Closing summary
This brings our latest edition of US politics live to an end, but we will return on Tuesday to continue to chronicle the second Trump administration. Here are some of the day’s developments:
Mass protests have been called for 14 June, when Donald Trump plans to throw himself a military parade birthday party
US intelligence officials concluded last month that the government of Venezuela is “probably not directing” the activities of Tren de Aragua gang members inside the United States. That undermines Trump’s claim that the Alien Enemies Act empowers him to deport suspected gang members.
The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school concedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest to the government.
On Thursday at the White House, Melania Trump will host the unveiling of a US Postal Service stamp honoring the former first lady Barbara Bush, who made no secret of her passionate hatred of Donald Trump.
Trump signed an executive order ending all federal funding for what the White House calls “dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran”.
One day before the newly elected Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, visits the White House to meet Trump, Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, accused Canada of being a “socialist regime” that has been “feeding off of America” for decades.
This year’s Pulitzer prize for illustrated reporting and commentary was awarded to editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who quit the Washington Post in January to protest the newspaper’s refusal to publish her satirical cartoon depicting the outlet’s owner, Jeff Bezos – and a group of other media and technology barons – kneeling before Donald Trump and offering him bags of cash.
The White House said in a clarifying statement that “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made” after Trump abruptly announced on his Truth Social platform last night a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”, sparking widespread concern across the film industry. He apparently got the idea from a conversation with Jon Voight at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend.
TeleMessage, the communications app used by Mike Waltz, Trump’s former national security adviser of Signalgate fame (as snapped during last week’s cabinet meeting the day before he was fired), said it was temporarily suspending services following a reported hack that exposed some of its messages.
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Mass protests called for 14 June, when Trump plans to throw himself a military parade birthday party
Indivisible and a coalition of pro-democracy partner organizations just announced a NO KINGS Nationwide Day of Defiance for 14 June, which is both Donald Trump’s birthday and the day of a planned military parade in Washington.
The organizers write:
On June 14—Flag Day—Donald Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.
US spy agencies say Venezuela 'is not directing' Tren de Aragua gang, undermining Trump's use of Alien Enemies Act
US intelligence officials concluded last month that the government of Venezuela is “probably not directing” the activities of Tren de Aragua gang members inside the United States, according to a newly declassified memo released on Monday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The 7 April memo, which the foundation provided to The New York Times, undermines Donald Trump’s claim that Alien Enemies Act gives him the power to deport suspected members of the gang because they are part of a covert invasion by a foreign government.
The memo was produced by the National Intelligence Council, which includes senior analysts and national security policy experts who report to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
The intelligence experts found that Venezuelan security forces have arrested Tren de Aragua members and “periodically engaged in armed confrontations with TDA, resulting in the killing of some TDA members,” suggesting that the government of Nicolás Maduro see the gang as a threat, not an ally.
Trump's 'very strong research' on film production turns out to have been a conversation with Jon Voight at Mar-a-Lago
Earlier today, Donald Trump told reporters on the White House lawn that his plan to impose a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands”, announced on his social media platform Sunday night, was not, as it might have seemed, a poorly thought out scheme that will do more harm than good but the result of some “very strong research” that the president had engaged in “over the last week”.
That research, it turns out, was a conversation this weekend at Mar-a-Lago with Jon Voight, and his business partner, the producer Steven Paul.
According to a press release sent to the Hollywood Reporter on Monday, Voight and Paul pitched Trump on a plan to re-shore film production through “a combination of federal tax incentives, tax code changes, co-production treaties and infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, production and postproduction companies”.
Having done his own research, Trump apparently chose to ignore the expert advice to offer incentives to film producers to shoot films in the United States, and decided to threaten them with tariffs instead.
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Trump administration freezes all federal research funding for Harvard
The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school concedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest to the government.
The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan, scathing letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media. “This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.
The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”.
As Garber explained in a message to the Harvard community last month, the university decided to sue the federal government only after the Trump administration froze $2.2bn in funding, threatened to freeze an additional $1bn in grants, “initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status”.
The government’s “sweeping and intrusive demands would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university”, Garber wrote.
In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard said the government’s funding cuts will have stark “real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff [and] researchers” by ending crucial medical and scientific research.
The text of McMahon’s letter, like a Truth Social post from the president, is littered with all-caps words. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?”
“Harvard University has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus,” McMahon claims.
The university recently published its own, in-depth investigation of allegations that Gaza solidarity protests had crossed the line into antisemitism, and a second that looked at anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.
But McMahon’s letter is not mainly about the claim that Jewish students feel unsafe at Harvard – a view the president, who is himself Jewish, has some sympathy with – but is filled with extended diatribes about a series of other grievances, including: the supposed far-left politics of Penny Pritzker, a member of the university’s governing board who previously served as US commerce secretary during the Obama administration; the complaints of Harvard alumnus and Trump supporter Bill Ackman; what McMahon calls the “ugly racism” of Harvard’s efforts to diversify its student body; complaints about what Fox News has termed a “remedial math” course which is intended to address gaps in new students’ math skills following the Covid-19 pandemic; accusations that the Harvard Law Review has discriminated against white authors; and two brief fellowships the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health offered to the former mayors of New York and Chicago, Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot.
In language that seemed to echo Donald Trump’s own, McMahon told Harvard’s president that de Blasio and Lightfoot, who were recruited to share their experiences of bringing universal pre-kindergarten to New York, and leading Chicago through the pandemic, are “perhaps the worst mayors evert to preside over major cities in our country’s history”.
“This is like hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation,” McMahon wrote.
“Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote. “You have an approximately $53bn head start.”
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Melania Trump to host unveiling of stamp honoring Barbara Bush, who hated Donald Trump for decades
On Thursday at the White House, Melania Trump will host the unveiling of a US Postal Service stamp honoring the former first lady Barbara Bush, who made no secret of her passionate hatred of Donald Trump.
In a diary entry written in 1990 that Bush gave to the journalist Susan Page for a biography, the then first lady wrote that Trump’s behavior had transformed the meaning of his name into a new word. “Trump now means Greed, selfishness and ugly,” Bush wrote.
The same year, Bush was astounded to read in a news report that Trump, in remarks at a charity dinner attended by the former president, Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy, had mocked Reagan for paid speeches he had delivered in Japan. “I see President and Mrs= Reagan in the audience,” Trump said. “Did you have to pay them $2m?”
In 2016, just before her son Jeb dropped out of the Republican presidential primary against Trump, the former first lady told CBS News: “I don’t know how women can vote for someone who said what he sad about Megyn Kelly. It was terrible, and we knew what he meant too.”
After Kelly had asked Trump to account for his past misogynistic and sexist comments during a primary debate hosted by Fox in that campaign, Trump was enraged, and later told CNN: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her … wherever.”
“He’s like a comedian, or like a showman or something,” the former first lady, whose stamp will be unveiled by the current one, said in the same interview.
Page later revealed that Trump’s first presidency shook Bush’s faith in the Republican party. Asked shortly before she died whether she still considered herself a Republican, Bush answered: “I’d probably say no today.”
Until the day she died in 2018, Bush kept a red, white and blue digital clock on her bedside table that counted down to the end of Trump’s term.
Donald Trump elected not to attend the former first lady’s funeral, although Melania Trump was there, alongside the former first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton.
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Trumps signs order barring federal funding for gain-of-function research in China
Donald Trump just signed an executive order ending all federal funding for what the White House calls “dangerous gain-of-function research in countries of concern like China and Iran and in foreign nations deemed to have insufficient research oversight.”
In the made-for-television photo-op in the Oval Office, Trump was flanked by his new health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Dr Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner, and Dr Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director.
Trump alluded to the claim that has become an article of faith among his supporters: that research financed by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China years before the Covid-19 pandemic, which some experts described as gain-of-function, could have led to the development of Sars-CoV-2, the deadly coronavirus that causes the disease Covid-19, in the Wuhan lab.
In 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci rejected Senator Rand Paul’s claim at a contentious Senate hearing that research carried out in Wuhan before 2017 with some support from the NIAID met the definition of gain-of-function and pointedly explained that it was “molecularly impossible” to make Sars-CoV-2 from the viruses that were used in those experiments.
Fauci did not get a chance to explain during that hearing what the scientific basis was for the determination by NIAID biologists that the experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, described in a paper published in 2017, were not subject to a temporary pause on the funding of gain-of-function research imposed during the Obama administration in 2014, which was lifted in 2017 when Trump was president.
The official White House account that shared video of the order signing on social media also said that the measure was to guard against what it called “lab accidents and other biosecurity incidents, such as those that likely caused Covid-19”.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, suggested last week that the Trump administration’s insistence that the Covid-19 pandemic started in a lab was intended to justify sweeping cuts to all biomedical and public health research. “No evidence supports a lab leak, but it’s used to justify a 40% budget cut anyway,” Rasmussen wrote.
The White House has taken down some government websites providing Covid-19 information and replaced them with a new boldly styled page dedicated to the controversial theory that the pandemic was caused by the virus leaking from a Chinese government laboratory.
Last month, the Trump administration took down the federal government websites covid.gov and covidtests.gov, which had provided basic information about Covid-19 vaccines, treatment and testing, and replaced them with a new White House page that showed Trump in front of the words “LAB LEAK” in giant letters. A headline below reads: “The True Origins of Covid-19.”
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US commerce secretary says Canada's 'socialist regime' has been 'feeding off of America'
One day before the newly elected Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, visits the White House to meet Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, accused Canada of being a “socialist regime” that has been “feeding off of America” for decades.
Lutnick made his undiplomatic remarks to Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who served as Trump’s top economic advisor during his first term when the president took pride in negotiating the USMCA trade pact with Mexico and Canada to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
But when Kudlow asked Lutnick about the prospects for a new US trade deal with Canada, the commerce secretary scoffed at the idea. “Why do we make cars in Canada?” he asked. “Why do we do our films in Canada? Come on!”
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Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced on Monday that she was dropping all charges against seven pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested last May at a University of Michigan encampment.
The announcement came just moments before the judge was to decide on a defense motion to disqualify Nessel’s office over alleged bias. Defense attorney Amir Makled said the motion largely stemmed from an October Guardian report detailing Nessel’s extensive personal, financial and political connections to university regents calling for the activists to be prosecuted.
“This was a case of selective prosecution and rooted in bias, not in public safety issues,” Makled added. “We’re hoping this sends a message to other institutions locally and nationally that protest is not a crime, and dissent is not disorder.”
Read more:
Editorial cartoonist who quit Washington Post over sketch of Bezos kneeling to Trump wins Pulitzer
This year’s Pulitzer prize for illustrated reporting and commentary was awarded to editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who quit the Washington Post in January to protest the newspaper’s refusal to publish her satirical cartoon depicting the outlet’s owner, Jeff Bezos – and a group of other media and technology barons – kneeling before Donald Trump and offering him bags of cash.
Last week, after the Guardian reported that Trump called Bezos to complain about report that Amazon planned to list tariff costs on site, and Amazon relented to the pressure, Telnaes posted her rejected cartoon again on Bluesky.
In its citation, the Pulitzer board praised Telnaes “For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”
After she quit, Telnaes wrote on Substack:
The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump. There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago. The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.
While it isn’t uncommon for editorial page editors to object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes that editor as unclear or isn’t correctly conveying the message intended by the cartoonist, such editorial criticism was not the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested, but never because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. That’s a game changer…and dangerous for a free press.
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‘It is really scary’: Trump cuts will lead to more deaths in disasters, expert warns
The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost lives in the US, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned.
Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled.
“The overall risk of threats and hazards occurring in the US has increased since this administration took over, while the capacity of our emergency management system is being diminished,” said Montano in an interview.
Emergency managers will be operating blindly without the data that we have become accustomed to from Noaa and other science agencies. It’s what we rely on to issue warnings and evacuation orders, and pre-position resources. It is really scary because we used to not have good weather data – and death tolls were remarkably higher.
It is difficult to know if it will be the next hurricane where the response completely fails or three hurricanes from now. But I feel confident in saying that if the cuts continue, we will be seeing higher death tolls and more devastation, absolutely. It’s beyond crazy that we are eliminating the funding for these agencies particularly at this moment where hazards are increasing because of climate change.
Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp has ruled out running for Senate next year against Jon Ossoff, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents in the chamber.
Kemp was viewed as a strong candidate to flip the seat that Ossoff won in 2020, given his overwhelming re-election victory as governor of the swing state three years ago. Several Republicans are said to be considering running for the Senate seat, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, the rightwing north Georgia congresswoman who is one of Donald Trump’s most ardent defenders.
“Over the last few weeks, I have had many conversations with friends, supporters, and leaders across the country who encouraged me to run for the US Senate in 2026. I greatly appreciate their support and prayers for our family. After those discussions, I have decided that being on the ballot next year is not the right decision for me and my family,” Kemp wrote on X.
“I spoke with President Trump and Senate leadership earlier today and expressed my commitment to work alongside them to ensure we have a strong Republican nominee who can win next November, and ultimately be a conservative voice in the US Senate who will put hardworking Georgians first.”
Ossoff was first elected the same year that Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia’s electoral votes in nearly three decades. But last year, Georgia voters picked Trump, and Ossoff is expected to face a competitive race for another six-year term representing the state.
If he loses, Senate Democrats could see their 47-seat minority shrink even further. The party will also be defending a seat in Michigan, a swing state Trump won last November, but are hoping to unseat GOP senators in Maine and North Carolina.
Trump is due to sign an executive order to encourage domestic drug manufacturing, according to Reuters. We’ll bring you more detail on that as soon as we get it.
The day so far
The White House said in a clarifying statement that “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made” after Donald Trump abruptly announced on his Truth Social platform last night a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”, sparking widespread concern across the film industry.
TeleMessage, the communications app used by Mike Waltz, Trump’s former national security adviser of Signalgate fame (as snapped during last week’s cabinet meeting the day before he was fired), said it was temporarily suspending services following a reported hack that exposed some of its messages.
Further evidence came to light regarding the scope of the Trump administration’s highly controversial and aggressive efforts to reach agreements with more countries to receive third-country deportees from the US. Reuters reported that Rwanda was in “early stage” discussions with the Trump administration and and according to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News, the administration has also approached the likes of Angola, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Libya, Moldova and as mentioned above Rwanda to aid its aggressive mass deportation efforts.
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued on Monday in an attempt to block Trump’s move to suspend leasing and permitting of new wind projects, saying it threatens to cripple the wind industry and a key source of clean energy.
Prominent figures in the Maga movement came out against the bipartisan IGO Anti-Boycott Act, House Resolution 867 saying it would criminalize boycotts and free speech against Israel, after which a scheduled vote on the legislation today was canceled.
Trump is scheduled to meet at the White House today with Russian American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, who was released from a Russian prison last month after spending more than a year in custody following allegations of financially supporting Ukraine’s military.
Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence received a John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Sunday for his actions on January 6, when he defied Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election. Accepting the award, Pence said: “I will always believe by God’s grace that I did my duty that day.”
Drugmakers warned that Americans would suffer most if Trump imposed tariffs on imports of pharmaceuticals, as medications would become more expensive and potentially unaffordable for some people.
Trump announced that the 2027 NFL draft will take place in Washington DC and outlined a plan to hold it on the National Mall.
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App used by former national security adviser Mike Waltz says it is temporarily suspending services following reported hack
Speaking of Mike Waltz, the communications app used by Donald Trump’s former national security adviser says it is temporarily suspending services following a reported hack that exposed some of its messages.
Reuters reports that in an email, Portland, Oregon-based Smarsh, which runs the TeleMessage app, said it was “investigating a potential security incident” and was suspending all its services “out of an abundance of caution”.
Photos taken at Trump’s cabinet meeting last week revealed that, the day before he was fired, Waltz and other top White House officials were communicating using TeleMessage – an even less secure version of the Signal messaging app that was at the center of a huge national security scandal last month that was key in dooming Waltz to his dramatic demotion.
The images, taken by Reuters on Wednesday, show messages between Waltz and contacts who appear to be JD Vance, the vice-president; Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who has for now replaced Waltz as acting national security adviser; Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; and Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East who has played a key role in negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war.
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Asked last night about the potential for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to be his long-term pick for national security adviser following the dramatic sacking of Mike Waltz last week, Semafor reports that Trump is very clearly not ruling it out.
“Stephen Miller is at the top of the totem pole,” the president said. “I mean, I think he sort of indirectly already has that job. He has a lot to say about a lot of things. He’s a very valued person in the administration.”
Conflicting reports arose at the end of last week over the future of the national security adviser role. Politico reported that Marco Rubio, who has taken on the position “in the interim”, was slated to keep his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser for at least six months and the positions could even become permanent. Rubio’s placement was not meant to be a temporary slot-in, reported Politico, citing three senior White House officials.
That contrasted with an earlier Axios report that Miller, the chief architect of Trump’s aggressive and highly controversial immigration crackdown, had been garnering buzz as a top candidate for the role. With Trump’s latest comments, it looks like Miller is very much still in the running for the job.
Trump said he had “nothing to do with” the production of an AI-generated image that showed him dressed like a pope but said it was done in jest.
“I just saw it last evening,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He said his wife, Melania Trump, thought it was “cute”. Despite Trump’s claim that “the Catholics loved it”, some in the Catholic community have criticized the image.
The former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said the image was shameful. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the rightwing world enjoys clowning around,” he wrote on X.
In the US, the New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state, accused Trump of mockery.
“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” they wrote. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St Peter. Do not mock us.”
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Asked about his administration’s push to get undocuments immigrants to “self-deport” in exchange for $1,000, Trump – apparently forgetting that due process is a constitutional right, as he did yesterday – said the courts were getting in the way of his deportation efforts.
Speaking from the Oval Office, he said:
It’s a very difficult thing with the courts. The courts have all of a sudden, out of nowhere, said maybe you have to have trials. We’re gonna have 5 million trials? Doesn’t work. You wouldn’t have a country left. But hopefully the supreme court will save it. But what they’ve done is a very very serious thing.
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In his interview with NBC News yesterday Trump tripled down on his assertion that the prospect of American kids having fewer toys as a result of his tariff policy driving up prices is a good thing. He said:
I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs – that’s 11 years old – needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable.
I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five. We don’t have to waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don’t need, for junk that we don’t need.
Politico notes: “From a philosophical point of view, we’re trying to think of the last time an American president – or any western leader – decided to argue against abundance and consumer choice. From a political point of view, these quotes have a dangerous whiff of ‘let them eat cake’ about them, given how many American families are just trying to make ends meet. Naturally, Trump’s opponents are already pulling out old [and very gold] photos of his own children that suggest they were not exactly subjected to these kinds of constraints themselves.”
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Trump says Washington DC will host 2027 NFL draft
Donald Trump has just announced that the 2027 NFL draft will take place in Washington DC. Speaking from the Oval Office alongside NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris, Trump laid out a goal to have the draft on the National Mall. He said:
It’s gonna be beautiful. It’s gonna be something that nobody else will be able to duplicate.
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Democratic-led states sue Trump administration for blocking wind energy projects
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general sued on Monday in an attempt to block Donald Trump’s move to suspend leasing and permitting of new wind projects, saying it threatens to cripple the wind industry and a key source of clean energy.
Reuters reports that 17 states and the District of Columbia argued, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston, that the decision by the Trump administration to indefinitely pause all federal wind-energy approvals was unlawful and must be blocked.
Trump announced the pause on his first day back in office on 20 January when he directed his administration to halt offshore wind lease sales and stop the issuance of permits, leases and loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects.
“This administration is devastating one of our nation’s fastest-growing sources of clean, reliable and affordable energy,” New York’s Democratic attorney general, Letitia James, said in a statement.
The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring the indefinite pause unlawful and barring the agencies including the US Departments of Commerce and Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing Trump’s directive.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
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US seeking deportation deals with further countries including Angola and Equatorial Guinea – report
Earlier we reported that Rwanda is in “early stage” discussions with the Trump administration to potentially receiving third-country deportees from the US, according to the country’s foreign minister. According to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News, the administration has also approached the likes of Angola and Equatorial Guinea to aid its aggressive mass deportation efforts.
The administration has already brokered agreements with several Latin American countries willing to accept migrants who are not their own. In February, the US deported hundreds of African and Asian people to Costa Rica and Panama. In March, the Trump administration sent nearly 300 Venezuelans accused of being gang members to El Salvador, which is being paid millions of dollars to detain them in its infamous mega-prison.
Guatemala has also agreed to take in third-country deportees from the US. The Mexican government, under a deal that precedes Trump’s second term, has been receiving migrants from other Latin American countries, like Venezuela, caught crossing the US southern border illegally.
But per CBS’s report, the Trump administration has identified further countries that could potentially accept deportations of third country nationals, including Angola, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Libya, Moldova and Rwanda, according to the internal government documents and officials. The US has yet to announce any formal deals with these countries.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the internal talks with some of these countries in April. The negotiations with Angola and Equatorial Guinea have not been previously reported.
One of the ideas under consideration, the internal government documents show, would be for the US to use the agreements to deport suspected members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang Trump has made into a focal point of his crackdown on illegal immigration.
During last Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, secretary of state Marco Rubio confirmed the Trump administration was “actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries”. He said:
We are working with other countries to say, ‘we want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries’. ‘Would you do that, as a favor to us? And the further away from America, the better.’
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Americans would suffer most if Trump imposes pharma tariffs, sector warns
Drugmakers have warned that Americans would suffer most if Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imports of pharmaceuticals, as medications would become more expensive and potentially unaffordable for some people.
Drugmakers have been braced for targeted border taxes – similar to the 25% levies on steel, aluminium and car imports – after the president threatened to hit the sector and announced an investigation last month. Last week, Trump hinted at a possible reprieve for companies, saying they would be given time to move their operations to the US, but “after that it’s going to be a tariff wall put up, and they won’t be happy about it”, he added.
Giovanni Barbella, the global head of strategy and supply chain at the Swiss multinational Sandoz, one of the world’s biggest makers of generic drugs, said tariffs would lead to supply disruptions and price increases, hitting US patients hardest. He said:
We are producing products on a very tight margin. That’s the nature of our industry. So ultimately, higher production cost, including the cost of tariffs, will lead to higher prices.
Rwanda in 'early stages' of talks with Trump administration over taking in people deported from US
Rwanda is in talks with the Trump administration to potentially take in people deported from the US, the country’s foreign minister said late on Sunday.
Rwanda’s foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, said that his country’s government was in “early stage” discussions about receiving third-country deportees from the US.
“It is true that we are in discussions with the United States,” Nduhungirehe said in an interview with Rwanda TV, reported Reuters. “These talks are still ongoing, and it would be premature to conclude how they will unfold,” he added.
The move appears to be another step by the Trump administration to pursue swift deportations, several of which have lacked thorough due process. In a highly controversial arrangement worth millions of dollars, it has already paid El Salvador to incarcerate hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members deported from the US in its notorious mega-prison.
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White House claims 'no final decisions on foreign film tariffs'
The White House said in a clarifying statement Monday that “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made” after President Trump abruptly announced on his Truth Social platform Sunday a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands,” sparking widespread concern across the film industry.
“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Hollywood Reporter.
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President Donald Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform this morning that he had just had a “very good and productive” phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Their conversation covered “many subjects, including the War with Russia/Ukraine, all things Syria, Gaza, and more,” Trump wrote. “The President invited me to go to Turkey at a future date and, likewise, he will be coming to Washington, D.C. During my four years as President, my relationship with President Erdoğan was excellent,” he added.
“In any event, I look forward to working with President Erdoğan on getting the ridiculous, but deadly, War between Russia and Ukraine ended — NOW!” Trump wrote.
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Scott Bessent, the US secretary of the treasury, referred to a “trade puzzle” and said “China is the biggest piece” when asked about Trump’s “goal of reindustrialization” with tariffs and the risk of isolating the US.
“If we want more manufacturing, and everyone agrees that [China] needs more consumption, we could actually do that together,” he said during a global conference in California on Monday morning. “Trade is not always a straight line. It’s not always a pleasant process, but I think at the end, the trading relationships will be stronger. Our security and values ties will still be there.”
President Trump’s trade war has continued to escalate, especially with China, driving up tariff costs. Beijing said on Friday it was “evaluating” an offer from the US to engage in trade negotiations, though Donald Trump had claimed a week earlier that talks were already under way.
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The Trump administration says it’s going to pay $1,000 to immigrants who have returned to their home country voluntarily after being in the US illegally, reports the Associated Press.
The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that it was also paying for travel assistance and that people who use their CBP Home app (the Customs and Border Protection app) to tell the government they plan to return home will be “deprioritized” for detention and removal by Ice.
As the mass deportation agenda continues, the Trump administration is seeking cost-saving measures such as pushing people to “self-deport”.
“If you are here illegally, self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest. DHS is now offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App,” the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, said.
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Maga lawmakers defend right to boycott Israel, leading to pulling of House vote on bill to criminalize such boycotts
Prominent figures in the Maga movement came out against the bipartisan IGO Anti-Boycott Act, House Resolution 867 saying it would criminalize boycotts and free speech against Israel, after which a scheduled vote on the legislation today was canceled, Newsweek reports.
According to the lawmakers who introduced the bill, Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, it would have amended “the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to include international governmental organizations (IGOs) in existing anti-boycott laws”. The change, they said, “targets harmful and inherently antisemitic” boycott efforts undertaken at IGOs while also “extending protections already in place for boycotts instigated by foreign countries”.
Critics warned the bill threatened the constitutional rights of Americans to free speech. The penalties under the legislation included civil penalties, criminal fines of up to $1m and imprisonment of up to 20 years for supporting calls to boycott Israel or its settlements.
Revealing an interesting split on the American right regarding criticism of Israel, after public backlash to the bill a number of prominent Maga lawmakers said on Sunday that they planned to vote against the legislation. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, wrote on X yesterday evening that the vote had been pulled.
She had posted on X in opposition to the bill: “I will be voting NO. It is my job to defend American’s rights to buy or boycott whomever they choose without the government harshly fining them or imprisoning them. But what I don’t understand is why we are voting on a bill on behalf of other countries and not the President’s executive orders that are FOR OUR COUNTRY???”
Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, wrote on X in response to Greene’s post: “I agree with @RepMTG. I’ll be voting No on this bill as well.”
And Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, wrote on X: “H.R. 867, up for a vote tomorrow, aims to curb antisemitism but threatens First Amendment rights. Americans have the right to boycott, and penalizing this risks free speech. I reject and vehemently condemn antisemitism but I cannot violate the first amendment.”
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Trump to meet US-Russian ballerina who was jailed in Russia over charity donation
Trump is scheduled to meet at the White House today with Russian American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a White House official has told NBC News.
Karelina was released from a Russian prison last month after spending more than a year in custody following allegations of financially supporting Ukraine’s military.
She was arrested in Russia in February 2024 and sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony after she donated $52 to a charity that sends aid to Ukraine.
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Donald Trump has two crypto-focused dinners on the calendar this month — one aimed at deep-pocketed political donors, the other at meme coin millionaires. Both are poised to help him raise millions.
The first event, a $1.5m-per-plate Maga Inc fundraiser set to take place tonight at his DC golf resort, is among the most expensive ticketed dinners in presidential history. Attenders at the “crypto and AI innovators dinner” are promised the chance to network with Trump’s inner circle, including David Sacks, the White House’s crypto policy architect.
The second, on 22 May, offers the opportunity to win a private dinner with the self-proclaimed “crypto president” for the top 220 investors in the $TRUMP meme token. For the top 25 coin holders at the gala dinner, which will also be held at the Trump National golf club in Washington DC, there will be “an-ultra exclusive private VIP reception with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT!” plus a “special VIP tour” of the White House, the coin’s website said.
But the terms and conditions dutifully state: “President Trump may not be able to attend the $TRUMP Gala Dinner, and the $TRUMP Gala Dinner may be cancelled for any reason (including, but not limited to, a force majeure event). In the event President Trump is unable to attend the $TRUMP Gala Dinner, or if the $TRUMP Gala Dinner does take place, then in our sole discretion, the $TRUMP Gala Dinner may be rescheduled to another date, or $TRUMP Meme holders who are qualified for the Gala Dinner and/or reception will receive a limited edition TRUMP NFT in lieu thereof.”
The offer of access to the president for those who invest in an organization that funds Trump’s personal fortune has sparked bipartisan scrutiny and criticism, NBC News reports. “This is my president that we’re talking about, but I am willing to say that this gives me pause,” said Senator Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, who has been spearheading a legislative push on cryptocurrency regulation in the Senate.
A staunch ally of the president, Lummis said on Wednesday that she thought Congress needed to regulate standards around the use of digital assets like meme coins. “This is the wild west, and so when I hear things like this, my reaction is, we need to legislate so there are rules,” she told NBC News.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, who often bucks her party, expressed uneasiness about the event, though she noted she didn’t have all of the details. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour,” Murkowski told NBC News on Thursday. “[Trump’s] got to remember that he’s living [at the White House], but it’s the people’s house, right?”
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'I did my duty that day': Mike Pence receives JFK Profile in Courage Award for his actions on January 6
Donald Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence received a John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Award on Sunday for his actions on January 6, when he defied Trump’s demands to overturn the 2020 election. After rightwing extremists stormed the US Capitol, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, the former vice-president remained in the Capitol and later oversaw the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
“Vice-President Pence put his life, career and that of his family on the line to execute his constitutional responsibilities. His actions preserved the fundamental democratic principle of free and fair elections and we are proud to honor him,” former ambassador Caroline Kennedy, John F Kennedy’s daughter, said in presenting Pence with the award.
She added that “political courage is not outdated in the United States”.
In accepting the annual award, Pence, 65, said it was a “distinction that I will cherish for the rest of my life”. Pointing to his actions on 6 January 2021, he said to a standing ovation:
I will always believe by God’s grace that I did my duty that day.
Pence went on:
January 6 was a tragic day. But it became a triumph of freedom. And history will record that our institutions held.
Speaking after the ceremony of public response to his actions, he told Fox News Digital: “It convinces me that the American people know that what ever differences we may have, the Constitution is the common ground on which we stand.”
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Trump says he will call CEOs when he disagrees with their business decisions following call to Jeff Bezos
Donald Trump on Friday reflected on his phone call earlier in the week with Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos, telling NBC News that he would use the same tactic with other CEOs if necessary.
Trump called Bezos after it was reported that Amazon would list the cost of tariffs on certain purchases for consumers. The White House had earlier called the reported move a “hostile and political act”.
In an interview that aired on Sunday, Trump said of Bezos:
He’s just a very nice guy. We have a relationship. I asked him about [the tariff charge language Amazon considered including in listings]. He said, ‘Well, I don’t want to do that,’ and he took it off immediately.
Trump and Bezos have developed a cozier relationship in recent months, with Amazon donating $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund and Bezos attending his swearing in ceremony. In the days before the presidential election, the Washington Post, owned by Bezos, did not endorse a candidate for the first time in over three decades, and in February went a step further in overhauling the newspaper’s opinion section to focus its output “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets”.
Following the call, Tim Doyle, Amazon spokesperson, said: “The team that runs our ultra-low-cost Amazon Haul store considered the idea of listing import charges on certain products. This was never approved and is not going to happen.”
Asked whether he would use the same tactic with CEOs of other major retailers, Trump told NBC News:
Sure. I’ll always call people if I disagree with them.
If I think that somebody’s doing something that’s incorrect, wrong or maybe hurtful to the country, I’ll call. Wouldn’t you want me to call? [former president Joe] Biden wouldn’t call because he didn’t know what was happening, but I do.
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Trump visit offers 'window of opportunity' for hostage deal, says Israeli official, as Israel unveils plan to 'conquer' Gaza
A senior Israeli defence official said on Monday there was a “window of opportunity” for a hostage deal in Gaza during Donald Trump’s visit to the region next week.
However, Reuters reports, if no deal is agreed Israel would begin its new operation in the enclave.
“If there is no hostage deal, Operation ‘Gideon Chariots’ will begin with great intensity and will not stop until all its goals are achieved,” the official said, following a decision by the security cabinet to approve an expanded operation.
It comes as Israel’s security cabinet voted unanimously on Monday to approve a plan to expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming weeks, with the aim of “conquering” the territory and establishing a “sustained presence” there.
The plan is part of Israel’s efforts to negotiate a ceasefire on Israel’s terms and increase pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages. Israeli officials said the plan also includes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, “continues to promote” Trump’s proposal from January to displace the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza to neighbouring countries such as Jordan or Egypt, to allow its reconstruction, the officials also said.
Trump’s scheduled visit later this month to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE may provide an additional incentive to the Israeli government to conclude a new ceasefire deal and allow aid into Gaza. Trump, who recently said he wanted Netanyahu to be “good to Gaza”, is likely to come under pressure from his hosts to push Israel to make concessions to end the conflict.
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Analysis: Trump’s movie tariffs are designed to destroy the international film industry
Donald Trump’s bombshell announcement that “Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands” will be subject to a 100% tariff has certainly caught the attention of Hollywood, as well as the international film industries it seems to be aimed at – principally Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as European countries such as Hungary and Italy that have often acted as bases for US film production.
Vague and grandstanding at it is, the chaotic rollout of previous Trump tariffs has triggered feverish speculation, as well as defiance, in the film industry in exactly how this might play out.
Trump’s target does not appear to be foreign films per se, but rather the outsourcing of production by Hollywood studios who for decades have used overseas studios and locations to lower costs as well as take advantage of interesting or unusual backdrops. While North America (comprising the US and Canada) remains the biggest single market, with around $8.8bn (£6.6bn) in box office takings in 2024, it is dwarfed by international income of about $21.1bn. It is capturing a significant proportion of this that has geared Hollywood to its internationalist thinking.
But Trump appears to be taking aim at the system of tax subsidies that allow Hollywood producers to accrue large sums if they shoot at studios in qualifying countries. This partly explains the decline in film production in LA – nearly 40% in the last decade, according to FilmLA – but the California film industry has also been under attack from other production centres in the US, where states such as New York and Georgia offer tax incentives.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, a regular target of Trump, recently announced a $750m scheme to try to reverse the industry decline in his state, and Trump’s announcement was in some ways clearly a shot across his bows after Newsom filed a lawsuit in April against Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to impose tariffs in other industries.
But whether, as Newsom suggests, this is all a “distraction”, or if this announcement turns into something more solid, a shocked film industry is waiting to find out.
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Israel is to expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming weeks, with the aim of “conquering” the territory and establishing a “sustained presence” there, Israeli officials have said.
The plan, which was unanimously approved at a security cabinet meeting late on Sunday, goes beyond any aims so far outlined by Israel for its offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory and is likely to prompt deep international concern and fierce opposition.
Officials told reporters in Israel that the plan would involve a new and intense offensive leading to “the conquest of Gaza and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection [and] … powerful blows against Hamas”.
You can follow the latest news on our dedicated live blog here:
Trump meets ex-Proud Boys leader he pardoned at Mar-a-Lago
Former Proud boys boss Enrique Tarrio was at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, according to reports, where he had a brief conversation with Donald Trump.
The New York Times reported that Tarrio thanked Trump for pardoning him for his role in planning the January 6 riot.
Tarrio wrote on X: “He called me and my Mother over while we were at dinner and said he was sorry for what @JoeBiden did to all J6ers. “I thanked him for giving me my life back. He replied with…I Love You guys. To the J6ers he wanted me to send y’all a message…He said…Thank you.”
A White House official later confirmed Trump had a conversation with Tarrio at Mar-a-Lago as the president was walking to his dinner table.
Here’s more reaction to Trump’s film tariffs from Australia:
The Australian government says it will stand up for the country’s film industry, in response to Donald Trump’s 100% tariffs on film productions made outside the US.
Australia is such a popular location for foreign film productions, it is sometimes dubbed “Hollywood Down Under” with recent large-scale productions including The Fall Guy, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Thor: Ragnarok.
The government’s location offset scheme offers a 30% rebate for big-budget film projects shot in Australia, with additional post-production rebates, and state governments offering further sweeteners.
But the imposition of tariffs could mean these incentives are no longer attractive enough for productions aimed at the massive US market.
Trump’s move will send shock waves through the industry globally, according to industry peak body Screen Producers Australia (SPA).
“At this stage, it is unclear what this announcement means in practice or how it will be applied and implemented”, said the SPA chief executive, Matthew Deaner.
“There are many unknowns for our industry, but until we know more, there’s no doubt it will send shock waves worldwide.”
The arts minster, Tony Burke, said he was monitoring the situation closely.
“Nobody should be under any doubt that we will be standing up unequivocally for the rights of the Australian screen industry,” Burke said in a statement.
The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost American lives, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned.
Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled.
“The overall risk of threats and hazards occurring in the US has increased since this administration took over, while the capacity of our emergency management system is being diminished,” said Montano in an interview.
Trump film tariff plan 'not in the interests of American businesses', UK lawmaker warns
There has been more reaction to Trump’s plan for 100% tariffs on films made in “foreign lands”, with a UK lawmaker warning it “is not in the interests of American businesses”.
Dame Caroline Dinenage is a member of the right-leaning Conservative opposition party who chairs the UK parliament’s culture committee. She said members of the committee had warned “against complacency on our status as the Hollywood of Europe” in their report on British film and high-end TV, published last month.
She added:
President Trump’s announcement has made that warning all too real. Making it more difficult to make films in the UK is not in the interests of American businesses. Their investment in facilities and talent in the UK, based on US-owned IP (intellectual property), is showing fantastic returns on both sides of the Atlantic. Ministers must urgently prioritise this as part of the trade negotiations currently under way.
Our video team have produced this clip with Donald Trump speaking about his film tariff plan, accusing other countries of “stealing” the US’s film-making capabilities and attacking the California governor (Gavin Newsom, although he doesn’t name him when speaking to reporters outside the White House).
Meanwhile, Germany has said it “strongly rejects” criticism by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of its domestic spy agency’s decision to label the far-right AfD party as an extremist group.
“I reiterate that the insinuations contained (in his comments) are certainly unfounded,” foreign ministry spokesman Sebastian Fischer said.
Rubio had slammed Friday’s move against the AfD, which came second in February elections, as “tyranny in disguise” and Vice President JD Vance also spoke out against it.
On Sunday, the German foreign ministry had posted on X about the decision to label the AfD as extremist:
This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”
You can read more here:
In the UK, the PA news wire has more on the response to Trump’s film tariffs.
Philippa Childs, head of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (Bectu), said the UK industry is “only just recovering” from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many productions were delayed or cancelled.
She said:
The UK is a world leader in film and TV production, employing thousands of talented workers, and this is a key growth sector in the government’s industrial strategy,” she said.
“These tariffs, coming after Covid and the recent slowdown, could deal a knock-out blow to an industry that is only just recovering and will be really worrying news for tens of thousands of skilled freelancers who make films in the UK.
“The government must move swiftly to defend this vital sector, and support the freelancers who power it, as a matter of essential national economic interest.”
It is not clear how a tariff on international productions could be implemented. Many films are shot across numerous countries, including the US and UK.
Last year, the UK government introduced the Independent Film Tax Credit, which allows productions costing up to £15m to benefit from an increased tax relief of 53%.
In announcing his plan for 100% tariffs on movies made in “foreign lands”, Trump attacked “incentives” offered by other countries, which he said were an attempt to “draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States”.
Trump's film tariffs to send 'shockwaves' through global industry
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of US politics with news that Donald Trump’s plan to impose 100% tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands” will send shock waves through the industry globally, according to industry body Screen Producers Australia (SPA).
“At this stage, it is unclear what this announcement means in practice or how it will be applied and implemented”, said the SPA chief executive, Matthew Deaner.
“There are many unknowns for our industry, but until we know more, there’s no doubt it will send shock waves worldwide.”
In the UK, the Bectu union representing staff working in the screen industry warned it could be a “knock-out blow” for a sector still recovering from Covid and strikes. It called on the UK government to “move swiftly to defend this vital sector … as a matter of essential national economic interest”.
Trump had announced the move on Sunday night, citing what he termed a “national security threat” to the US film industry. In a post on Truth Social, he claimed to have authorised the commerce department and the US trade representative to immediately begin instituting such a tariff. There were no details on the implementation. It was not immediately clear whether the move would target production companies, foreign or American, producing films overseas. He wrote:
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”
“WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
More on this soon. And in other developments:
Trump has said he is directing his government to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years. In a post on his Truth Social site on Sunday evening, Trump said America was “plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders”. He said a rebuilt Alcatraz would house “America’s most ruthless and violent” criminals.
Trump has said that he does not know whether he must uphold the US constitution, the nation’s founding legal document. In a NBC News interview, he was asked if people in the US – citizens and non-citizens alike – deserve the due process of law, as the US constitution states. Trump said: “I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”
Trump would not rule out using military force to gain control of Greenland, a fellow Nato member with the US. Since taking office, the US president has repeatedly expressed the idea of US expansion into the strategically important territory, triggering widespread condemnation and unease both on the island itself and in the global diplomatic community.
The heads of embattled US public broadcasters, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), defended themselves against efforts by the Trump administration to cut off taxpayer funding. PBS’s chief executive, Paula Kerger, told CBS News’s Face the Nation that Republican-led threats to withdraw federal funding from public broadcasters had been around for decades but are “different this time”.
