hat." - @elonmusk at the first Trump Cabinet meeting after reaching 100 days. pic.twitter.com/s7jWrUjb65
— Beatrice Peterson (@MissBeaE on all platforms) (@MissBeaE) April 30, 2025
Earlier this month, the White House said the plan had always been for Musk to refocus on Tesla once he’d completed his “incredible work” at Doge, while the New York Post reported that Musk is “transitioning” from his role – he’s no longer physically based on the White House grounds and is working remotely.
As an unpaid special government employee, Musk is limited to working for the government for 130 days – which expires on 30 May. His looming exit is widely seen as indicative of the unpredictable billionaire having become too great a political liability for Trump.
Earlier this week a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 57% of Americans surveyed disapproved “somewhat” or “strongly” in the way Musk is handling his role in the administration.
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Tulsi Gabbard says 11 people under investigation for media leaks – report
Eleven people are under investigation for “illegal, unauthorized leaks to the media of classified intelligence”, the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has said.
The announcement, reported by ABC News, comes nearly a week after Gabbard said three intelligence officials were referred to the justice department for criminal prosecution.
It comes as part of a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on leaks to the media. Last week the Associated Press reported that attorney general Pam Bondi said prosecutors would once again have authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.
ABC also reported that Gabbard said security clearances have been revoked for 67 individuals. Those include former secretary of state Antony Blinken, former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and former deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco.
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Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi freed after federal judge orders release
Mohsen Mahdawi has walked out of immigration detention after a federal judge in Vermont ordered his release. The Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University had been detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.
“The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,” said Geoffrey Crawford, a US district judge, at a hearing on Wednesday, according to ABC News. “Mr Mahdawi, I will order you released.”
In his ruling, Crawford stated that the evidence before the court “suggests that Mr Mahdawi is neither a flight risk or a danger to the community, and his release will not interfere with his removal proceedings”.
Crawford wrote that the government “failed to demonstrate any legitimate interest in Mr Mahdawi’s continued confinement” and that his “continued detention would likely have a chilling effect on protected speech”.
Crawford ordered that Mahdawi be released from prison on bail, pending the resolution of his case in federal court.
The order allows Mahdawi to continue residing in Vermont and to travel to New York to attend school and meet with his lawyers. His case in federal court will continue alongside separate immigration proceedings.
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House speaker Mike Johnson is renting a house from his congressional colleague Darrell Issa, a Republican representative for California, Semafor reports.
In late February, ProPublica reported that the speaker was sharing a home with evangelical pastor Steve Berger (who has attacked the separation of church and state as “a delusional lie” and called multinational institutions “demonic”), just blocks away from the Capitol, in a property owned by a wealthy Tennessee donor who has joined Berger in advocating for and against multiple bills before Congress. A spokesperson told ProPublica at the time that Johnson “has never once spoken to Mr Berger about any piece of legislation or any matter of public policy”. Johnson relocated a month later.
“He’s a friend and needed a place,” Issa told Semafor of the arrangement. Issa purchased the home in March from Republican representative Mark Green of Tennessee, for over $1.5m. A spokesperson with the speaker’s office said: “Representative Issa negotiated a fair market price for the lease of the property to the speaker.”
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USPS law enforcement assists ‘mass deportation’ effort using data from mail to find undocumented migrants – report
US Postal Service law enforcement has started working with immigration officials to find undocumented immigrants via mail surveillance, the Washington Post (paywall) has been told.
Citing two people familiar with the effort, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Post reports that the US Postal Inspection Service recently joined a federal task force to locate undocumented migrants using data from mail and packages, to assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with its tracking, detaining and deporting efforts.
The sources said immigration officials are looking to gain access to the Postal Inspection Service’s vast surveillance systems such as online account data, package and mail-tracking, credit card and financial information, IP addresses, and even photographs of the exterior of envelopes and packages, known as “mail covers”.
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GOP poll shows plurality of voters opposed to cuts to Medicaid even to lower national debt
New internal GOP polling shows a plurality of American voters are opposed to spending cuts to Medicaid even when framed as an effort to lower national debt, Axios reports.
In a warning sign for Republican lawmakers weighing deep spending cuts, a plurality of independent voters – and voters overall – were opposed to Medicaid cuts to lower the national debt, according to the poll by Gray House shared with Senate Republicans.
A number of key moderate Republicans in both chambers have made clear they will not vote for any bill that includes such cuts to Medicaid. But, Axios notes, conservatives eager to make a dent in the growing national debt are pushing for more than $1tn in spending cuts – which would be likely impossible without impacting Medicaid.
Confusingly, last night at his 100-day rally, Donald Trump proclaimed that Republicans were going to somehow increase spending on Medicaid. It’s set to be a major political fight over what will be Trump’s flagship legislation – his “one big, beautiful bill” – with a current expected deadline of 4 July.
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Rodney Scott’s answers were not good enough for top Senate finance committee Democrat Ron Wyden, who said it remained unclear if he followed the law during the investigation of a man who died in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody in San Diego 15 years ago.
“We didn’t hear any response to the internal affairs high-ranking official who at the time said the investigation was a cover up,” Wyden said, adding that he was also not assured that Scott used a subpoena to obtain the victim’s medical records legally.
The senator also questioned Scott about a comment he made on social media to a former border patrol employee turned critic, where he said “lean back, close your eyes and just enjoy the show” – a comment Wyden noted a judge said was a “classic rape threat”. Scott replied that he had apologized in-person to the critic.
Wyden also demanded answers about Scott’s presence in a Facebook group in which border patrol employees mocked immigrants and shared fake, sexually explicit images about members of Congress.
“Should you have been a member of this Facebook group with all of this ugliness being sort of business as usual?” Wyden asked.
“There were 9,000 people on that group. To say that a few that actually posted something inappropriate, were held accountable, and were disciplined are a reflection of everyone else on that group, I think, is just a [mischaracterization],” Scott replied.
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At Rodney Scott’s confirmation hearing to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Republican chair of the Senate finance committee Mike Crapo questioned him about the subpoena he signed for the medical records of Anastasio Hernández Rojas.
“The subpoena was information gathering” that was common practice when an individual dies in CBP custody, as was the case with Hernández Rojas, Scott said.
“And did you do anything in the investigation of that case to interfere with the investigation of that case?” Crapo asked.
“Absolutely not,” Scott replied.
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The United Parcel Service (UPS) is expected to cut about 20,000 jobs in 2025 as a part of a larger plan to reduce costs and increase profit, citing “changes in the global trade policy and new or increased tariffs”.
UPS announced the layoffs on Tuesday in its first quarter earnings report. The company also said it would be closing 73 leased and owned buildings by the end of June of this year.
“The actions we are taking to reconfigure our network and reduce cost across our business could not be timelier,” Carol Tomé, UPS chief executive officer said in a statement.
“The macro environment may be uncertain, but with our actions, we will emerge as an even stronger, more nimble UPS.”
The report also said that UPS anticipated “lower volumes” from the company’s largest customer, Amazon.
Read more about it here:
Donald Trump is continuing to push for even stricter immigration policies in his first cabinet meeting after celebrating 100 days in office.
“We have to get the criminals out of this country,” Trump said. “That’s the basis on which we won this election.”
His comments come at a time when the president’s approval rating has flipped amid ongoing and frequent cases of people in the US being detained by Ice, as well as controversial deportations.
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Top US pork processor Smithfield Foods said China, the world’s biggest pork consumer, is no longer a viable market because of retaliatory tariffs, Reuters reports.
“With China no longer essentially being available, we’ve really had to pivot our business,” president and CEO Shane Smith said on a quarterly earnings call.
China reportedly represents about 3% of Smithfield’s sales. Various cuts of meat that are less consumed in the US, such as pig stomachs, hearts and heads are often shipped there.
Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform accused CBS of having “cheated and defrauded” Americans amid an ongoing legal case against the network for how they edited an interview with presidential candidate Kamala Harris leading up to the 2024 election.
“The case we have against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount is a true WINNER. They cheated and defrauded the American People at levels never seen before in the Political Arena,” the president wrote.
He also singled out the New York Times, referring to the publication as “Fake News both in writing and polling” and accused the paper of having a “non curable case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME”.
“The bottom line is that what 60 Minutes and its corporate owners have committed is one of the most egregious illegalities in Broadcast History,” Trump wrote. “Nothing like this, the illegal creation of an answer for a Presidential Candidate, has ever been done before, they have to pay a price for it, and the Times should also be on the hook for their likely unlawful behavior. It is vital to hold these Liars and Fraudsters accountable!”
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Federal judge in Vermont orders immediate release of Columbia student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi
A federal judge in Vermont has ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained by the Trump administration on 14 April.
Mahdawi greeted supporters as he walked out of immigration detention on Wednesday and thanked them for their support.
Mahdawi was arrested by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He is one of a number of international students who has been detained in recent months for their advocacy on behalf of Palestinians.
Attorneys for Mahdawi, a lawful permanent US resident, argued that he was being unlawfully detained in “retaliation for his speech advocating for Palestinian human rights” and say that it is “part of a policy intended to silence and chill the speech of those who advocate for Palestinian human rights”.
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Kristi Noem defends Trump border pick accused of ‘cover-up’ over death of man beaten by US agents
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has defended Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after a Democratic senator and former CBP official accused him of mishandling the investigation into the 2010 death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico.
Scott’s confirmation hearing began a few minutes ago before the Senate finance committee, whose ranking member Ron Wyden last week wrote to Noem with concerns that his handling of the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas was “deeply troubling”.
“The minority’s uninformed account of Mr Scott’s alleged role in the 2010 investigation of the death of Mr Anastasio Hernandez Rojas was infuriating and offensive to read,” Noem wrote in reply.
Wyden had questioned Scott’s authorization of an administrative subpoena to obtain Hernández Roja’s medical records. Hernández Roja died after being beaten and tased by CBP agents who were preparing him for deportation, following his arrest for crossing into the San Diego area from Mexico.
Noem rejected Wyden’s attacks, saying, “Mr Scott did not impede any investigation, nor did he take steps to conceal facts from investigators” and that his use of the subpoena was “consistent with law and agency policy”.
The secretary also said that James Wong, a former top CBP internal affairs official who in a letter to Wyden accused Scott of orchestrating “a cover-up” was “assigned to a wholly separate component of CBP”.
“Your public disclosure of these false allegations demonstrates the reckless nature of partisan politics. The plain explanation offered to the committee in this letter would have been better addressed in private to avoid tarnishing Mr Scott’s sterling reputation,” Noem wrote to Wyden.
Supreme court considers endorsing country's first religious public charter school
I’m watching arguments at the US supreme court this morning, where the court is deciding whether to allow the country’s first public religious charter school to open, weighing a case that would grant an Oklahoma Catholic virtual charter school approval.
St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual school is at issue in the case, which combines lawsuits brought by the ACLU and other groups, plus a lawsuit from the Republican state attorney general, Gentner Drummond. The state charter school board approved the application for St Isidore, which the state supreme court struck down. The case was appealed to the US supreme court.
The case is part of a broader push to erode the separation of church and state, a concept established through the US constitution via the “free exercise” clause of the first amendment, which prohibits the state from establishing a religion and affirmed through case law over the past century. Oklahoma is at the forefront of this push against church and state separation.
The eventual ruling is seen as a test of the role of religion in the government and in schools. It comes as school choice programs like vouchers that allow students to use public monies to attend private schools grow nationwide and amid a sustained campaign against public schools.
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House GOP blocks Democrats from forcing votes on Signal scandal and Musk conflicts of interest
House Republicans moved on Tuesday to block Democrats from forcing votes on the Trump administration’s use of Signal, potential conflicts of interest involving Elon Musk and other controversial topics, the Hill reports.
The move by the conference – approved in a 216-208 vote – marks the latest instance of Republicans using procedural rules, which govern debate for legislation, to shield Donald Trump’s administration from scrutiny.
Democrats have filed a number of resolutions of inquiry throughout the first 100 days of the Trump administration, including measures requesting information about the administration’s now-infamous use of Signal – the encrypted messaging platform officials including defense secretary Pete Hegseth have used to discuss sensitive information – as well as potential conflicts of interest involving Musk and the impact his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has had on local economies and communities.
Per the Hill, speaker Mike Johnson defended the GOP effort shortly before its approval on Tuesday, saying the conference was “using the rules of the House to prevent political hijinks and political stunts”.
They showed us over the last four years, last eight years – they used lawfare, they used conspiracy theories, all these political weapons to just go after the president and make his life miserable. That’s not what the American people voted for, that’s not what they deserve. We can do better, so we’re preventing this nonsensical waste of our time. We don’t have time to waste.
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We’re not out of the 100-day woods just yet. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries are holding a news conference at 2.30pm ET, and later this evening former vice-president Kamala Harris will re-emerge for her first major speech since leaving office. Stepping back into the spotlight for a keynote speech in San Francisco, Harris is expected to deliver her most extensive critique yet of Trump’s presidency. We’ll be here to bring you any key lines from those.
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‘Twilight Zone’: Defense attorney says Trump ‘flouting’ supreme court over Kilmar Ábrego García case
CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson has called Trump’s most recent comments that he “could” but won’t bring back Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, “bizarre and the twilight zone”.
Jackson told CNN this morning that Trump is “flouting” the supreme court:
We’re in very troubling and difficult times, and I don’t want to overstate it at all. But I do want to be objective and I want to be fair and I want to be honest. People talk about a constitutional crisis. The reality is, that we are in a constitutional crisis as we speak right now, that reality is plain and apparent. We have a supreme court of the United States who said to facilitate the process. I don’t know how much we can debate with you right now as to what your meaning of facilitate is and what mine is. But it’s very clear with respect to what you need to do, picking up the phone would be that. So when you have a situation where the president of the United States is ignoring a co-equal branch of government, that’s troubling, problematic, and very concerning, and so, yes, he’s indicating that he’s flouting it.
Referring to the administration lawyer who was put on leave after purportedly failing to defend the administration vigorously enough, Jackson said:
Remember what the administration did to an attorney, the Department of Justice, who was in court and was honest, the judge asking him questions as judges do, and the judge giving the indication of, hey, you know what? What happened here? Oh, it was a mistake. I can’t get a clear answer, said the US department of justice attorney for my client, with respect, the government with regard to what happened here, that person was fired. And so we’re in bizarre times in the Twilight Zone. This is not how it’s supposed to work. It’s working that way. And that’s troubling.
He later added:
You have co-equal branches of government. Each has a role, and when a supreme court of the United States tells you to do something, you do it. There’s no question about that. There’s no flouting what facilitate means to that. You just comply. There’s not compliance here. That, to me, is not democracy. That’s totalitarianism, and we’re in an abyss. We’re in a problem, and I’m just wondering where we go from here.
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‘Fight the billionaire takeover’: Trump’s Scottish golf course targeted by Greenpeace sand protest
Golfers teeing off at Trump Turnberry in Scotland on Wednesday would have been oblivious to Greenpeace’s protest against the US president on the sand a few hundred metres away, which was only properly visible from the air, writes Reuters.
Environmental group Greenpeace said its activists raked Donald Trump’s portrait into the sandy beach alongside the message: “Time to resist – fight the billionaire takeover”.
The group released aerial footage of the image which was about half the size of a football pitch to mark the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, during which time the US has left the Paris climate agreement and bolstered American coal and oil projects.
BREAKING: A giant protest artwork targeting Donald Trump has appeared beside his Turnberry golf course.
— The National (@ScotNational) April 30, 2025
The 55m by 40m artwork appeared overnight, urging people: “Time to resist – fight the billionaire takeover." pic.twitter.com/ZbUyrxjFZN
For Trump Turnberry, it is the second time in two months protesters have targeted the luxury golf resort, located on the west coast of Scotland, 50 miles south of Glasgow. Pro-Palestinian graffiti was daubed on walls at the course and “Gaza is not for sale” painted on one of the greens on 8 March, after Trump mused about turning Gaza into the “riviera of the Middle East”.
Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said in a statement:
During his first 100 days President Trump has been actively working to dismantle and weaken environmental protections and attack those who fight to protect nature and our shared climate.
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'I have faith that justice will prevail,' says detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi ahead of hearing
Detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi has a hearing to request release today, where a judge will decide if he will be released or deported. In his first interview since his arrest, he told NPR: “I have faith that justice will prevail.”
Mahdawi, 34, has been in custody in Vermont since he was arrested on 14 April by masked Ice agents who showed up at an immigration office in Colchester, Vermont, where he had attended his naturalization interview and signed a document pledging allegiance to the US. He has a green card and he hasn’t been charged with a crime.
A lawful permanent US resident who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi is among multiple international students facing deportation by the Trump administration – ostensibly over their advocacy on several campuses against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The justice department on Monday submitted new court filings that included a two-page letter from secretary of state Marco Rubio stating that the “activities and presence of Mahdawi in the United States undermines US policy to combat antisemitism”. It also claimed that protests like those Mahdawi led at Columbia “potentially undermine the peace process underway in the Middle East”, where efforts for a ceasefire have stalled.
The court filing did not provide any evidence of the accusations against Mahdawi in the letter, including those of threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders. The government argues that the federal court in Vermont should not grant Mahdawi’s request for release because it does not have jurisdiction in foreign policy matters.
In response to the court filings, Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, said the accusations in the letter are “completely false.” Mahdawi has been very vocal in his opposition to antisemitism. She told NPR:
Mr. Mahdawi is a person of complete and full principle who believes in the human dignity of every person. The government’s just scraping at the bottom of the barrel to try to find something, anything that is simply leading to punishment of students for their advocacy for Palestinian rights.
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Trump claims fall in GDP has 'NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS'
Donald Trump promptly claimed this morning that the contraction in the US economy had nothing to do with his tariff wars, repeated his habitual claim that this is all somehow his predecessor Joe Biden’s fault, and predicted the economy would boom when tariffs kicked in. He wrote on his Truth Social platform:
This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.” This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!
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US economy shrinks in first quarter of Trump 2.0 as sweeping tariffs see consumer sentiment plummet
The US economy shrank in the first three months of Donald Trump’s second term as the president sought to roll out an aggressive trade strategy, claiming that sweeping tariffs on the world would strengthen the US economy.
GDP, a key measure of overall growth in the US economy, fell by 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, down from 2.4% in the last quarter of 2024. The contraction – the first since the start of 2022 – puts the US on the brink of a technical recession, defined by two quarters of negative growth.
The drop in activity comes amid a huge fall in consumer sentiment, which in April dropped 32% to its lowest level since the 1990 recession.
Trump spent much of the first quarter threatening, and fleetingly implementing, sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and targeting China with higher duties on its exports.
Days into the second quarter, which was not covered by today’s GDP reading, he ordered even higher tariffs on goods from much of the world, before pulling back the tariffs on all countries but China. As it stands, Trump is charging a 10% universal tariff on imported goods from much of the world, along with a 145% tariff on imports from China.
Seemingly responding to deep fluctuations in the US stock market, Trump has shelved a wave of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” of up to 49% on specific countries, which he halted for 90 days.
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Ukraine expects to sign US minerals deal today - reports
Ukraine expects to sign a much-anticipated minerals deal with the United States today, a senior source in the Ukrainian presidency told AFP.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko will be in Washington later to sign the agreement, the final draft of which the Ukrainian government “has yet to approve”, the source said, adding that the agreement provides for a “50/50” joint fund between Kyiv and Washington.
Reuters reminds us that the two sides signed a memorandum on 18 April as an initial step towards clinching an accord on developing mineral resources in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials hope that signing the deal promoted by Donald Trump will help to firm up softening American support for Kyiv in the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago, Reuters added.
Trump admits he 'could' bring mistakenly deported Kilmar Ábrego García back from El Salvador, but won’t
In the ABC interview last night, Donald Trump admitted that he “could” secure the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man his administration said in court was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, but won’t do so.
Asked what his administration was doing to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US, as instructed by the supreme court, Trump said that the lawyer – who has since been put on leave – who said the deportation was a mistake “should not have said that”.
The president then claimed again that Ábrego García is a member of the MS-13 gang and “is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland”. Ábrego García’s lawyers have said he’s not a member of MS-13 and he has not been charged with or convicted of a crime.
Pressed on the rule of law and the supreme court’s order, Moran told Trump, pointing to the phone on the Resolute Desk: “You could get him back. There’s a phone on this desk.” Trump replied: “I could.” “You could pick it up, and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back right now’,” said Moran. The president replied:
And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. I’m not the one making this decision … You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him right where he is.
Trump then blamed lawyers and “the law” for the situation.
His comments appeared to contradict previous remarks from Trump and his top aides who have repeatedly claimed that the US is powerless to return Ábrego García because he is in the custody of a foreign government, despite the supreme court’s ruling. The White House’s position in court has been that only El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, can release a Salvadoran man from a Salvadoran jail. And Bukele has made it clear that he doesn’t want to do so.
Judge Paula Xinis, who has set a deadline of 5pm ET today for the administration to provide more to details on his efforts to return Ábrego García to the US, last week accused the Trump administration of “bad faith” in the case, and I’m sure she will find Trump’s latest comments very interesting indeed.
Here’s video of that part of the interview:
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'You're not being very nice': Trump clashes with ABC interviewer over edited Ábrego García photo
In a pre-recorded interview that went out last night on ABC News to mark his 100th day in office, Donald Trump clashed with reporter Terry Moran over his tariff policies, deportations and the power of the presidency.
In an intense, fiery exchange over the knuckle tattoos of Kilmar Ábrego García – the man the US government deported to El Salvador by mistake - Trump got into a surreal back-and-forth with Moran over whether Ábrego García has the gang name “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles, apparently confusing a photoshopped image he once posted on social media with Ábrego García’s real hands.
It started with Moran pressing Trump on whether he acknowledges that under American law, every person is afforded due process. But Trump claimed that when people come to the country illegally “there’s a different standard”.
“But they get due process,” Moran said.
“Well, they get a process where we have to get ‘em out, yeah,” Trump said. “They get whatever my lawyers say.”
The Trump administration has indicated in court documents that Ábrego García was sent to El Salvador in an “administrative error” but White House officials have since disputed that and the lawyer who wrote that court document has been put on leave. Trump said in the interview that that lawyer “should not have said that”.
He then grew agitated when Moran suggested that the image had been photoshopped.
That was photoshop? Terry, you can’t do that. They’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because – frankly I never heard of you but that’s ok. But I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice.
Here is video of the exchange:
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Former vice-president Kamala Harris plans to use a high-profile speech Wednesday to sharply criticize president Donald Trump amid speculation about whether she will mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor.
Harris will address the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office that grew in part from Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney in the early 2000s, AP reported.
Her speech comes the day after Trump reached 100 days in office. It is expected to be her most extensive public remarks since leaving office in January following her defeat to Trump, with planned critiques of the Republican president’s handling of the economy, US institutions and foreign policy.
Harris is ramping up her public presence as Democrats nationally search for a path forward after November’s election, in which Republicans also won control of Congress. While a slate of high-profile Democrats – from governors to businessmen – seek leadership roles within the party, the former vice-president retains unique influence and would reshape any future race she chooses to enter.
The first few months of 2025 have been tumultuous for Sheriff Bill Rogers, the chief law officer of Columbus county in North Carolina.
In February, his department settled a lawsuit accusing Columbus jail deputies of neglecting the care of a county inmate who was almost beaten to death in 2023. Then in March, a group of Roger’s deputies were accused of assault during the arrest of a 57-year-old who claimed he was punched in the back of the head and left bloody after allegedly running a stop sign.
Those episodes follow years of scandal.
In 2023, Rogers’ predecessor in the top job was forced to resign – twice – after recordings emerged of him describing African American deputies on his force as “Black bastards”. The department was also under a recent federal investigation over allegations of sprawling embezzlement.
Despite this track record, the Columbus county sheriff’s office scored a recent win under the new administration of Donald Trump.
The US supreme court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.
Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the establishment of St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Reuters reported. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the US constitution’s first amendment limits on government involvement in religion.
Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government. The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state’s Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond but Republican governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican president Donald Trump’s administration.
St Isidore, planned as a joint effort by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would offer virtual learning from kindergarten through high school. Its plan to integrate religion into its curriculum would make it the first religious charter school in the United States. The proposed school has never been operational amid legal challenges to its establishment.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he thinks President Vladimir Putin wants to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite recent attacks against the beleaguered nation.
Trump responded “I think he does” when asked whether he thinks Putin wants to make peace during an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran.
“If it weren’t for me, I think he’d want to take over the whole country,” Trump said. “I will tell you, I was not happy when I saw Putin shooting missiles into a few towns and cities.”
Trump warns ‘nothing will stop me’ at rally to celebrate 100 days in office
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
Let’s start with the president’s Michigan rally last night. Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”
The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.
Trump’s choice of Michigan was a recognition not only of how the battleground state helped propel him to victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in last November’s election, but its status as a potential beneficiary of a tariffs policy which, he claims, will revive US manufacturing.
But the cavernous sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, was only half full for the rally, and a steady stream of people left before the end of his disjointed and meandering 89-minute address.
“We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country!” Trump declared. “In 100 days, we have delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years.”
The 45th and 47th president falsely accused the previous administration of engineering massive border invasion and allowing gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate communities. “Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.”
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “Trump’s pathetic display tonight will do nothing to help the families he started screwing over 100 days ago.
“Michiganders and the rest of the country see right through Trump, and as a result, he has the lowest 100-day approval rating in generations. If he’s not already terrified of what the ballot box will bring between now and the midterm elections, he should be.”
Read our full report of the event here:
In other news:
As Trump defended his broadly unpopular handling of the economy, he criticized Fed chair Jerome Powell, saying: “I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job, but I won’t say that.” The businessman president who used bankruptcy law to rescue his failed enterprises six times added: “I know much more about interest rates than he does”.
Trump mistakenly attacked the Michigan representative John James, calling the Republican he had endorsed “a lunatic” for trying to impeach him. That was someone else.
Trump supporters praised by the president at a rally included the former member of a violent cult who founded Blacks for Trump, and a retired autoworker who once told people to read David Duke’s “honest and fair” book about race.
The US Department of Justice has begun the first criminal prosecutions of immigrants for entering a newly declared military buffer zone created along the border with Mexico, according to court filings.
Trump called Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos on Tuesday morning to complain about a report that the company planned to display prices that show the impact of tariffs. Trump told reporters later that Bezos “was very nice, he was terrific” during their call, and “he solved the problem very quickly”.
