Summary
Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. And you can also follow along with our continuing coverage of the US’s tariffs announcement here. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
During a cabinet meeting, Donald Trump defended his tariff policies, saying, “We’re in great shape,” while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president’s abrupt decision to postpone the implementation of “reciprocal” tariffs by 90 days sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Meanwhile, former treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the government can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his “beliefs”. In response to a judge’s request for evidence, the government submitted a two-page memo, in which it argues that the Trump administration may deport noncitizens whose “beliefs, statements or associations” represent a threat to US foreign policy interests. The memo was released the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement shared, and then deleted, a social media post saying that it is responsible for stopping illegal “ideas” from crossing the US border.
The supreme court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by Ice agents on 12 March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation.
A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can require all people in the country without authorization to register with the federal government. Also today, the Washington Post reported that the Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, and the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The decision would mark a major escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.
House speaker, Mike Johnson, was finally successful in muscling through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan.
In the lastest struggle between state and federal officials, 16 states and Washington DC have sued the Trump administration to restore access to Covid-19 relief aid for schools. Last month, the education department announced that it would not honor an extended deadline for states to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of pandemic relief funding.
The lawsuit, filed in US district court in Manhattan, is led by New York state attorney general Letitia James and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. After the education department’s announcement, James said, New York state lost access to $134m in funding.
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In a new court filing, Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student detained by plainclothes immigration officials last month, says she’s experienced medical mistreatment since her arrest and detention, leading to four asthma attacks. Öztürk, who is 30-years-old and from Turkey, says prior to her detention she’d had 13 asthma attacks in her life.
While experiencing her second asthma attack since the arrest, she says, a Louisiana detention center nurse told her “you need to take that thing off your head” and then removed Öztürk’s hijab without her permission. The nurse eventually gave Öztürk “a few ibuprofen”, she says. While experiencing for a third asthma attack, Öztürk says, a nurse “told me that it was all in my mind”.
Here’s more on Öztürk’s case:
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As markets open in Asia Friday morning, stocks are down once again, suggesting investors’ concerns about Donald Trump’s tariffs are still driving the market. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 is down 5% while South Korea’s Kospi index has dropped 1.6%. Meanwhile, in Australia, the ASX 200 has fallen 2.3%.
In a social media post this evening, Donald Trump has said that he may consider tariffs or sanctions on Mexico if the country does not give Texas water he says it owes the state under a 1944 treaty.
“Mexico OWES Texas 1.3 million acre-feet of water under the 1944 Water Treaty, but Mexico is unfortunately violating their Treaty obligation,” Trump posted on Truth Social. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover 1 acre of land to a depth of 1ft.
“My Agriculture Secretary, Brooke Rollins, is standing up for Texas Farmers, and we will keep escalating consequences, including TARIFFS and, maybe even SANCTIONS, until Mexico honors the Treaty, and GIVES TEXAS THE WATER THEY ARE OWED!,” he said.
Under the terms of the 81-year-old treaty, Mexico must send 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande to the United States every five years in exchange for water from the Colorado River. According to the International Boundary and Water Commission, Mexico has sent less than 30% of the water required this five-year cycle.
In response, the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum wrote that her administration has sent a proposal detailing a solution to the state department. “I am sure, like with other issues, an agreement will be reached,” she said.
“There have been three years of drought and to the extent that water has been available, Mexico has complied,” Sheinbaum added.
Here’s more about the ongoing dispute:
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Donald Trump has reacted to the New York helicopter crash that killed six earlier today, calling it “terrible” and saying his transportation secretary is “on it”.
“Looks like six people, the pilot, two adults, and three children, are no longer with us,” he wrote in a social media post. “Announcements as to exactly what took place, and how, will be made shortly!”
My colleagues, Joanna Walters, Marina Dunbar and Maanvi Singh have more:
The Social Security Administration has added the names and social security numbers of more than 6,000 mostly Latino immigrants to a database used to track dead people, the Washington Post reports. The outlet cited four people familiar with the situation and records that showed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem making the request.
The news comes just hours after the New York Times reported earlier today that the Trump administration is working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
Letters went out to hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) today informing them their jobs had been terminated – again.
The probationary employees, many who performed important roles at the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency have spent weeks in limbo after being dismissed in late February, only to be rehired and put on administrative leave in mid-March following a federal court order.
“Well after about 3 weeks of reinstatement, I, along with other probationary employees at NOAA, officially got “re-fired” today (6 weeks after the original firing) after a temporary restraining order was lifted by an appeals court earlier this week,” Dr Andy Hazelton, a scientist who worked on hurricane modeling at Noaa posted on X. “What a wild and silly process this has been.”
On Tuesday, the US supreme court struck down that order on a technicality, ruling that the non-profit groups who sued on behalf of the workers did not have legal standing. It’s one of several wins the highest court has granted to the Trump administration after federal judges ruled against him, including allowing deportations to continue and enabling a freeze of roughly $65m in grants for teacher training.
The letters, reviewed by the Guardian, were signed by John Guenther, acting general counsel of the US Department of Commerce, and consisted of two simple paragraphs: one reiterating that employees were reinstated and put in non-duty paid status, and a second explaining that the temporary restraining order protecting their jobs was no longer in effect.
“Accordingly, the Department is reverting your termination action to its original effective date,” Guenther wrote, adding that fired employees wouldn’t receive any pay beyond their termination date.
The impact from these firings is expected to have far-reaching effects, hampering the agency’s work to provide essential climate and weather intel. Meanwhile, the agency is bracing for the next rounds of cuts as leaders make moves to comply with Trump’s “reduction in force”, an order that will cull 1,029 more positions.
While the losses are expected to have a profound impact on the American public, the impact will be felt globally too. Scientists and forecasters around the world depend on Noaa satellites, studies, and intel, including data sharing that tracks severe weather across Europe, coordination for disaster response in the Caribbean, and monitoring deforestation and the effects of the climate crisis in the Amazon Rainforest.
Vital work has slowed or stopped as teams try to navigate the chaos, along with the threat of severe budget cuts and political restrictions.
The official terminations also came just days after the White House pulled funding for the national climate assessment, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.
The crackdown on climate science comes as the dangers from extreme weather events and deadly billion-dollar disasters continue to rise. Experts say these cuts, which will do little to limit the federal government’s budget, will only add to the threats.
Among 800 positions cut were workers who track El Niño-La Niña weather patterns around the world, people who model severe storm risks, and scientists contributing to global understanding of what could happen as the world warms.
In an interview with the Guardian last month, Hazelton said the firings across the agency and the pressures felt by those still there will affect the outcome of the work.
“It’s going to create problems across the board,” he said, adding that people are going to do their best but it will be a lot harder to achieve the mission. “It may be a slow process but the forecasts are going to suffer and as a result people will suffer.”
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Abrego Garcia, who has had protected legal status since 2019, is currently detained at Cecot, the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, after he was deported by the Trump administration on 15 March.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys has previously told the court that Ice had initially attempted to deport him in 2019. At the time, immigration officials claimed that a confidential informant had told them that Abrego Garcia “was an active member of the criminal gang MS-13”, an accusation that he has denied.
That year, Abrego Garcia contested the claims and efforts to deport him and filed an application for asylum.
According to a court filing, Abrego Garcia was granted “withholding of removal to El Salvador” by an immigration judge in October 2019, a protected status that prevents an individual being returned to their home country if they can show that there’s a “more likely than not” risk that they will be harmed.
But last month, on 12 March, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say that he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who they say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in the filing that “Ice was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador”.
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US district Judge Paula Xinis had ordered Abrego Garcia returned to the United States by midnight on Monday. Chief Justice John Roberts paused Xinis’ order to give the court time to weigh the issue.
That deadline has now passed and the justices directed the judge to clarify her order, which called on the administration to “faciliate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The high court also said the administration should be prepared to share what steps it already has taken and what it still might do.
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Supreme court orders Trump officials to facilitate return of Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador
The US supreme court has told the Trump administration it must facilitate the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by Ice agents on 12 March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members. His family sued the administration over his deportation.
The justice department argued while Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error”, his actual removal “was not error”. But officials have now been told they must ensure they handle Garcia’s return as though he hadn’t been improperly sent to El Salvador.
BREAKING: the Supreme Court orders the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Abredo Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly sent to El Salvador. pic.twitter.com/X8Fq5mAFoH
— Steven Mazie (@stevenmazie) April 10, 2025
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Following last week’s news that the Trump administration cut 85% of the National Endowment for the Humanities’s grants, it appears some of that funding may be redirected to build Donald Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes”, the New York Times reports. Trump has floated a proposal for the sculpture garden since 2020, as a symbolic celebration of patriotic Americans.
The Senate is poised to vote overnight to confirm Donald Trump’s pick for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CNN reports.
The vote will likely occur early Friday morning. Trump’s pick for the role, Air Force Lt Gen Dan “Razin” Caine, has received bipartisan support from the Senate armed services committee.
Nearly 1,000 international students and scholars have had their visas revoked or academic records terminated since mid-March. The Washington-DC based NAFSA: Association of International Educators says that it has been collecting reports in the month since immigration officials ramped up their efforts to detain or deny entry to international students and professors.
“There is no clear pattern or trend in the nationalities of the affected students,” it reports.
The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The decision would mark a major escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.
My colleague Lauren Gambino has more:
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can require all people in the country without authorization to register with the federal government.
In a decision issued today, Judge Trevor Neil McFadden sided with the government. The requirement will go into effect Friday.
The news comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to force immigrants to “self-deport”. The New York Times reports that the administration is also working to effectively cancel the Social Security numbers of immigrants with legal status.
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A day after the interior department announced sweeping planned layoffs, the agency has fired its top technology and cybersecurity leadership, Government Executive reports. The news comes after department leaders refused to grant the so-called “department of government efficiency” access to a federal personnel and payroll system.
Yesterday, interior department announced plans to consolidate and eventually lay off up to 50% of employees in IT, communications, finance, human resources and contracting departments.
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Ahead of planned talks with Iran this weekend, the United States has imposed additional sanctions on the country’s “shadow fleet”.
The Trump administration imposed economic sanctions on the United Arab Emirates-based Indian national owner of several firms that transport Iranian oil illegally. The treasury department says Jugwinder Singh Brar’s ships transfer Iranian oil in the waters off Iraq, Iran, the UAE and the Gulf of Oman.
“The Iranian regime relies on its network of unscrupulous shippers and brokers like Brar and his companies to enable its oil sales and finance its destabilizing activities,” the treasury secretary Scott Bessent said.
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio says the government can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his “beliefs”.
In response to a judge’s request for evidence, the government submitted a two-page memo, signed by Rubio, in which it argues that the Trump administration may deport noncitizens whose “beliefs, statements or associations” represent a threat to US foreign policy interests.
Khalil is deportable because of “beliefs, statements or associations” that would compromise US foreign policy interests, the Associated Press and CNN report. the memo does not allege any criminal conduct by Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was detained last month after serving as a spokesperson for Columbia student activists protesting the war in Gaza.
The memo came just hours after Rubio spoke at a Trump administration Cabinet meeting earlier today, where he promised to revoke student visas from “lunatics”.
“If you come here to vandalize a library, take over a campus, and do all kinds of crazy things, we’re going to get rid of these people and we’re gonna continue to do it,” he said.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has deleted a social media post it shared earlier today saying that it is responsible from stopping illegal “ideas” from crossing the US border.
The news comes as immigration officials have denied entry or detained a growing number of people for their political views, including pro-Palestinian student protesters and a French scientist who was blocked from entering the US after immigration officers found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration on his phone.
“That post was sent without proper approval and should not have been shared,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN. “‘Ideas,’” she added should have said “‘intellectual property’” instead.
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As the New York Stock Exchange closes today, the S&P 500 is down 3.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.5%, and the Nasdaq dropped 4.3%.
My colleagues Anna Betts and Lauren Aratani report:
The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
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US stocks fall again after rally following Trump’s shock retreat on tariffs
Anna Betts and Lauren Aratani in New York
US stocks fell again on Thursday morning after a historic rally following Donald Trump’s shock retreat Wednesday on the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries.
The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.
Speaking at the White House, Trump said:
We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.
The sell-off comes as Democrats continue to react with anger over the sudden retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praised Trump’s “art of the deal” in action, referencing Trump’s 1987 book.
The Dow was down 5% on Thursday morning after soaring on Wednesday afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite was down over 4% and the S&P 500 down over 3.5% after jumping over 8% and 5% on Wednesday, respectively.
The market seems to be in a state of fatigue after a rollercoaster week. Stocks were even unresponsive to news on Thursday morning that the European Union announced it will suspend 25% retaliatory tariffs against US imports and new data showed inflation in the US cooled to 2.4% in March – both would typically be cause for optimism on Wall Street.
On CNN, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policies the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration had ever imposed on a “well-functioning economy”.
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The day so far
Donald Trump defended his tariff policies at a cabinet meeting, saying, “We’re in great shapes,” while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. He said: “We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.” Meanwhile, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy. More on our business live blog.
Meanwhile, the president’s abrupt global tariff U-turn has sparked accusations of market manipulation and insider trading. Shortly after US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His post – and its timing – is referenced in a letter from Democratic senators demanding on investigation into whether anyone in the Trump family or administration has profited from the recent tariff chaos through insider trading. As an example of concern, the senators highlight that Elon Musks’s Tesla gained 18% in value immediately following Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause on tariffs for most countries.
In better news for the Trump administration, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, was finally successful in muscling through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it. Despite the rocky road to passing the blueprint, that was the easy part. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan. Johnson has insisted that it’s possible to achieve the savings without major cuts to “essential programs” such as Medicaid. But budget experts and Democrats say the scale of the GOP’s cost-cutting goals makes it nearly impossible to achieve without significant reductions to critical programs and services.
Elsewhere:
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, is stepping down from her role, a state department spokesperson has told Reuters, in a move that injects new uncertainty into the relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
The Trump administration said it will no longer require environmental impact statements for oil and gas leases across the US west, in a step toward lifting green hurdles to drilling that environmental groups will probably challenge in court.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, floated the idea of US troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Panamanian government.
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Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr claims US will know cause of autism epidemic by September
The government will identify the cause of autism by September this year, the US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said on Thursday.
“At your direction, we are going to know by September. We’ve launched a massive testing and research effort that’s going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world,” Kennedy said at a meeting of Donald Trump’s cabinet earlier.
“By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
Trump in February ordered the creation of a “Make America healthy again” commission made up of Kennedy and other secretaries to look at everything from the rates of autism and asthma in children to how much medicine is being prescribed to them for ADHD or other conditions.
Autism diagnoses in the United States have increased significantly since 2000, intensifying public concern. Scientists have been researching for decades what genetic or environmental factors might contribute to autism, but the causes of most cases remain unclear.
They say that the major drivers of the increase in US autism rates are an expanded definition that includes more types of behaviors and more widespread awareness and diagnosis.
Kennedy has long promoted a debunked link between vaccines and autism despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says many studies have looked at whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism and “to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with” autism.
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As we’ve been reporting, Donald Trump is facing accusations of market manipulation after his global tariffs U-turn. Shortly after US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump had written on his social media platform Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”. His post – and its timing - is referenced in the letter from Democratic senators demanding on investigation into whether anyone in the Trump family or administration has profited from the recent tariff chaos through insider trading.
In my colleague Lauren Almeida’s story, she notes: “Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.”
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US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink steps down from post
US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink is stepping down from her role, a State Department spokesperson has told Reuters, in a move that injects new uncertainty into the relationship between Washington and Kyiv.
Reuters reported earlier that Brink was considering stepping down and leaving the foreign service, according to a US official and two other people familiar with the matter.
“Ambassador Brink is stepping down. She’s been the ambassador there for three years - that’s a long time in a war zone,” a State Department spokesperson said in an emailed response.
Brink was nominated for the post by former president Joe Biden and has served as ambassador in Kyiv since May 2022. She is leaving on her own accord, the sources said.
Brink is one of the highest-ranking career diplomats to leave the State Department since Donald Trump took office on 20 January 20. She joins other departing veteran officials with decades of experience, such as the agency’s No. 3 official John Bass, who stepped aside in January.
Her departure comes as the Trump administration tries to broker a deal between Ukraine and Russia to end the war that started with Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Washington has tried to implement two limited ceasefire agreements in recent weeks - one for energy infrastructure and one in the Black Sea - but both have fallen through.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Donald Trump praised the “fantastic job” that Elon Musk is doing with Doge and added: “I don’t need Elon for anything other than that I like him”.
He also suggested he has bought a Tesla.
They said ‘oh did you get a bargain?’ and I said no, give me the top price, I paid a lot of money for that car. But honestly, he [Musk] makes a great car.
Trump went on to say he lets people in his office drive around in the car. “They’re all driving around in the most beautiful car,” he said. “It’s gorgeous.”
He said he bought the car “just to show support”, adding that Musk “hasn’t been treated properly”.
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Democratic senators call for investigation into possible insider trading on Trump's abrupt tariff pause
Democratic senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego are demanding that the Office of Government Ethics investigate what they say are potential conflicts of interest of White House and executive branch officials who may have made financial transactions with insider knowledge of President Trump’s 90-day pause on steep tariffs.
BREAKING: I’m demanding answers from the White House and Office of Government Ethics about whether anyone in the Trump family or administration profited off of this tariff chaos through insider trading: pic.twitter.com/GkGl4XZ7NO
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) April 10, 2025
The full letter is here.
The stock market surged in response to Trump’s shock announcement. In America the S&P 500 blue chip index closed up by more than 9%, while the technology-focused Nasdaq index shut more than 12% up. Stocks continued to rise in Asia and Europe on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index up by 9%, and London’s FTSE 100 index rising by as much as 4% in early trading.
Schiff and Gallego note that Trump posted on Truth Social at 9:33am ET: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well.” They add that Trump then posted a few minutes later: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”
Their letter reads:
Mere hours after his post, President Trump announced at 1:18pm via Truth Social that he would be pausing most of the sweeping tariffs he had announced just days prior, causing stocks to soar.
This sequence of events raises grave legal and ethics concerns. The president, his family and his advisors are uniquely positioned to be privy to and take advantage of non-public information to inform their investment decisions.
They highlight that Elon Musks’s Tesla gained 18% in value immediately following Trump’s announcement.
When asked about the Democrats’ claims that Trump potentially manipulated the market, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Fox:
It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering. Democrats railed against China’s cheating for decades, and now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action yesterday to finally corner China.
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So, House speaker Mike Johnson finally muscled through a multitrillion-dollar budget framework that paves the way for Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, just a day after a rightwing rebellion threatened to sink it.
But, as my colleague Lauren Gambino writes, that was the easy part. Now Republicans in both chambers need to come together to actually write the legislation and lay out the spending cuts they have promised to pay for the plan. Nonpartisan analysts have found that the Republican plan could add up to $5.8tn to the federal deficit over the next decade.
Democrats have accused Republicans of laying the groundwork to make major cuts to popular safety net programs in order to pay to offset the cost of extending Trump’s signature tax cuts that they say disproportionately benefit the rich.
Johnson has insisted that it’s possible to achieve the savings without major cuts to “essential programs” such as Medicaid. But budget experts and Democrats say the scale of the GOP’s cost-cutting goals makes it nearly impossible to achieve without significant reductions to critical programs and services.
Speaking ahead of the vote, Hakeem Jeffries warned of the “catastrophic consequences” of the Republican blueprint to slash federal spending, as Trump’s trade war rattles the global economy and his administration continued its dramatic downsize of the federal workforce. The House Democratic leader said:
President Trump and House Republicans told us that you were going to deliver the ‘Golden Age of America’. But over the last several months, we haven’t witnessed the golden age of America. We witnessed a rotten age. You are crashing the economy in real time, driving us toward a Republican recession that’s going to hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt everyday Americans, hurt veterans and hurt people across the land.
Donald Trump’s declaration comes as US stocks tumbled at the open this morning, a day after surging on relief over his pause on most of the new tariffs announced last week.
The Guardian understands that the overall US tariff rate on Chinese imports has risen to 145%. The increase follows a new executive order from Donald Trump raising the “reciprocal” tariff to 125%, up from 84%.
'We're in very good shape': Trump dismisses tariff turmoil as 'transition problems'
Donald Trump defended his tariff policies at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, while warning that there may be a “transition cost”. The president said:
We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.
We’re doing, again, what we should have done many years ago. We let it get out of control, and we allowed some countries to get very big and very rich at our expense. And I’m not going to let that happen.
His comments come as former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policy the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration has imposed on an otherwise well-functioning economy.
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Trump administration urges states to limit what can be bought with food stamps, targeting soda and other processed foods
The Trump administration is calling on states to request waivers that would bar food stamp recipients from buying soda and other processed foods with their benefits, according to a Thursday op-ed by US health and agriculture secretaries, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Brooke Rollins.
The secretaries, in the USA Today op-ed, promised more shared initiatives to further the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda promoted by Kennedy and backed by Donald Trump.
Kennedy and Rollins said the Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture were pursuing reforms to the nation’s largest food aid program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and called on all governors to submit waivers to restrict what SNAP recipients can buy.
“We will encourage taxpayer dollars to go toward wholesome foods, such as whole milk, fruits, vegetables and meats,” the secretaries wrote.
More than 41 million people on low incomes receive SNAP benefits, which are administered by the USDA.
The call for waivers is the latest chapter in a years-long debate over whether SNAP recipients should be able to use their benefits to buy soda or other processed foods. Critics of restrictions, including some Democrats, see them as stigmatizing.
Nebraska governor Jim Pillen on 7 April sent a letter to Rollins indicating the state would request a waiver to prohibit SNAP recipients from buying soda and energy drinks with their benefits, according to a state press release.
And West Virginia governor Patrick Morrisey in late March signed a similar letter of intent at an event with Kennedy, according to a state press release.
Reuters reports that there is little evidence that SNAP recipients consume significantly more soda than non-SNAP households. A 2016 USDA study found that soda was the top commodity category purchased by SNAP households and the second most common commodity for non-SNAP households, with the difference accounting for less than 1 cent per dollar.
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Kathleen Sgamma, Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management abruptly withdrew her name from consideration this morning.
The decision was announced by Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, during what was meant to be her confirmation hearing on Thursday. Lee did not detail why she had withdrawn her nomination but said that he had been informed of the news by the White House.
According to Politico, her official withdrawal statement submitted to the committee stated that: “It was an honor to be nominated by President Trump as Director of the Bureau of Land Management, but unfortunately at this time I need to withdraw my nomination.”
“I will continue to support President Trump and fight for his agenda to Unleash American Energy in the private sector” she added.
Her withdrawal comes juts days after private comments from 2021 surfaced, including one where Sgamma said that she was “disgusted by the violence witnessed” on 6 January 2021, and by Trump’s “role in spreading misinformation that incited it.”
A judge in Philadelphia ruled today that the defamation lawsuit brought against president Donald trump by members of the Central Park five can go forward.
According to Reuters, Philadelphia-based District Judge Wendy Beetlestone ruled on Thursday that the five men had presented enough evidence for now to pursue their lawsuit accusing Trump of defaming them in comments he made during the 2024 presidential campaign.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in October after Trump falsely said during the presidential debate in September that the men had killed someone and pleaded guilty.
Attorneys for the five men, who all pleaded not guilty to the crime and were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and another person’s confession, allege in the lawsuit that the former president acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth and with intent to cause “severe emotional distress”.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to dismiss the case and Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Read more about the lawsuit here:
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The man accused of trying to assassinate president Donald Trump on his Florida golf course last yar is set to be charged today with attempted first-degree murder and terrorism.
Florida attorney general James Uthmeier said on Thursday that his office was officially charging Ryan Routh “for attempting to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump” on 15 September 2024 at the Trump International Gold Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“Shortly after the assassination attempt, Governor DeSantis signed an executive order directing the office of attorney general to work with our law enforcement partners and investigate Mr. Routh” Uthmeier said, adding that he can now announce that he is charging Rough with attempted first-degree murder as well as a charge for terrorism.
House passes Republican legislation that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote for federal elections.
House Republicans have passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (Save Act), which they say is essential for ensuring that only US citizens cast ballots in federal elections. But Democrats have criticized the legislation, warning that the it risks disenfranchising millions of Americans who may not have ready access to the proper documents.
The bill’s fate in the Senate is uncertain.
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Trump congratulates House of Representatives for passing the GOP’s budget blueprint.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president wrote:
Congratulations to the House on the passage of a Bill that sets the stage for one of the Greatest and Most Important Signings in the History of our Country Among many other things, it will be the Largest Tax and Regulation Cuts ever even contemplated. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Key event
The House passing the budget plan lays the groundwork for extending Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, despite opposition from all Democrats as well as two Republicans, who worried that it does not cut spending sufficiently.
Reuters reports that the 216-214 House vote is a preliminary – but required – step that would enable Republicans to bypass Democratic opposition and pass tax cut legislation – Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” – along party lines later this year.
Republicans will fashion those tax cuts over the coming months. Indeed, the legislation passed on Thursday amounts to a broad budget blueprint, which includes few details.
The bill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s primary first-term legislative achievement. He has also proposed additional tax breaks for overtime wages, tipped income and Social Security benefits. Nonpartisan analysts say that could drive the bill’s cost north of $11tn.
Congressional Republicans also intend to use the budget blueprint to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling, which they must do by sometime this summer or risk default on the nation’s $36.6tn in debt.
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The budget resolution now enters into the budget reconciliation process to enact Donald Trump’s policy agenda focused on tax cuts, domestic energy production and border security.
House adopts budget resolution, paving way for work to begin on Trump's tax and spending cuts
The vote was close, 216-214, with only two Republicans in the end voting no and two not voting.
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US will no longer require environmental analyses on western states' oil and gas leases
The Trump administration said on Thursday that it will no longer require environmental impact statements for oil and gas leases across the US west, in a step toward lifting green hurdles to drilling that environmental groups will likely challenge in court.
The Interior Department said in a release that it will no longer require its Bureau of Land Management to prepare environmental impact statements for about 3,244 oil and gas leases across Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.
Environmental impact statements are detailed analyses on the impacts of federal actions that will have a significant effect on the environment. They are required for major projects by the bedrock 1970 US environmental law the National Environmental Policy Act.
Donald Trump has long sought to fight NEPA’s requirements. On 20 January, his first day back in office, he signed an executive order aiming to speed up energy permitting by requiring the head of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality to propose doing away with its NEPA requirements, including consideration of greenhouse gas emissions of major projects.
Interior said that the BLM is evaluating options for compliance with NEPA for the oil and gas leasing decisions.
Donald Trump has urged House Republicans to vote yes to pass the budget resolution that would advance his domestic agenda. He posted on his Truth Social platform:
Great News! “The Big, Beautiful Bill” is coming along really well. Republicans are working together nicely. Biggest Tax Cuts in USA History!!! Getting close. DJT
As Reuters reports, the budget package would cut taxes by about $5tn and add approximately $5.7tn to the federal government’s debt over the next decade.
But the stickler has been that Republicans have yet to settle on the spending reductions that would accompany those tax cuts. If not from Medicaid (as moderate Republicans fear it will be), it’s unclear where the savings will come from.
The legislation, which passed the Senate on Saturday, calls for a minimum of $4bn in spending cuts, which is far less than a previous version approved by the House that mandates $1.5tn in cuts.
Senate Republicans say the $4bn figure is simply a minimum that does not prevent Congress from passing much larger tax cuts in the months to come. But some hardline conservatives in the House say they are reluctant to vote for legislation that does not include a bigger target.
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The House budget vote is happening now. I’ll bring you the results as soon as we have them.
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'We have the votes': Mike Johnson presses ahead with vote on Trump budget blueprint despite Republican opposition
Mike Johnson said House Republicans would try again today to push through the budget plan needed to kick off work to enact Donald Trump’s domestic agenda, despite pulling a vote last night after conservatives threatened to sink it over concerns that it does not cut spending enough.
Appearing alongside Senate majority leader John Thune at a news conference this morning in a bid to convince conservative holdouts that the two chambers were on the same page regarding spending cuts, Johnson once again projected confidence that he now has the numbers. This is despite, according to Axios, dozens of fiscal conservatives in the House last night withholding support unless they get guarantees for deeper spending cuts in the budget resolution.
Johnson said leaders were “committed to finding at least $1.5tn in savings for the American people” – which, as The Hill notes, is a key ask of the fiscal hawks in his party. The budget blueprint adopted by the Senate that the House is voting on called for a minimum of $4bn in spending cuts.
Johnson told reporters:
I believe we have the votes to finally adopt the budget resolution so we can move forward among President Trump’s very important agenda for the American people.
This process has required a lot of close consultation between the White House and the Senate, and all of that has been necessary because we want to make sure that we are delivering on our shared goals in the budget reconciliation process.
Stopping short of as strong an assurance, Thune said the Senate is “aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings”.
We have got to do something to get the country on a more sustainable fiscal path, and that entails us taking a hard scrub of our government figuring out where we can find those savings.
The Speaker talked about $1.5tn, we have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum, and we’re certainly gonna do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible.
If Republicans are finally successful today, the vote will be just the first step in a lengthy process to fulfil Trump’s domestic agenda – including tax cuts, military spending, energy policy and border security investments – this year.
As I said earlier, amending the resolution to include steeper spending cuts would leave moderate House Republicans likely balking at that prospect after raising concerns about potential cuts to Medicaid. The Senate would then also have to reapprove the budget resolution, which would require another all-night vote-a-rama (they’ve already had two in less than six weeks). The other option is to go straight to conference with the other chamber and working out differences there.
So, whether Johnson and Thune’s public efforts will be enough to finally sway the fiscal hawks to back the budget resolution remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
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House passes bill restricting district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions
The House on Wednesday passed a bill restricting district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions in a move that would vastly diminish the ability of courts to block Donald Trump’s policies, The Hill reports.
Dubbed the No Rogue Rulings Act, the legislation would limit judges to providing relief only to parties directly involved in the suit. It passed in a 219-213 vote.
It would bar district court judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, even when the matter has an impact across the country — undercutting numerous lawsuits challenging Trump’s directives.
Darrell Issa, Republican representative from California, who introduced the legislation, repeated the common (and false) Trumpism that judges have acted “ideologically” to impede his administration’s agenda. He said:
Since President Trump has returned to office, left-leaning activists have cooperated with ideological judges who they have sought out to take their cases and weaponize nationwide injunctions to stall dozens of lawful executive actions and initiatives.
These sweeping injunctions represent judicial activism at the worst.
The White House has continued to ramp up its attacks on the judiciary, with Trump calling for the impeachment of US district judge James Boasberg after he temporarily barred the Trump administration from deporting Venezuelans to a Salvadoran prison under the Alien Enemies Act. Trump’s administration has argued that Boasberg’s temporary ban encroached on presidential authority to make national security decisions.
On the House vote, Democrat Pramila Jayapal, representative from Washington, said:
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want you to believe that somehow these nationwide injunctions being issued by courts across the country against Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions are unfair.
Here’s the message: If you don’t like the injunctions, don’t do illegal, unconstitutional stuff. That simple.
Nationwide injunctions play an essential role in protecting our democracy and holding the political branches accountable. Without them, millions of people could be harmed by these illegal or unconstitutional government policies.
Mike Johnson delays House budget vote after GOP rebellion threatened defeat
Last night a beleaguered Mike Johnson canceled a vote on the Senate’s budget resolution as it became obvious that, despite his earlier projections of confidence, too many Republican deficit hawks would vote against and doom the measure.
It’s a huge blow for Johnson, who along with his team spent days scrambling and wrangling with those GOP holdouts agitating for greater spending cuts in Trump’s “big beautiful bill”. Given the slim Republican majority in the House, only four votes against would have sunk the resolution – and, according to Axios, dozens were threatening rebellion.
Republicans need to adopt the measure in order to enact a sweeping party-line package that would enact Trump’s domestic agenda – including tax cuts, military spending, energy policy and border security investments – this year. But conservative fiscal hawks refused to back the Senate budget blueprint, which contains far fewer spending cuts than the version passed by the House in February.
Politico reports that Johnson and House leadership will explore either amending the Senate bill or going straight to conference with the other chamber and working out differences there. Changing the bill, however, as Axios notes, would force the Senate to vote once again, which could put the two chambers in a stalemate.
Johnson remains under pressure to find further cuts in federal spending to satisfy the fiscal hawks in his party, but has said many times that House Republicans would not cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits. But in order to meet their huge deficit reduction targets, it’s unclear where else the money would come from if not from cuts to Medicaid.
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Israel would be ‘leader’ of strike if Iran doesn’t give up nuclear weapons program, Trump says
Israel would be the “leader” of a potential military strike against Iran if Tehran doesn’t give up its nuclear weapons program, Donald Trump said on Wednesday.
The president’s comments, reported by the Associated Press, come ahead of this weekend’s scheduled talks involving US and Iranian officials in Oman, which Trump has insisted this week would be “direct” while Iran has described them “indirect”. Trump issued a thinly veiled threat on Monday that if the talks failed, Iran would be in “great danger”.
He said on Wednesday:
If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that. They’ll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us, but we do what we want to do.
Trump went on:
I want Iran to be great. The only thing that they can’t have is a nuclear weapon. They understand that.
In 2018 Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the long-term, comprehensive nuclear agreement it reached with other world powers in 2015 that limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, calling it the “worst deal ever”. Under the Biden administration, the US and Iran held indirect negotiations in Vienna in 2021 aimed at restoring the nuclear deal. But those talks, and others between Tehran and European nations, failed to reach any agreement.
Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department earlier on Wednesday issued new sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian again pledged on Wednesday that his nation is “not after a nuclear bomb” and even dangled the prospect of direct American investment in Iran if the countries can reach a deal, marking a departure from Iran’s stance after its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Then, Tehran had sought to buy American airplanes but in effect barred US companies from coming into the country.
In a speech in Tehran, referring to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian said:
His excellency has no opposition to investment by American investors in Iran. American investors: Come and invest.
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Ro Khanna introduces ‘Drain the Swamp Act’ to enforce anti-corruption measures in White House
The California representative Ro Khanna is introducing legislation that would force White House officials to abide by strict anti-corruption measures after Donald Trump dismantled ethics rules established by his predecessor that turns the president’s own catchphrase against him.
The “Drain the Swamp Act” – shared exclusively with the Guardian and deliberately invoking Trump’s own 2016 campaign slogan – would convert into permanent law the ethics requirements previously established by executive order, including bans on lobbyist gifts and “revolving door” restrictions.
Khanna said:
[Trump] campaigned on draining the swamp, and yet he gets in there and he says, no, lobbyists can give gifts to White House officials. What I’m saying is that we need to ban lobbyists from giving gifts to White House officials, not just this administration, but for all administrations going forward.
The congressman’s bill comes in direct response to Trump’s decision to rescind a Biden-era executive order on ethics rules upon returning to office in January. The legislation would prohibit appointees from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists, impose two-year cooling-off periods for officials entering and leaving government, and ban special “golden parachute” payments from former employers.
Trump’s commercial enterprises during his campaign – hawking everything from gold-plated sneakers to diamond watches and branded Bibles – showed a pattern of monetizing political influence that Khanna’s bill aims to address at the governmental level. The White House’s recent relaxation of ethics standards stands in contrast to his first administration, when he initially imposed a five-year lobbying ban on departing officials – only to nullify those same restrictions during his final days in office in 2020.
Pentagon chief says US could 'revive' Panama bases
The US defence secretary has floated the idea of the country’s troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Central American country’s government.
Pete Hegseth suggested during a visit to Panama that “by invitation” the US could “revive” military bases or naval air stations and rotate deployments of its troops to an isthmus the US invaded 35 years ago.
He also said his country was seeking free passage through the canal for its navy ships – which Donald Trump had said were “severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.
Trump, since coming to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40% of US container traffic and 5% of world trade.
His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.
Hegseth suggested on Wednesday the former US military bases that dot Panama could be used again to host American troops.
He said a deal signed with Panama this week was an “opportunity to revive, whether it’s the military base, naval air station, locations where US troops can work with Panamanian troops to enhance capabilities and cooperate in a rotational way”.
The European Union will put on hold for 90 days its first countermeasures against US president Donald Trump’s tariffs, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on X.
“We took note of the announcement by president Trump. We want to give negotiations a chance. While finalising the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our member states, we will put them on hold for 90 days,” she said.
Trump orders DoJ to investigate two former officials who defied him
Donald Trump’s persecution of critics intensified on Wednesday when he ordered the justice department to investigate a whistleblower and a cybersecurity director who refuted unfounded claims of election fraud.
The US president signed memorandums targeting Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, former homeland security officials who served in the first Trump administration.
Taylor had worked in the George W Bush administration and as a senior aide on Capitol Hill. After Trump’s election in 2016, he joined the homeland security department, eventually becoming chief of staff to the secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen.
But in 2018, under the pseudonym “Anonymous”, he wrote a column in the New York Times newspaper under the headline “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration”. Trump demanded that the Times reveal his identity, tweeting: “TREASON?”
Taylor subsequently quit the administration and followed up with a book, A Warning, attributed to “Anonymous: A Senior Trump Administration Official”, again portraying the president as unfit for office. Taylor made his identity public in October 2020.
Trump takes aim at city and state climate laws in executive order
Donald Trump is taking aim and city- and state-led fossil fuel accountability efforts, which have been hailed as a last source of hope for the climate amid the president’s ferociously anti-environment agenda.
In a Tuesday executive order, Trump instructed the Department of Justice to “stop the enforcement” of state climate laws, which his administration has suggested are unconstitutional or otherwise unenforceable.
The president called out New York and Vermont, both of which have passed “climate superfund” laws requiring major fossil fuel companies to help pay for damages from extreme weather.
“These State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy,” the executive order says. “They should not stand.”
He also targeted the dozens of lawsuits brought by states, cities and counties against big oil in recent years, accusing the industry of intentionally covering up the climate risks of their products and seeking compensation for climate impacts.
The move left advocates outraged. “This order is an illegal, disgusting attempt to force everyday people to pay for the rising toll of climate disasters, while shielding the richest people in the world from accountability,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, the executive director of the youth-led environmental justice group the Sunrise Movement.
The new order came as Trump touted new moves to revive the coal, the dirtiest and most expensive fossil fuel.
Trump signs executive order on water pressure to ‘restore shower freedom’
A global trade-war rollercoaster was not enough to distract Donald Trump from fulfilling one of his longtime priorities on Wednesday: changing the federal definition of “shower head”, a move the White House said would “end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure”.
Trump has complained for years about inadequate water pressure in American showers, sinks and toilets, and has blamed federal water-conservation standards for the problem.
“In my case, I like to take a nice shower to take care of my beautiful hair,” Trump said as he signed the executive order, which the White House said would apply to multiple household appliances, including toilets and sinks. “I have to stand under the shower for 15 minutes until it gets wet. It comes out drip, drip, drip. It’s ridiculous.”
The White House said in a statement on the executive order: “By restoring shower freedom, President Trump is following through on his commitment to dismantle unnecessary regulations and put Americans first.”
Some appliance experts have found Trump’s continued focus on American water pressure notable.
“It was very striking that the White House memo included toilets and shower heads as a presidential priority. It really was something,” Andrew deLaski, executive director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, told the Guardian in January. “But I think Donald Trump’s concerns are somewhat out of date, to tell you the truth.”
Trump signs executive order seeking to revitalize US shipbuilding
Good morning and welcome to the US politics blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news over the next few hours.
We start with news that president Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday aimed at reviving US shipbuilding and reducing China’s grip on the global shipping industry.
Republican and Democratic US lawmakers for years have warned about China’s growing dominance on the seas and diminishing US naval readiness, AP reports.
Senators Mark Kelly, a Democrat, and Todd Young, a Republican, welcomed the executive order and said they would reintroduce their bipartisan legislation to provide the congressional authorizations needed to revitalize the industry.
The order directs the US Trade Representative (USTR) to move ahead with a proposal that included levying million-dollar US port docking fees on any ship that is part of a fleet that includes Chinese-built or Chinese-flagged vessels. Allies will be pushed to act similarly.
USTR’s recommended port fees had sparked sharp criticism from commodities exporters, trade groups and US ship operators, who warned of supply chain disruptions, job losses in port cities and inflation. The order must be finalized by an 17 April deadline.
In other news:
Donald Trump has backed down on tariffs on most countries for 90 days, applying instead a 10% tariff, effective immediately. In an announcement that made no mention of several days of market meltdown, rising US inflation fears and fears of a global recession resulting from his tariff policies, Trump insisted his decision was based on the fact that more than 75 countries had approached the US to negotiate on tariffs and non-monetary tariffs rather than retaliate (he was less diplomatic in his description of conciliatory nations last night). Mexico and Canada are included in the 10% baseline tariffs, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said.
Democratic governors hit back at a Trump order blocking state climate policies. Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governors of New York and New Mexico respectively and who co-chair the US Climate Alliance, wrote: “The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority.” They vowed to continue “advancing solutions to the climate crisis”. Last night Trump issued an executive order that aims to block the enforcement of state laws passed to reduce the use of fossil fuels and combat the climate crisis. It came just hours after Trump issued orders to increase coal production. The order named California, New York and Vermont as specific targets, while also listing a broad range of state policies that the administration would seek to nullify, from cap-and-trade systems to permitting rules.
The Trump administration intends to appeal a judge’s ruling lifting access restrictions on the Associated Press, a court filing seen by Reuters showed. The US district judge Trevor McFadden ordered the White House to restore full access to the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.
Federal judges in New York and Texas have taken legal action to block the government from deporting five Venezuelans under the rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act that gives the president the power to imprison and deport non-citizens in times of war.
A Democratic senator has introduced a bill that would prohibit awarding government contracts and grants to companies owned by special government employees, taking aim at Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO.
