Closing summary
The president has left the stage in Alabama, and is on his way to another long weekend at Mar-a-Lago, so we will wrap up our live coverage for the day. We will return on Friday to bring you all the latest developments in US politics as they happen. In the meantime, here is some of what transpired on Day 102 of the second Trump administration:
Mike Waltz, who was Donald Trump’s national security adviser this morning, was relieved of his duties after clinging on for more than a month after the news broke that he had accidentally invited a journalist Trump hates to join a Signal group chat to plan strikes on Yemen in March.
After a morning of reporting on Waltz’s firing, the administration, put out a new line: Waltz had not been fired but promoted, since he had been nominated to be the new US ambassador to the UN. That framing was delivered on Fox News by Peter Doocy, a network correspondent, and then JD Vance, the vice-president.
A Reuters photograph of Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that was previously overlooked showed that Waltz was still using Signal on his phone as recently as yesterday, to communicate with senior officials including Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance.
Waltz appears to have installed third-party software on his phone that allows Signal to be archived, but also makes it less secure.
US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully rejected what she called “relentless attacks” on the federal judiciary.
The US Army has developed detailed plans for a potential military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June
Senate Democrats responded to the firing of Waltz by calling for another participant in the chat, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, to be fired.
Hegseth’s use of Signal to share confidential attack plans with his wife and brother is reportedly under investigation by the Pentagon’s acting inspector general.
The Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without due process is “unlawful”, a federal judge in Texas ruled.
US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson denounces 'relentless attacks' on judges
Speaking to a group of federal judges and lawyers at a conference in Puerto Rico on Thursday, US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully rejected what she called “relentless attacks” on the federal judiciary, Bloomberg Law reports.
“The attacks are not random,” Jackson said. “They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”
Jackson did not directly mention Trump, but she called the wave of attacks as “the elephant in the room” in prepared remarks. “The attacks are also not isolated incidents,” Jackson said. “That is, they impact more than just individual judges who are being targeted. Rather, the threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government and they ultimately risk undermining our Constitution and the rule of law.”
Politico reports that “Jackson’s unusually pointed comments received a standing ovation from the judges and lawyers in attendance.”
Donald Trump, weeks from his 79th birthday, just finished regaling the graduating seniors of University of Alabama’s Class of 2025 with anecdotes about the success of figures from the distant and very distant past.
He described an encounter at a party decades ago with William Levitt, the real estate developer famous for building “Levittowns” in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. “He lost his momentum”, Trump said. “He retired, lost his momentum. He retired and led a beautiful life. He had a wife. I must tell you, it was his second wife. It was a trophy wife, what can I say?”
He moved on to quote the title of a book by Norman Vincent Peale, “The Power Of Positive Thinking”, which was published in 1952.
Earlier, Trump sought to inspire the graduates by describing the great success of South African golfer Gary Player who won “168 golf tournaments” despite being short. Player, who turned professional 72 years ago, in fact won 159 times.
Earlier in the address, Trump also name-checked Bear Bryant, the former Alabama football coach who died in 1983, and Joe Namath, who led the school to national championship 61 years ago.
Later he urged the graduates to “be an original” and follow the examples of: Teddy Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Amelia Earhart, Annie Oakley and Muhammad Ali.
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Trump's address at University of Alabama was his idea, not university's, student newspaper says
Donald Trump is now speaking to students at the University of Alabama, but, according to The Crimson White, the school’s student newspaper, the president’s claim that he “agreed to do the Commencement Address” was false, in two ways.
In an email to students from the university, administrators explained that Trump was not invited to speak but instead “selected” the school as one of two were he would address graduating students. The speech is also not part of any of the eight commencement ceremonies scheduled to take place later this week.
Trump’s speech so far is a fairly typical recitation of his claimed achievements.
A protest against Trump’s appearance, organized by College Democrats, was addressed by former Alabama senator Doug Jones and former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke.
Earlier in the day, an Alabama chapter of the grassroots organizing group Indivisible led a protest march against “Trump’s unwanted University if Alabama commencement speech”.
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Photograph of Waltz's phone appears to show he used unofficial version of Signal
A close inspection of the photograph of Mike Waltz, the ousted national security adviser, using Signal on his phone during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, reveals that unofficial version of Signal that is designed to archive messages, 404 Media, a journalist-founded digital media company, reports.
The photograph showed a prompt asking Waltz to verify his “TM SGNL PIN.” As 404 Media notes, this is not the message displayed on an official version of Signal.
TM SGNL, the outlet reports, “appears to refer to a piece of software from a company called TeleMessage which makes clones of popular messaging apps but adds an archiving capability to each of them. A page on TeleMessage’s website tells users how to install ‘TM SGNL.’ On that page, it describes how the tool can ‘capture’ Signal messages on iOS, Android, and desktop.”
As 404 Media’s Joseph Cox explains, using the software also means that the end-to-end encryption that makes Signal trusted for sharing private communications “is not maintained, because the messages can be later retrieved after being stored somewhere else.”
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US Army plans military parade for its birthday, and Trump's
The US Army has developed detailed plans for a potential military parade on President Donald Trump’s birthday in June, the Associated Press reports. The plans call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly thousand of civilians to march on 14 June, which is the anniversary of both the service’s founding, in 1775, and Trump’s birth, in 1946.
The planning documents, obtained by the AP, are dated April 29 and 30 and have not been publicly released. They represent the Army’s most recent blueprint for its long-planned 250th birthday festival on the National Mall and the newly added element — a large military parade that Trump has long wanted but is still being discussed.
While the slides do not include any price estimates, it would likely cost tens of millions of dollars to put on a parade of that size. Costs would include the movement of military vehicles, equipment, aircraft and troops from across the country to Washington and the need to feed and house thousands of service members.
High costs halted Trump’s push for a parade in his first term, and the tanks and other heavy vehicles that are part of the Army’s latest plans have raised concerns from city officials about damage to roads.
The news comes as defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered $40 billion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget that could force the closing of headquarters, cost up to 1,000 staff their jobs and shift personnel to units in the field.
Vance insists Waltz 'wasn't let go' as national security adviser but given 'a promotion' to UN ambassador
In an interview with Fox on Thursday evening, JD Vance, the vice-president, rejected the premise that Mike Waltz, who was forced out of his job as national security adviser earlier in the day, had been fired.
“He wasn’t let go. He is being made ambassador to the United Nations, which, of course, is a Senate-confirmed position” Vance said. “I think you could make a good argument that it’s a promotion.”
“Look, I think the media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn’t give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards”, Vance said. “If the president wanted to fire him over the Signal thing – which, by the way, was a total nothingburger of a story – he would’ve just done it, but he actually decided it’s better for Mike to be in this new role.”
A photograph of Waltz checking his Signal messages on Wednesday showed that he had been messaging with Vance on the app as recently as Tuesday.
The White House framing that Waltz was not fired but promoted was shared with Fox viewers earlier in the afternoon by the rightwing network’s senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy. “After a long morning of reporting that Mike Waltz had been fired, you could argue that he just got a promotion,” Doocy said. “President Trump doesn’t want him as the national security adviser any more, instead he’s putting him up for Senate confirmation as the US ambassador to the UN.”
Whether Waltz will be able to win confirmation after a hearing that is sure to focus on the administration’s use of Signal to share sensitive information is an open question.
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'Let’s do Hegseth next', Democrats say after Waltz ouster over Signal group chat
Senate Democrats overwhelmingly responded to the firing of Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who created a Signal group to discuss strikes on Yemen in March and accidentally added a journalist to the chat, by calling for another participant in the chat, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, to be fired.
“Good. Let’s do Hegseth next,” Senator Mark Warner of Virginia posted on X. That response was echoed by a number of other senators, including Tina Smith of Minnesota, Alex Padilla of California and Peter Welch of Vermont.
“Mike Waltz is the fall guy. The one who should go is the Secretary of Defense,” Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote. “This entire national security establishment of the Trump Administration is a clown show except they’re playing with real guns & bullets. We should be very afraid.”
“I think they fired the wrong guy,” Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said in a video statement. “They should’ve fired Pete Hegseth for his sharing of information, classified and sensitive information, on that Signal chain.”
“But what really worries me here is, why did Mike Waltz get fired?” Kelly added. “Laura Loomer, the internet troll, is claiming credit for this. Does she now get a say as to who our next national security adviser is?”
Loomer, the anti-Muslim, 9/11 truther who is a confidant of the president, reportedly visited the Oval Office to demand the firings of multiple members of the national security staff last month. On Thursday, she did in fact take credit for Waltz, and his deputy Alex Wong, being fired, texting Politico that they had been “Loomered”.
And Loomer is already working on social media to undermine potential new appointments she disapproves of. On Thursday afternoon, she wrote on X that she was hearing that Morgan Ortagus, Trump’s current deputy Middle East envoy, “is trying to push her way into being Deputy NSC Advisor. Hell No.”
Given Trump’s penchant for casting his senior officials by their looks and combativeness, it is not hard to see why he might consider a promotion for Ortagus, a US Navy Reserves lieutenant commander and former beauty pageant winner whose most recent accomplishment has been alienating influential Lebanese leaders with online insults.
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The White House Director of Communications, Steven Cheung, responded to the widespread criticism of Mike Waltz, the ousted national security adviser, for checking Singal on his phone during Wednesday’s cabinet meeting by posting on X: “Signal is an approved app that is loaded onto our government phones.”
That is interesting information, and will no doubt lead to complaints that the administration appears to be flouting laws that require government communications to be archived, rather than deleted from an app that allows for disappearing messages, but the criticism of Waltz is not primarily about whether he was using his personal phone to access Signal.
It is more that Waltz, who was charged with protecting the nation’s most sensitive national security secrets, allowed his Signal chat list, with some of the texts plainly readable, to be photographed by a Reuters photojournalist who was right next to him.
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Here are more voices from the May Day march in New York that started in Union Square.
Mark Pazzanese, a 17-year-old student of forensic psychology from Brooklyn, held up a transgender pride flag at today’s Union Square rally.
“I’m here fighting for what I believe in, which is that no one in the government has the right to deport people based on hearsay evidence,” Pazzanese said “I’m horrified by the actions of Columbia University. I’m horrified by the actions of the NYPD, and I’m here for trans rights because I am a trans man myself.”
Ibna Pasha, 32, is a retired veteran of the US army. Throughout the march through the streets of Manhattan, he was front and center, waving a large Palestinian flag.
“I’m here to support the workers and Palestine,” he said.
Pasha says that what brought him to today’s rally was seeing the videos that constantly come across his social media feed of people being brutalized in Gaza. “There are kids getting massacred,” he said. “I don’t think women and children should be a casualty in any type of war.”
“I fought for the US army. I signed up for the US army to protect my country, and I’m just so upset to see what’s going on now. There’s nothing we can do right now other than protest. If we can’t change within ourselves, and if we can’t change society, nobody will help us.”
Saidi Moseley, 25, is an education coordinator and one of the organizers of the May Day Union Square march.
“May Day is a day for people from all sectors, from all different backgrounds, to come together and put forward our demands for our right to education, good health care, just basic things that the Trump administration is attacking” Moseley said.
“Today, we saw lots of new people who are getting energized and activated. The Trump administration is clearly coming for all of these rights that we’ve won, and all of us are taking up the task to fight back.”
Pentagon inspector general investigates Hegseth’s Signal chat with family — report
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Steven Stebbins, has expanded his investigation of defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of Signal to text classified information to not just other senior officials, but also to his wife, brother, lawyer and other personal associates.
As the Guardian reported last month, Stebbins announced that he was investigating Hegseth’s use of “an unclassified commercially available messaging application” to discuss detailed plans for US airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. That investigation came after a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee following the publication of Signal messages including highly sensitive military information that Hegseth sent to a group chat set up by Mike Waltz, the former national security adviser, which accidentally included the editor of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.
The Journal’s sources say that the investigation has expanded to include a second Signal chat, set up by Hegseth, in which he texted the same Yemen attack plans to a dozen associates, including his wife and brother.
“The Pentagon inspector general is focused, in part, on who took information from a government system for highly-classified information and put it into Hegseth’s commercial Signal app”, the Journal reports, citing an anonymous source familiar with the investigation.
Trump administration asks supreme court to help strip protected status from 300,000 Venezuelans
The Trump administration’s solicitor general, John Sauer, filed a request on Thursday for the US Supreme Court to intervene in its bid to strip “temporary protected status” from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants, a move that would clear the way for their deportation.
As Politico reported in March, a federal judge in northern California blocked the administration from ending the status for Venezuelans who fear returning home, in a blistering ruling that called “sweeping negative generalizations” about the migrants by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, a “classic example of racism”.
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The Guardian’s photographer Julius Constantine Motal was on the ground in New York as protesters marched from Union Square to Bryant Park
Waltz was photographed checking Signal on his phone during cabinet meeting yesterday
On Wednesday, which turned out to be his final full day as Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz was photographed checking Signal on his phone during a cabinet meeting by Evelyn Hockstein of Reuters, as the Daily Mail reporter Charlie Spiering first noted on X.
Given that Waltz was ousted for mistakenly adding the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal chat group during which confidential military plans for strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen were discussed by senior cabinet members, it is remarkable that he was still; using the messaging app yesterday, as he likely fought to save his job.
A close-up crop shows that Waltz had recent chats on his phone with: a Rubio, likely Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, in which he had written “…fully there is time” on Wednesday morning; someone named Witkoff, likely Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy for Ukraine and the Middle East; a voice call to or from a Gabbard, likely Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, early Wednesday. The chat list also shows that Waltz had sent a text message to vice-president JD Vance on Tuesday, in which the national security adviser had written, “I have confirmation from my counterpart it’s turned off”. The message to Vance is marked with two empty checks, meaning that it had been delivered to the vice-president’s device, but still had not been read or replied to by him as of Wednesday morning.
White House video of the cabinet meeting shows that the Reuters photographer was kneeling directly to the left of Waltz at one stage, so it would be hard to argue that he was anything but careless about keeping his messages to and from other senior officials private.
The video also shows that Waltz was seated directly next to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, who has the same initials as Jeffrey Goldberg. Waltz mistakenly added a JG to the Yemen chat, leading many to speculate that he had confused his contacts for Greer and Goldberg.
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CBS’s 60 Minutes has received an Emmy nomination for editing for none other than its interview with Kamala Harris, over which Donald Trump has sued CBS accusing the newscast of misleadingly editing the interview with the Democratic presidential nominee.
Trump renewed his attacks on CBS yesterday as his lawyers began mediation talks with the network’s parent company, Paramount, over a lawsuit he filed last year.
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In New York City’s Union Square, where demonstrators rallied as part of the nationwide May Day marches against Donald Trump and his administration’s policies, Grant Miner is one of a handful of speakers at the rally. Miner was a student at Columbia University before the institution abruptly expelled him in March for participating in pro-Palestine protests. He also serves as president of UAW 2710, the Student Workers of Columbia union.
“May Day is the biggest holiday for workers around the world, and I’m here as a unique presence to speak as just one voice among many of the trade unionists, the leftist organizers who come together every year to speak from the perspective that is not always heard,” Miner said.
“I’m trying to speak out about the things that are affecting my workers, which include the ongoing cuts to higher education, as well as the targeting of students for student protests, which are two very big issues facing our workplace reality.”
The day so far
Mike Waltz finally left the chat after Donald Trump ousted his scandal-hit and ideologically isolated national security adviser in the first major shake-up of his administration so far. Trump considered firing Waltz when Signalgate first broke and officials lost confidence, but decided to wait so as not to give opponents a victory. The push to get rid of him gained momentum in recent weeks as found himself without allies and losing sway in the White House. His deputy Alex Wong has also been shown the door. Waltz and Wong found themselves under pressure in recent weeks – with West Wing officials blaming Waltz for the fiasco of Signalgate, and influential Maga figures including far-right activist Laura Loomer targeting them as insufficiently loyal to the Maga agenda. Loomer successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers, further weakening his position. Indeed other aides viewed Waltz as ideologically out of step with the administration and too much of a foreign policy hawk. He has been demoted to a nomination for ambassador to the UN, while secretary of state Marco Rubio will serve as national security adviser in the interim, Trump said.
Democrats argued that Waltz is merely the fall guy for Signalgate and – while maintaining that he was rightly fired – defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who Trump continues to back, should have also lost his job.
Elsewhere:
The Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport a Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without due process is “unlawful”, a federal judge in Texas ruled, in a significant setback to the president’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda. US district judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr, a Trump appointee, ruled that the administration could not rely on the Act to detain and deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua because the gang’s presence in the United States was not an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” as contemplated by the law. Trump’s invocation “exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” he wrote.
Donald Trump plans to release his fiscal year 2026 budget and will send it to Capitol Hill on Friday, Axios reported. The budget will be the first official indication of how the president wants to fund the government, along with his priorities.
The Trump administration will approve its first sale of military equipment to Ukraine since Trump took office, in an indication that the minerals deal signed by the two countries this week may open a path to renewed weapons shipments. The state department has certified a proposed licence to export “$50m or more” of defence hardware and services to Ukraine, according to a communication sent to the US committee on foreign relations. It would mark the first permission of its kind since Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.
Former president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will sit for their first TV interview since leaving the White House next week. The former first couple will appear live on the 8 May edition on ABC, and will discuss their life after the presidency, Joe Biden’s legacy and the current political landscape.
Trump signed an executive order establishing a “religious liberty commission”. In remarks at a National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he proclaimed: “We’re bringing back religion in our country and we’re bringing it back quickly and strongly.”
More than 3,300 scientists and experts signed an open letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists urging Congress and US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick to halt the ongoing assault on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and restore staffing and funding for the agency.
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Joe and Jill Biden to sit for first TV interview since leaving White House on 8 May
Former president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will sit for their first TV interview since leaving the White House on The View, per The Hollywood reporter.
The Bidens will join hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sarah Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro live on the 8 May edition of the ABC daytime show. The former first couple will discuss their life after the presidency, Joe Biden’s legacy and the current political landscape.
It comes after Kamala Harris, Biden’s former vice-president, made her first major speech since losing last year’s presidential election. Speaking to a crowd of Democrats in San Francisco on Wednesday, she accused the Trump administration of deliberately sowing fear and chaos in a “high velocity” start to his presidency that has pushed the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis.
They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others. But what they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.
Trump plans to release fiscal year 2026 budget on Friday - report
Donald Trump plans to release his fiscal year 2026 budget and will send it to Capitol Hill on Friday, Axios reports.
The budget will be the first official indication of how the president wants to fund the government, along with his priorities.
Axios said OMB chief Russell Vought is meeting with House lawmakers on Thursday.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
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Reuters notes that Trump’s selection of Marco Rubio to replace Mike Waltz temporarily will be the first time since Henry Kissinger in the 1970s that one person has held both the positions of secretary of state and national security adviser.
Chad Pergram of Fox News reports on X that the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, Mark Warner, says a Senate confirmation hearing for Waltz as UN ambassador “would be pretty brutal considering what happened with Signalgate”.
Top Dem on Intel Cmte Warner says a confirmation hearing for Waltz as UN Ambassador “would be pretty brutal” considering what happened with Signalgate
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) May 1, 2025
At the time, Warner described the leaking of the Yemen war plans in a Signal group chat as part of a pattern of “sloppy, carless, incompetent” actions taken by the second Trump administration that weakens US national security.
“I can just say this. If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired, as I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one-off or a first-time error,” he said.
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This will be the fourth role Trump has given secretary of state Marco Rubio, after he was also made acting national archivist and acting USAID administrator.
Trump nominates Waltz as UN ambassador; Rubio to serve as interim national security adviser
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform:
I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations. From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role. In the interim, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as National Security Advisor, while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department. Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
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We’re getting lines from Reuters that Trump has said Mike Waltz will become the next ambassador to the UN, while secretary of state Marco Rubio will take over as interim national security adviser.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Trump administration readies first sale of military equipment to Ukraine
Shaun Walker in Kyiv and Andrew Roth in Washington
The Trump administration will approve its first sale of military equipment to Ukraine since Donald Trump took office, in an indication that the minerals deal signed by the two countries this week may open a path to renewed weapons shipments.
The state department has certified a proposed licence to export “$50m or more” of defence hardware and services to Ukraine, according to a communication sent to the US committee on foreign relations. It would mark the first permission of its kind since Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.
Among the speakers scheduled to address the May Day rally in Washington DC on Thursday is María del Carmen Castellón, whose husband Miguel Luna died in the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore last year.
The story of Luna and the five other construction workers who died during the tragedy is “symbolic”, Cathryn Jackson, public policy director at Casa, said. The six men were all construction workers originally from Latin American countries.
“This is the story of men working in the middle of the night while all of us were sleeping, getting the roads together, doing the work that many people don’t want to do,” Jackson continued.
“It’s symbolic of what people here today are experiencing and feeling. We are literally physically building this country, and then being treated the way we are in return.”
Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, a Democrat representing Illinois, addressed the crowd in Franklin Park as the “proud daughter of Guatemalan immigrants”.
“Today on International Workers’ Day, we are united,” Ramirez said. “We’re united because we understand that this president wants to silence us. He wants to divide us, pit us against each other. But we are not going to be silenced.”
The Trump administration knows that “the only thing that will stop fascism is mobilization”, she continued, acknowledging that there will be “really hard days” ahead. “But as long as you keep organizing, I can amplify that voice and continue to stand up to fascism.”
Organizers behind the May Day protest in Washington DC said they expect to see up to 3,000 people join the rally in the nation’s capital to demand safety on the job, legal protections and an end to unjust deportations.
This year’s rally focuses on the essential role that immigrant workers play in powering the economy and the devastating impact of immigration enforcement that rips families apart.
“Our message today is focused on ensuring that our voices are heard, at a time when the Trump administration is attempting to silence our voices,” Cathryn Jackson, public policy director at Casa, a group that provides critical services to immigrant and working-class families, told the Guardian.
“We’re seeing people abducted off the streets every day in some of the most violent and cruel ways. We’re seeing people like Kilmar Ábrego García – and he’s only one story. His story is not unusual.”
Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is expected to speak at today’s rally as she continues to fight for her husband’s release from the notorious Cecot maximum-security prison in El Salvador and to be returned to the US.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump said he “could” bring Ábrego García back if he wanted to, but insisted that the 29-year-old Salvadoran, who had been living in Maryland and is married to an American citizen, is a member of the violent MS-13 gang. Ábrego García has not been charged with any crimes.
“Hundreds and hundreds of people are being deported to some of the worst prisons across the country with no due process,” Jackson said. “This rally today is about solidarity. It’s about saying no matter what the Trump administration tries to do, we are determined to fight back.”
In a protest outside the supreme court, Democratic lawmakers condemned Donald Trump’s attacks on the judiciary, and mulled impeaching him once they returned to the majority in Congress.
Attendees at the rally organized by the group Lawyer for Good Government brandished signs reading, “Democracy, not dictatorship” and supporting arrested judge Hannah Dugan and wrongly removed Salvadoran Kilmar Ábrego García.
Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin attacked Trump for undermining the rule of law, and quoted founding father Thomas Paine. “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. But we have this saving consolation: the more difficult the struggle, the more glorious, in the end will be, our victory. Let’s make that victory ours!” he said.
Calling the past 100 days “an awful nightmare”, California congressman Sam Liccardo said of Trump:
Democrats are going to impeach him in 2026, if we get the chance.
At least two Democratic lawmakers have filed articles of impeachment against Trump, which are almost certain be ignored by Congress’s Republican leaders. They may get another chance not in 2026 but the year after when the new, hypothetically Democratic led Congress would only take its seats.
The Guardian’s Marina Dunbar was at New York City’s Union Square earlier where demonstrators rallied as part of the nationwide May Day marches against Donald Trump and his administration’s policies.
Betsy Waters, 67, retired and full-time volunteer, held up a sign that says “Due process for all”.
“I come to several marches, and I feel that we have to be out here. We have to be out here making a stand as much as we can. So I am out here making a stand, saying that what is happening in our country is just not right,” Waters said.
Lydia Howrilka, a 25-year old librarian from Queens, held up a sign that says: “Only you can stop fascism.”
“I am standing in solidarity with my immigrant brothers and sisters in New York. I am standing in defense of democracy,” Howrilka said.
An international human rights body has criticized the conduct of a Border Patrol investigative unit overseen by Rodney Scott, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in the aftermath of the death of a migrant in San Diego.
Anastasio Hernández Rojas died after being beaten and tased by CBP officers who were preparing him for deportation after he entered the United States from Mexico in 2010. At the time, Scott was a high-ranking Border Patrol officer in the San Diego sector, and signed an administrative subpoena to obtain Hernández Rojas medical records, which CBP then refused to share with San Diego police investigators who were looking into the homicide.
On Wednesday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released its investigation into Hernández Rojas’s death, which found that the US “is responsible for the violation of the rights to life, personal integrity, health, justice, and humane treatment during the arrest” of Hernández Rojas. The report also said the US “violated the right of access to justice” under the 1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man with its “failure to collect, and the destruction of evidence in the early stages” and “biases with which the investigation was initiated”.
The Senate finance committee considered Scott’s nomination on Wednesday, after a former top CBP official accused him of “a cover-up” in the Hernández Rojas case. Scott told the committee his use of the subpoena was “standard procedure”, and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem hit back at the allegations made against him. In a letter to the committee’s top Democrat Ron Wyden, she said the San Diego police department obtained the medical records through their own subpoena and that Scott “did not impede any investigation, nor did he take steps to conceal facts from investigators”.
Currently, a leading pick to replace Mike Waltz is Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff who is shepherding negotiations with Russia, Iran and Hamas in Gaza, according to three people who have spoken to Politico. Other names being floated are Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, Richard Grenell, Christopher Landau and even Marco Rubio.
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'They're firing the wrong guy': Democrats welcome Waltz firing but say it is Pete Hegseth who should go
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer welcomed the departure of national security adviser Michael Waltz but said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is most deserving of losing his job.
“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy. They should be firing Hegseth,” the minority leader told reporters at the Capitol.
He accused Republicans of confirming a defense secretary who was unfit for the job, and predicted scandals similar to Signalgate – where Hegseth, Waltz and other national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen in a group chat – would happen in the future.
Everyone knew that Hegseth was the wrong guy for DOD, given his background, given his attitude towards women, but given the fact that he had no experience and had never shown an ability to run an organization.
They fired the [National Security Council] guy, but there are going to be many more problems, just like Signalgate that come out of the Defense Department, as long as Hegseth is in charge. This is not a one off. This is going to happen over and over and over again.
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'Loomered': Mike Waltz ousted over mistakes and ideological differences
Politico reports that while Mike Waltz lost the confidence of other administration officials and could leave imminently, the move to oust him is not final and Trump could yet change his mind, according to five people familiar with the decision.
Indeed Trump is known to pivot away from plans he tells staff and even announces publicly, Politico notes. Names for a replacement have been discussed around the West Wing for weeks, but the plans to remove Waltz potentially as soon as this week gained steam in recent days, two of the people and another person close to the White House told the outlet.
Many in the West Wing were furious at Waltz’s role in the Signal group chat leak, which involved likely highly classified information, and lost confidence in him. But Politico notes he was also further weakened after far-right activist Laura Loomer met with Trump and persuaded him to fire several members of the National Security Council and top officials, including the director of the National Security Agency, General Tim Haugh, over “loyalty concerns”. Loomer also targeted Waltz’s deputy, Alex Wong, who is also expected to depart his post, accusing the son of Chinese immigrants of advancing Chinese interests.
In response to reports of Waltz’s ouster, Loomer sent a one-word text to Politico:
Loomered.
Waltz had lost sway in the administration and found himself without allies, my colleague Hugo Lowell writes.
The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, but decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz’s error was a mistake.
The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other senior officials.
He was also under fire from other corners. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda. That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. The outside pressure campaign to remove Waltz additionally included an effort led by Steve Bannon, Hugo reports.
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Here’s Tim Walz’s take on Mike Waltz leaving his post (I know you were thinking it too).
Mike Waltz has left the chat.
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) May 1, 2025
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Trump's use of Alien Enemies Act to swiftly deport Venezuelans is 'unlawful', judge rules
The Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport a Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without due process is “unlawful”, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, in a significant setback to the president’s aggressive anti-immigration agenda.
Reuters reports that in a 36-page opinion, US district judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr ruled that the Trump administration could not rely on the Act to detain and deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua because the gang’s presence in the United States was not an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” as contemplated by the law.
The ruling, the first to reach such a conclusion, is the latest sharp rebuke to one of Trump’s most high-profile efforts to quickly carry out deportations with little or no due process.
Rodriguez’s order permanently blocks the administration from using the Act and Trump’s proclamation to detain, transfer or remove Venezuelan migrants who either live or are detained in the Texas southern district.
The Alien Enemies Act applies only when the country is facing an armed, organized attack, Rodriguez, a Trump appointee ruled. Trump’s invocation “exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,” he wrote. “[Administration officials] do not possess the lawful authority under the AEA, and based on the Proclamation, to detain Venezuelan aliens, transfer them within the United States, or remove them from the country.”
The US supreme court on 7 April ruled that the Trump administration must give migrants the chance to contest any future Alien Enemies Act deportations in court. Judges across the country have since issued temporary orders blocking such deportations in their districts.
Thursday’s preliminary injunction is longer-lasting than the two-week temporary restraining orders that he and other judges in Colorado, Manhattan, and Pennsylvania had previously imposed.
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White House national security adviser Mike Waltz being forced out - report
Trump also shouted out his defense secretary Pete Hegseth, which is perhaps notable following the news that just broke that national security adviser Mike Waltz has been forced out of his job, according to Reuters citing four people briefed on the matter.
One source familiar with the situation at the National Security Council told CBC News the president thinks sufficient time has passed since the Signal debacle that Waltz and Wong’s departures can be framed as part of a reorganization. Trump has been hesitant to oust Waltz – which he considered doing at the time – over the perception that doing so could be seen as bending to outside pressure.
Meanwhile Trump has continued to back Hegseth, whom Democrats and a number of Republicans have called on to be fired for his repeated use of Signal to discuss sensitive military operations in Yemen, including with family and friends.
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Trump claims he will 'save' Medicaid as Republicans decide how much to slash in budget negotiations
Trump claims he will be “saving Medicaid” and strengthening it.
Trump fears that cuts to Medicaid – under discussion by congressional Republicans as they seek to fund the tax cuts in his aforementioned “big, beautiful bill” – will harm him politically. Just how he plans to “save” it remains to be seen. Politico reported last night that he is reluctant to sign off on such a plan, and Axios reported that he will soon be shown a menu of Medicaid possibilities by top House Republicans, including per capita caps on funding to states that have expanded the program.
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Trump says tax bill is 'right on schedule'
Trump says he just received an updated from congressional leaders on his “big, beautiful bill” and praises House speaker Mike Johnson for doing “an incredible job”.
He says “things are moving along very well” and “the final details are coming together”, adding “we’re right on schedule”.
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“We’re bringing back religion in our country and we’re bringing it back quickly and strongly,” Trump says.
Donald Trump is set to speak shortly at the White House as part of a National Day of Prayer event.
It remains to be seen whether he will address reports of Mike Waltz and Alex Wong’s alleged departure from his administration.
Two people familiar with the matter have confirmed to the Guardian that Donald Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong will be leaving their posts.
The confirmation comes weeks after Waltz found himself at the center of a scandal involving his accidental adding of the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg into a secret Signal chat regarding US attack plans in Yemen.
As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports: “The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the episode, but reportedly decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term.”
For the full story, click here:
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According to one source speaking to Reuters, one potential option for Mike Waltz’s replacement as national security adviser is Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy.
Trump himself has yet to comment publicly on the reports of Waltz’s alleged departure from the White House.
Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, CBS News reports citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. They are expected to leave on Thursday.
Waltz has been under intense scrutiny over the Signal group chat scandal. Infamously, Waltz put together a Signal chat – and mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg – disclosing sensitive discussions with top national security officials about plans for a military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. The information shared included the timing of the strikes and the weapons packages used.
Trump repeatedly defended Waltz as well as others involved in the Signal chat, including defense secretary Pete Hegseth whose resignation has been called for by Democrats and a number of Republicans. The president told NBC News in late March: “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
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Trump administration sues Michigan to block planned climate change lawsuit
The Trump administration has sued the state of Michigan, seeking to prevent it from suing major oil companies over the role they have played in causing climate change, saying the Democratic-led state was standing in the way of domestic energy production.
Reuters reports the US Department of Justice in a lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Michigan said the state’s intended lawsuit constitutes an “extraordinary extraterritorial reach” that will undermine federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and the administration’s foreign policy objectives.
The state has not filed the lawsuit yet. But Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat, in October said the state was seeking proposals from law firms to represent it in climate change-related litigation. The Trump administration’s unusual preemptive lawsuit follows a pledge during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists”.
Numerous Democratic-led states have in recent years filed similar lawsuits against companies including Exxon Mobil , Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP accusing them of deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels have played in causing climate change. The companies deny wrongdoing.
The justice department in the lawsuit cites an executive order Trump signed on his first day back in office on 20 January declaring a national energy emergency to speed permitting of energy projects, rolling back environmental protections, and withdrawing the US from an international pact to fight climate change. The lawsuit said:
As a result of state restrictions and burdens on energy production, the American people are paying more for energy, and the United States is less able to defend itself from hostile foreign actors.
It said Michigan was standing in the way of the administration’s efforts to boost the domestic energy supply with its announcement in October that it was planning to pursue litigation against the fossil fuel industry.
This Nation’s Constitution and laws do not tolerate this interference.
Nessel’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Similar lawsuits by state and local governments have accused energy companies of creating a public nuisance or violating state laws by concealing from the public for decades the fact that burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change. Many remain in their early stages after years of litigation by oil companies over whether the states could sue in state rather than federal court.
The US supreme court in March rejected a bid by 19 Republican-led states, led by Alabama, to block five Democratic-led states from pursuing such lawsuits. The Republican-led states raised similar claims of the justice department’s case.
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More than 3,300 scientists sound alarm on cuts to Noaa in open letter to Congress and Trump administration
More than 3,300 scientists and experts have signed an open letter from the Union of Concerned Scientists urging Congress and US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick to halt the ongoing assault on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and restore staffing and funding for the agency.
Workers and scientists at the Noaa – the nation’s foremost science agency, with a mandate that spans oceans, fisheries, climate, space and weather – have warned of the drastic impacts of cuts on science, research and efforts to protect natural resources. More than 800 probationary employees at the agency were fired, reinstated, then refired last month, and contractors for the agency have been furloughed.
The letter warns that Noaa “has been under an unrelenting barrage of attacks” and has lost more than 20% of its already lean workforce. Further cuts to staff and budget loom as the Trump administration looks to slash the federal budget and cut or eliminate more research centers and programs across the country.
Dr Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS and a letter signatory, said:
Too many members of Congress are staying compliantly on the sidelines even as the Trump administration takes a wrecking ball to our nation’s foremost science agency. Noaa’s invaluable scientific enterprise has been built up over decades through investments by US taxpayers for the public’s benefit. Local decision makers, communities, meteorologists, first responders, farmers, mariners, and businesses depend on Noaa’s crucial weather and climate data provided free of charge. Congress must do its job: reclaim its constitutional power and limit the worst excesses of this increasingly authoritarian, anti-science and destructive administration.
The letter ends:
A world without Noaa and other leading US science institutions would not only upend decades of invaluable scientific research, but it would also signify an abdication of US leadership in climate science, and an erosion of US status as a scientific powerhouse.
Last week an Noaa veteran told the Guardian the cuts are disrupting the collection of data sets, including recordings of global temperatures in the air and ocean, and that data cannot be replaced. The dismantling of Noaa, they said, would harm work in many areas, from finding solutions to combat harmful algae and improving sustainable fisheries to work on new medicines and industrial products and collecting information for disaster preparation.
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Miller is asked about reports that the Trump administration has inquired about Kilmar Ábrego García’s return, and asked whether that’s to “check a box” or because Trump wants him back on US soil.
He says the administration isn’t going to publicly discuss the inside details of foreign policy negotiations.
He adds that Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is “managing the day-to-day relationship with El Salvador”.
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Trump to sign executive order establishing 'religious liberty commission'
Later today Trump will sign an executive order establishing a “religious liberty commission”, Leavitt says.
We’ll bring you more detail on what that means as we get it.
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White House press briefing
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has been taking questions from the media at the morning press briefing alongside deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
In her opening remarks, she made a brief comment on the US-Ukraine minerals deal signed last night.
She said the agreement shows “why … Trump is our deal maker in chief”, hailing it as a “historic” development with “a first of its kind economic partnership for the reconstruction and long term economic success of Ukraine”.
President Trump has been clear from the beginning he wants the killing in this brutal war to end. This agreement shows how invested the president is in securing a truly lasting peace.
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Tesla denies report claiming board looked to replace Elon Musk
Tesla has denied a report that its board sought to replace Elon Musk as its chief executive amid a backlash against his rightwing politics and declining car sales.
Robyn Denholm, the chair of the board at the electric carmaker, said in a statement on Tesla’s social media account on X, which is owned by Musk:
Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company. This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.
Musk also pushed back hard, with capital letters.
It followed a Wall Street Journal story (paywall) published on Wednesday that claimed “board members” had contacted headhunters to recruit a successor about a month ago.
The reported move came as tensions grew at Tesla around falling profits and criticism of Musk for spending much of his time in Washington, where he has been helping Donald Trump slash federal spending as de facto head of the “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
It is unclear in the report whether these members were acting on behalf of the board as a collective, or if it was only some of them taking steps to find a new chief executive. The Tesla board is made up of eight people, including Elon Musk himself, his brother, Kimbal Musk, and James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
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Bessent and Hassett’s comments are the latest optimistic Trump administration suggestions that some level of negotiations are underway with Beijing. But the source of their optimism is unclear and US officials have remained cagey on any details, such as who in the administration is negotiating, or where, or with which Chinese counterparts.
Meanwhile Chinese officials, though they have consistently stated that Beijing is open to talks with the US (with a caveat that “dialogue and negotiation must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit”), they have repeatedly denied Trump’s claims that Beijing and Washington have been negotiating. “As far as I know, there have not been any calls between the two presidents recently,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said on Wednesday.
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Bessent says he's confident China wants to reach deal on tariffs
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday the United States will likely revisit Donald Trump’s phase one trade deal with China from his first administration, and said he was confident Beijing will want to reach a deal on tariffs. In an interview with Fox Business Network:
I am confident that the Chinese will want to reach a deal. And as I said, this is going to be a multi step process. First, we need to de escalate, and then the over time, we will start focusing on a larger trade deal.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett also said he was hopeful for progress with China on trade, citing “loose discussions” between both governments while noting that he personally had not had any talks with Chinese officials. Hassett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” program:
We’re hopeful for progress. I think that the fact that the tariffs came off last week shows that we’re very close to making the kind of progress we need to move the ball forward.
The phase one trade deal signed in January 2020 stipulated China would buy an additional $200bn in US exports over 2020 and 2021, though it fell short of those levels and was unable to import enough from the US to meet its pre-trade war import levels from 2017.
It also featured other agreements, such as China committing to remove technical barriers to US agricultural exports, protecting the intellectual property rights of US firms and ending forced technology transfers.
Bessent told Fox on Tuesday the administration would “take into account” that China “didn’t adhere to the phase one deal”:
I think we’ll have to take into account that they didn’t adhere to the phase one deal and, you know, I note with great interest that the Biden administration liked the tariffs, but they didn’t enforce the purchase agreements.
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US treasury chief urges Fed to cut rates
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday called on the US Federal Reserve to cut rates, saying yields on two-year rates were lower than Fed fund rates. He told Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” program:
We are seeing that two-year rates are now below Fed funds rates, so that’s a market signal that they think the Fed should be cutting.
Last night, Donald Trump resumed his attacks on Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, appearing to suggest he knew more about interest rates than him and that rates should be cut. The president told a White House event:
Mortgage rates are actually down slightly even though I have a guy in the Fed that I’m not a huge fan of. He should reduce interest rates. I think I understand interest a lot better than him, because I’ve had to really use interest rates.
Trump had also told bashed Powell at his his 100-day rally in Michigan on Tuesday:
Interest rates came down despite the fact that I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job, but I won’t say that… I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed. You’re not supposed to criticize the Fed, you’re supposed to let him do his own thing, but I know much more than he does about interest rates, believe me.
Trump has repeatedly called on Powell to lower interest rates amid the market turmoil caused by his tariff announcements in April. He warned the Fed chair that he risks a US recession if he does not comply and at one point called Powell a “major loser”.
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.
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Trump’s bid to host golf tournament in Britain could violate US constitution, experts warn
Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Kiran Stacey
The British government’s attempts to curry favor with Donald Trump by nudging golf executives to host one of the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments at a Scottish venue owned by the US president could ultimately lead to a violation of the US constitution, ethics experts have warned.
The Guardian reported this week that officials in British prime minister Keir Starmer’s government have asked senior executives at R&A, which organizes the Open championship, whether they would host the golf championship at the Turnberry golf resort in 2028.
Trump, sources have told the Guardian, has raised the issue “multiple times” with Starmer. One person with knowledge of the British government’s moves said in connection to the championship that the UK was “doing everything it can to get close to Trump”.
But US ethics experts say any decision by R&A to choose Turnberry as its 2028 venue may break the spirit, if not the letter, of the US constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from accepting benefits from foreign or state governments without congressional approval.
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The federal government has slashed research since Donald Trump took office – hacking away at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its grants, staff and long-held partnerships with academia.
Now, some private companies said they want to pick up strands of research that might have otherwise been funded by the federal government. The effort has stoked little optimism among experts, who caution that private efforts cannot remotely replicate the breadth, depth or public service provided by federal funding.
“We can’t wait four years to do any women’s health research,” said Priyanka Jain, co-founder and CEO of the start-up Evvy. The company sells at-home vaginal microbiome tests – a product the company argues can help women better understand common conditions such as bacterial vaginosis.
Jain said Evvy is funding a small trial to identify biomarkers, or physical indicators, of how the vaginal microbiome can impact in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates.
“There are companies like Evvy raising venture dollars and doing the work the government is not doing,” said Jain. “Women step up and actually solve this problem.”
In contrast, health policy insiders such as Sean Tipton, chief policy officer at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said the many small projects that hope to keep research alive cannot remotely match the retreat of federal government research.
“It is absolutely not realistic to think that the resources of the federal government can be replaced through some combination of philanthropic and for-profit entities trying to fill the gap,” said Tipton.
Trump has launched more attacks on the environment in 100 days than his entire first term
Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented assault upon the environment, instigating 145 actions to undo rules protecting clean air, water and a livable climate in this administration’s first 100 days – more rollbacks than were completed in Trump’s entire first term as US president.
Trump’s blitzkrieg has hit almost every major policy to shield Americans from toxic pollution, curb the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and protect landscapes, oceans, forests and imperiled wildlife.
In all, the second Trump administration has launched 145 actions – a dizzying rate of more than one a day since the 20 January inauguration – to repeal or weaken environmental rules and escalate the use of planet-heating fossil fuels, a Guardian analysis has found. The total is derived from research by Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School and administration announcements.
While many of these initial moves are far from complete and face severe legal challenges, or years of further rule-making, the pace of the rollbacks is already set to outstrip Trump’s entire first presidency, which saw about 110 environmental rules scaled back or revoked.
“What we’ve seen in this first 100 days is unprecedented – the deregulatory ambition of this administration is mind-blowing,” said Michael Burger, an expert in climate law at Columbia University.
“They are doing things faster and with less process than last time, often disregarding the law. The intent is to shock, overwhelm and to overcome resistance through sheer force of numbers.”
Through executive orders, agency memos and other policy moves, the Trump administration has deleted a swath of Joe Biden-era green policies, frozen climate spending, removed the US from the Paris climate accords and set about rewriting pollution standards for cars, trucks and power plants.
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, defended his handling of the measles outbreak in Texas during Wednesday night’s NewsNation town hall, in which Donald Trump also spoke.
According to the Hill, Kennedy briefly called into the town hall during the second hour and argued that the US is “doing better at managing the measles epidemic than probably any other country in the world”. He said the US has about 842 cases of measles, while Canada has roughly the same amount with a smaller population and Europe has “10 times that number”. He told the town hall: “Our numbers have plateaued.”
Measles cases in Texas rose to 663 on Tuesday, according to the state’s health department, an increase of 17 cases since 25 April, as the US battles one of its worst outbreaks of the previously eradicated childhood disease.
With one-fifth of states seeing active measles outbreaks, the US is nearing 900 cases, according to figures posted Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC’s confirmed measles cases count is 884, triple the amount seen in all of 2024.
Kennedy also spoke about vaccinations. “That’s one of the things that [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has not done,” he said. “CDC has said the only thing that we have is vaccination. There’s all kinds of treatments for when people do get sick, and those people should be treated with compassion.”
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The Trump administration is seeking to strip collective bargaining rights from large swaths of federal employees in a test case union leaders argue is part of a broader attack on US labor unions that could land before the US Supreme Court.
A Trump win would deliver a severe blow to labor unions in the US. Some 29.9% of all federal workers were represented by labor unions in 2024 compared to 11.1% for all US workers.
On 27 March, Donald Trump issued an executive order, citing national security, to exempt collective bargaining at several federal departments for more than 1 million workers.
The order was made in tandem with lawsuits filed by the Trump administration against federal unions, including against affiliates of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in a Texas court where only one judge, a conservative, presides over the court, and the National Treasury Employees Union chapter 73 in a Kentucky court.
Last week, unions filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits, and have filed their own lawsuits against Trump’s executive order. Bipartisan legislation has also been introduced in the House to restore collective bargaining rights for targeted federal workers.
Rushab Sanghvi, AFGE general counsel, expects a decision in their lawsuit against the administration next month. But he expects the four cases are likely to end up in the supreme court.
Protesters are expected to rally nationwide on 1 May with a focus on workers’ and immigrants’ rights in the latest round of demonstrations against Donald Trump and his administration.
May Day, commemorated as international workers’ day, comes after two massive days of protests in April – 5 April’s hands off rallies and 19 April’s day of action – drew millions to the streets across the country.
The 1 May protests are supported by hundreds of organizations and set to take place in nearly 1,000 cities, organizers said. Turnout will likely be lower than the previous two April protests because 1 May is a weekday, but tens of thousands are expected to show out.
“This is a war on working people – and we will not stand down,” a website for the national day of action says. “They’re defunding our schools, privatizing public services, attacking unions, and targeting immigrant families with fear and violence. Working people built this nation and we know how to take care of each other. We won’t back down – we will never stop fighting for our families and the rights and freedoms that propel opportunity and a better life for all Americans. Their time is up.”
A map of May Day protests shows several major metro areas have more than one rally planned. A coalition of groups in Los Angeles said they will start the day with an early morning rally, then a program and march to show solidarity with the city’s workers and immigrants. In New York, a protest iswas planned for early evening.
US and Ukraine sign minerals deal that solidifies investment in Kyiv’s defense against Russia
The US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share profits and royalties from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.
The minerals deal, which has been the subject of tense negotiations for months and nearly fell through hours before it was signed, will establish a US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund that the Trump administration has said will begin to repay an estimated $175bn in aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
“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,” said Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, in a statement.
“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. And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, confirmed in a social media post that she had signed the agreement on Wednesday. “Together with the United States, we are creating the fund that will attract global investment into our country,” she wrote. The deal still needs to be approved by Ukraine’s parliament.
One hundred days after Elon Musk entered the White House as Donald Trump’s senior adviser and the de facto leader of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the Tesla CEO has left little of the federal government unscathed. Over the course of just a few months, he has gutted agencies and public services that took decades to build while accumulating immense political power.
Musk’s role in the Trump administration is without modern precedent. Never before has the world’s richest person been deputized by the US president to cull the very agencies that oversee his businesses. Musk’s attempts to radically dismantle government bureaux have won him sprawling influence. His team has embedded its members in key roles across federal agencies, gained access to personal data on millions of Americans and fired tens of thousands of workers. SpaceX, where he is CEO, is now poised to take over potential government contracts worth billions. He has left a trail of chaos while seeding the government with his allies, who will likely help him profit and preserve his newfound power.
The billionaire’s newfound sway has not come without pushback and a cost. Doge’s blitz through the government has sparked furious nationwide backlash, as well as dozens of lawsuits challenging Musk’s mass firings and accusing his task force of violating numerous laws. Musk’s personal popularity has sunk to record lows, and Tesla’s profits have tanked.
A look back at the first 100 days of the Trump administration shows the extent to which Musk’s efforts have changed the US government:
Musk says Doge 'should definitely' look at Federal Reserve costs - report
Elon Musk is considering sending his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to the Federal Reserve, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing a costly renovation of the central bank’s Washington DC headquarters as an example of potential government waste.
“Since at the end of the day, this is all taxpayer money, I think we certainly – we should definitely – look to see if indeed the Federal Reserve is spending $2.5bn on their interior designer,” Musk told reporters Wednesday at the White House, reports Bloomberg News.
The central bank said the increased $2.5bn headquarters renovation cost (as of 2022), is down to higher costs of building materials and labor since the project started in 2021. Musk, however, called it “an eyebrow raiser”.
The Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, has faced attacks from Donald Trump, who has threatendto fire the head of the central bank. “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump said on social media last week.
Speaking to business leaders at the White House on Wednesday, Trump once again criticized 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, said. He 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.
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Tesla has denied a report that its board sought to replace Elon Musk as its chief executive amid a backlash against his rightwing politics and declining car sales.
Robyn Denholm, the chair of the board at the electric carmaker, said in a statement on Tesla’s social media account on X:
Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company.
This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.
It followed a Wall Street Journal story published on Wednesday that claimed “board members” had contacted headhunters to recruit a successor about a month ago.
The reported move came as tensions grew at Tesla around falling profits and criticism of Musk for spending much of his time in Washington, where he has been helping Donald Trump slash federal spending as de facto head of the “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
It is unclear in the report whether these members were acting on behalf of the board as a collective, or if it was only some of them taking steps to find a new chief executive. The Tesla board is made up of eight people, including Elon Musk himself, his brother, Kimbal Musk, and James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Here is a video of Kamala Harris’s speech in San Francisco:
Kamala Harris delivered a searing indictment of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in power, warning in her first major address since leaving office that the nation was witnessing a “wholesale abandonment of America’s highest ideals” by its president.
Speaking to an audience of Democrats in San Francisco, the former vice-president struck a defiant posture as she praised the leaders and institutions pushing back against Trump and his aggressive agenda – from the members of Congress acting boldly to the judges “who uphold the rule of law in the face of those who would jail them”, the universities defying the administration’s “unconstitutional demands”, and the everyday Americans rallying to protect social security.
The speech – her most forceful since Trump returned to power – marked a notable reemergence for Harris. The former vice-president, who now lives in Los Angeles and is weighing her next move – a possible run for California governor next year or another bid for the presidency in 2028 – has mostly kept a low profile since leaving office in January following her devastating loss to Trump in November.
In her remarks, she accused Trump of deliberately sowing fear and chaos to consolidate his own executive power, in a “high velocity” start to his presidency that hurled the country toward a constitutional crisis.
“They are counting on the notion that, if they can make some people afraid, it will have a chilling effect on others,” she said. “But what they’ve overlooked is that fear isn’t the only thing that’s contagious. Courage is contagious.”
Urging Americans to keep organizing, running for office and standing up for fundamental rights and values, she declared: “Let’s lock it in.”
'I don’t really believe I’ve made mistakes', Trump tells NewsNation town hall
Donald Trump declined to say when trade moves will pay off, as he too part in a NewsNation town hall via phone last night.
According to the Hill, Trump would not be drawn on when new trade deals would be announced either. In the same interview, when asked to name the biggest mistake he had made so far, the US president said he did not think he had made any.
“I’ll tell you, that’s the toughest question I can have because I don’t really believe I’ve made mistakes,” he said, arguing that the country is in a “transition period” and will see “tremendous economic victories” ahead.
Talking about tariff moves, Trump said: “And I know what I’m doing perfectly … it’s a little complicated subject”.
In the town hall, Trump said there was “a very good chance” that the US would make a deal with China on tariffs.
“Now, will we make a deal? There’s a very good chance we’re going to make a deal, but we’re going to make it on our terms,” Trump said, after calling China “the king of ripping off the United States”.
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Trump blames Biden for US economy shrinking as Harris says US president's America is 'self-serving’
Donald Trump continued to blame Joe Biden as the US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data. While it has triggered fears of an American recession and a global economic slowdown, Trump has sought to blame Biden for the figure.
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that the contraction “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS”.
Meanwhile, former US vice-president Kamala Harris hit back at Trump and his backers on Wednesday, in her first major speech since losing November’s election.
The defeated Democrat told supporters the apparent “chaos” of the last three months was actually the realization of a long-cherished plan by conservatives who are using Trump to twist the US to their own advantage.
“What we are, in fact, witnessing is a high velocity event, where a vessel is being used for the swift implementation of an agenda that has been decades in the making,” she told an audience in San Francisco.
She continued:
An agenda to slash public education. An agenda to shrink government and then privatize its services. All while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest.
A narrow, self-serving vision of America where they punish truth-tellers, favor loyalists, cash in on their power, and leave everyone to fend for themselves.
Harris was a guest speaker at an event run by Emerge, a political organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for public office.
She told the crowd that Trump was targeting universities and courts because he wanted to cow the opposition.
More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments:
The US and Kyiv have signed an agreement to share revenues from the future sale of Ukrainian minerals and rare earths, sealing a deal that Donald Trump has said will provide an economic incentive for the US to continue to invest in Ukraine’s defense and its reconstruction after he brokers a peace deal with Russia.
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.
Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said that if Ábrego García was sent back to the US, the Trump administration “would immediately deport him again”. Noem’s comments come as a federal judge 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 an El Salvador prison.
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”.
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.
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 and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.
The Trump administration is moving to cancel $1bn in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.
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