US judges block aspects of Trump agenda as president targets Democratic fundraising platform – as it happened

We have reached the end of another long day chronicling the second Trump administration here on US politics live. We will of course return on Friday to keep you informed of all the top developments. In the meantime, here is an overview of the day today: Donald Trump directed his attorney general to investigate the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue based on unsubstantiated rightwing claim. US defense secretary Pete Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer. Federal judges blocked several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he’s tried to enact through executive orders, which do not carry the force of law. One judge blocked his efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. Another judge ruled the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes. On immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. Another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown. The Trump store is now selling “Trump 2028” hats to fans of the president, who is barred by the US constitution from serving a third term, despite the fact that a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that three-quarters of respondents said Trump should not even try to run. Trump issued a rare rebuke against Vladimir Putin, and said he has his own deadline for the Russia-Ukraine war and that he still thinks the Russian leader will listen to him. Trump insisted that Chinese officials were not telling the truth when they said that the two countries have not engaged in talks on trade. In preparation for the the 250th anniversary of American independence, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced on Thursday that it would provide grants up of up to $200,000 each to artists willing to help fill a new National Garden of American Heroes with statues of great Americans. There is, however, a catch, or a series of catches. To start with, the 250 life-sized statues of “great individuals from America’s past who have contributed to our cultural, scientific and political heritage” must be drawn from a bizarre list of people included in an executive order signed by Trump in 2021, two days before he reluctantly departed the White House. Also, the artists must be American citizens, must work in marble, granite, bronze, copper or brass, and can create no more than three of the statues. The list of heroes includes former presidents, like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and figures with wide appeal, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also more controversial choices, like Henry Ford, whose antisemitic tracts inspired Hitler, and John James Audubon, a white supremacist. Somehow the list also includes figures who would no doubt have been appalled to find their likenesses placed in such a setting, including the anti-fascist writer Hannah Arendt and Woody Guthrie, a former tenant of Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, who wrote a song, “Old Man Trump”, decrying the landlord for refusing to rent to Black families. Guthrie’s lyrics included the lines: “I suppose/ Old Man Trump knows/ Just how much/ Racial Hate/ he stirred up/ In the bloodpot of human hearts/ When he drawed/ That color line/ Here at his/ Eighteen hundred family project”. Early this morning, Donald Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, introduced a segment on new polling conducted for the conservative network that “reveals what America thinks of president Trump’s first 100 days”. As on-screen graphic showed that Trump’s overall approval rating had fallen to just 44% — which is one point lower than his 45% rating at this stage of his first term, 10 points lower than Joe Biden’s rating at this point in 2021, and 18 points lower than the rating for Barack Obama in 2009 — the host Lauren Simonetti said, “this is the report card for how the president has done thus far”. Simonetti tried to put a positive spin on the results by starting with his “really strong numbers on the border: he’s at 55% approval”. As the camera pulled back to show a series of terrible results for Trump, including that his foreign policy is approved of by just 40% of registered voters, and disapproved of by 54% as he has failed to deliver on is promise to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Simonetti breezily claimed the president “does well on foreign policy too”. “But when it comes to the economy, this is where it’s a little trickier”, the Fox host said with understatement as the camera zoomed in on results showing widespread disapproval of Trump handling of the economy (38% approve, 56% disapprove), tariffs (33% approve, 58% disapprove) and inflation (33% Approve, 59% disapprove). Simonetti then mentioned that Trump’s falling popularity on the economy could be explained by a Wall Street Journal headline from the morning: “Trump Meets His Match: the Markets”, and pointed out that many Americans are invested in the stock market through their 401(k) retirement funds that have been severely damaged by Trump’s extreme tariff policy. An hour after the segment aired, Trump responded to it on his social media platform, posting: “Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so. This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!” Nathaniel Rakich, a former elections analyst for the polling site 538, commented on Trump’s demand for more favorable polling from the network, writing: “Fox News polling is some of the highest-quality, most unbiased data out there. It would be a real scandal if the network accedes to this.” The Trump administration has threatened states with the loss of federal transportation funding if they do not comply with US immigration enforcement efforts or fail to end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “Federal grants come with a clear obligation to adhere to federal laws,” Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, said in a letter to states and other grant recipients. “It shouldn’t be controversial – enforce our immigration rules, end anti-American DEI policies, and protect free speech.” Legal obligations generally require that states cooperate with federal authorities to enforce federal law, Duffy wrote, including immigration enforcement efforts. Some state recipients of transportation funds have not cooperated with such investigations, or issued licenses to undocumented immigrants, Duffy noted. The transportation department awards more than $50bn in grants each year as well as funding for highways to states. The missive comes as the Trump administration seeks to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across American life, through universities and agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and the labor department. US defense secretary Pete Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told the Associated Press. The fact that Hegseth was evading Pentagon security filters to connect to the internet this way raises the possibility that sensitive defense information could have been put at risk of potential hacking or surveillance. Earlier this week, the Guardian confirmed a New York Times report that Hegseth had shared sensitive operational information about strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen on a private Signal group chat he set up himself to communicate with his wife, brother, personal lawyer and nine associates. In 2016, when it was reported that Hillary Clinton used a private email server to conduct official business when she was secretary of state, Hegseth told Fox News that “any security professional – military, government or otherwise – would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct, and criminally prosecuted. The fact that she wouldn’t be held accountable for this, I think blows the mind of anyone who’s held our secrets dear, who’s had a top secret clearance, like I have.” Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Thursday, one aimed at boosting the deep-sea mining industry, as the US searches for an alternative source of critical minerals imported from China, and a second that sought to change probationary rules for federal workers to make it easier to fire them. As Reuters reports, parts of the Pacific Ocean are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics. More than 1 billion metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in US waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals, according to an administration official. “We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” the unnamed official told the news agency. Environmental groups have called for deep-sea mining to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss. The order on “strengthening probationary periods” for federal workers casts the changes as a way “to remove appointees whose continued employment is not in the public interest”. But the White House press secretary, Karoline Lavitt, suggested on Tuesday that it was important to find ways to remove federal workers who are insufficiently loyal to the president, arguing that because he was elected, he represents the will of the American people. Trump, Leavitt said, “believes that bureaucrats should be acting in accordance to the will of the American public, who duly elected this president”. “If you work for the government, you should be adhering to the will of the American public, and advancing the administration’s goals and interests” Leavitt added. “And if you are not doing that, you should go find another job”. The Republican president is taking aim at a Democratic fundraising platform, issuing a presidential memorandum to crack down on supposed foreign contributions to elections, an unsubstantiated claim from the right.. Donald Trump announced the memo on Thursday, directing the attorney general to investigate, and report to the president, “concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to US political candidates and committees, all of which break the law”. ActBlue, the largest online donation platform on the left, has anticipated the presidential action. Its CEO and president, Regina Wallace-Jones, sent an email this week saying the organization expected an executive order targeting it, and that the threat of these investigations had “caused many in the ecosystem anxiety and distress”. Donald Trump has pardoned Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas councilwoman and Nevada state lawmaker who was convicted of fraud in federal court last year, for using more than $70,000 in donations intended to pay for a statue of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty for her own personal expenses. As the Nevada Independent reports, the pardon was first announced by the Republican politician on Facebook and then filed in court on Thursday, days before Fiore was set to be sentenced on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. As US district judge Jennifer Dorsey wrote last week, when she denied Fiore’s request for a new trial, the politician “was found guilty of fleecing donors out of tens of thousands of dollars that she told them would be used for a memorial statue of a fallen police officer”. The evidence presented to the jury, the judge noted, “showed that a development company paid for the statue, and not a dime of the money that Fiore raised was used for that purpose. Instead, each check was quickly converted to cash and spent on Fiore’s personal expenses like rent, cosmetic procedures, and her daughter’s wedding.” In a 2021 campaign ad, at the start of her run for governor, Fiore boasted that she had been called the “Lady Trump” by Politico, and took aim with a pistol at three beer bottles, labeled: “Vaccine Mandates”, “CRT” and “Voter Fraud”. Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford, condemned the pardon in a social media post, writing: Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for law enforcement is sickening, and pardoning someone who stole from a police memorial fund is a disgrace. As Nevada’s top cop, I believe there’s no room for reprieve when it comes to betraying the families of fallen officers. I will continue to stand with our men and women in uniform. The Trump store is now selling “Trump 2028” hats to fans of the president, who is barred by the US constitution from serving a third term, despite the fact that a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that three-quarters of respondents said Trump should not even try to run. Just a narrow majority of Republicans, 53%, endorsed the idea. On the Trump store site, the sales pitch for the hat, which is modeled by the president’s son Eric, reads: “The future looks bright! Rewrite the rules with the Trump 2028 high crown hat.” The store also offers a “Trump 2028” T-shirt, which includes the parenthetical slogan: “(Rewrite the Rules)“. Federal judges blocked aspects of Trump’s agenda on voting, immigration and DEI in education. One blocked Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. Another partially blocked the Department of Education from enforcing a memo issued earlier this year that directed any institution that receives federal funding to end discrimination on the basis of race or face funding cuts. And on immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. Another blocked the administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown. Trump issued a rare rebuke against Vladimir Putin, and said he has his own deadline for the Russia-Ukraine war and that he still thinks the Russian leader will listen to him. In a sign of his growing frustration, Trump turned his criticism to the Putin today, urging him to stop his attacks on Ukraine. He wrote in a Truth Social post: “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!” Full story here. Trump told reporters he remains optimistic about striking a peace deal: “We are thinking that, very strongly, that they both want peace,” Trump said, “but they have to get to the table.” Meanwhile Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he believed that a document with proposals for ending the war that emerged from Wednesday’s talks in London was now on Donald Trump’s desk. The Ukrainian president, who was the subject of Trump’s ire yesterday, reiterated that anything unconstitutional (i.e. recognising Russia’s annexation of Crimea) would be unacceptable. Trump refuted China’s insistence that the two countries have not engaged in talks on trade. The president told reporters at the White House, declining to say to whom he was referring. “It doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China.” Earlier on Thursday China had denied multiple assertions from the White House that the two countries were engaged in active negotiations over tariffs. The Trump administration asked the US supreme court to allow implementation of his order banning transgender people from serving in the military. The justice department in a filing requested that the court lift US district judge Benjamin Settle’s nationwide order blocking the military from carrying out Trump’s prohibition on transgender service members while a legal challenge to the policy proceeds. Settle found that Trump’s executive order likely violates the US constitution’s fifth amendment right to equal protection under the law. Legislators are pleading with Trump to reconsider his decision to deny federal disaster relief funds to the people of Arkansas, which saw dozens of people die from a series of deadly tornados last month. Full story here. Pete Hegseth reportedly had Signal installed on a desktop computer in his Pentagon office, adding yet another layer to the mushrooming scandal that is Signalgate. Hegseth and his aides apparently discussed “how they could circumvent the lack of cellphone service in much of the Pentagon and more quickly coordinate with the White House and other top Trump officials using the encrypted app”. But it was also “a work-around that enabled him to use Signal in a classified space, where his cellphone and other personal electronics are not permitted”. The defense secretary also denied reports that he has ordered the installation of a makeup studio in the Pentagon for his television appearances, with a defense official insisting the secretary of state does his own makeup. As a number of rulings have come in this afternoon with federal judges blocking several aspects of Trump’s agenda that he’s tried to enact via vehicles such as executive orders, here’s a brief roundup of those developments. A judge blocked Donald Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. The president sought to unilaterally add the requirement in a 25 March executive orders. The Democratic party, as well as a slew of civil rights groups, challenged that order, arguing the president does not have the power to set the rules for federal elections. US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly agreed with that argument. She also blocked a portion of the executive order that required federal agencies to assess the citizenship of individuals applying to vote at a public assistance agency before they offered them a chance to vote. The order would have made it significantly harder to register to vote, even for eligible voters. Meanwhile, a federal judge said the Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes. US district judge Landya McCafferty partially blocked the Department of Education from enforcing a memo issued earlier this year that directed any institution that receives federal funding to end discrimination on the basis of race or face funding cuts. And on immigration, a judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison there back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. US district judge Stephanie Gallagher also ordered the administration not to deport other migrants covered by the settlement. She said the settlement agreement that she approved in November on behalf of thousands of migrants required immigration authorities to process the asylum application by the 20-year-old Venezuelan man, identified only as Cristian, before deporting him. The settlement applies to thousands of migrants who came to the US unaccompanied as children and have applied for asylum. While the administration argued that deporting Cristian didn’t violate the settlement agreement because he had been deemed an “alien enemy” under the Alien Enemies Act, making him ineligible for asylum. But Gallagher said the settlement applies to anyone with a pending asylum application, and not only those who are eligible for asylum. Gallagher considered only whether Cristian’s deportation violated the settlement and not whether the law was properly invoked, which is at issue in cases such as that of Kilmar Ábrego García’s. And another judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown. US district judge William Orrick said a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order was warranted as the local jurisdictions had established that it likely unconstitutionally imposed conditions on federal funding without congressional authorization and ran afoul of the localities’ due process rights. A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. The president sought to unilaterally add the requirement in a 25 March executive orders. The Democratic party, as well as a slew of civil rights groups, challenged that order, arguing the president does not have the power to set the rules for federal elections. US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the federal district court in Washington, agreed with that argument on Thursday. “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States – not the President – with the authority to regulate federal elections,” she wrote in a 120-page opinion. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.” Kollar-Kotelly also blocked a portion of the executive order that required federal agencies to assess the citizenship of individuals applying to vote at a public assistance agency before they offered them a chance to vote. The order would have made it significantly harder to register to vote, even for eligible voters. Nearly 10% of eligible voters lack easy access to documents, such as a US passport or birth certificate, that would be required to prove their citizenship, a 2024 survey found. Reuters notes that Trump has long questioned the US electoral system and continues to falsely claim that his 2020 loss to Democratic president Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. Trump and his Republican allies also have made baseless claims about widespread voting by non-citizens, which is illegal and rare. The Trump administration’s attempt to make federal funding to schools conditional on them eliminating any DEI policies erodes the “foundational principles” that separates the United States from totalitarian regimes, a federal judge said on Thursday. ABC News reports that in an 82-page order, US district judge Landya McCafferty partially blocked the Department of Education from enforcing a memo issued earlier this year that directed any institution that receives federal funding to end discrimination on the basis of race or face funding cuts. “Ours is a nation deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned,” Judge McCafferty wrote, adding that the “right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is … one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes”. “In this case, the court reviews action by the executive branch that threatens to erode these foundational principles,” she wrote. The judge stopped short of issuing the nationwide injunction, instead limiting the relief to any entity that employs or contacts with the groups that filed the lawsuit, including the National Education Association and the Center for Black Educator Development. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a second man sent to a prison in El Salvador back to the US, saying his deportation violated a court settlement. Late on Wednesday, US district judge Stephanie Gallagher in Baltimore said the settlement agreement that she approved in November on behalf of thousands of migrants required immigration authorities to process the asylum application by the 20-year-old Venezuelan man, identified only as Cristian, before deporting him. The ruling could set up another showdown between the Trump administration and federal courts over immigration enforcement. The administration has also been ordered to facilitate the return of a Salvadorian man, Kilmar Ábrego García, who it acknowledged was deported in error, but a judge has said that the government is doing little to comply. Related: Federal judge accuses White House of ‘bad faith’ in Kilmar Ábrego García case The administration claims that Ábrego García, Cristian and more than 250 other people who were sent to a Salvadorian prison beginning last month are gang members and that it has the power to remove them under the rarely used 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Gallagher considered only whether Cristian’s deportation violated the settlement and not whether the law was properly invoked, which is at issue in Ábrego García’s and other migrants’ cases. The settlement applies to thousands of migrants who came to the US unaccompanied as children and have applied for asylum. “A core purpose of the Settlement Agreement would be nullified if Class Members with pending asylum applications could be summarily removed from the United States and thus rendered ineligible for asylum,” wrote Gallagher, a Trump appointee. Cristian is a class member in the 2019 lawsuit, which claimed that immigration authorities were deporting migrants before they received a final determination on their applications for asylum. The Trump administration argued that deporting Cristian did not violate the settlement agreement because he had been deemed an “alien enemy” under the wartime law, making him ineligible for asylum. But Gallagher said the settlement applies to anyone with a pending asylum application, and not only those who are eligible for asylum. The judge ordered the Trump administration to make “a good faith request” to the government of El Salvador, seeking Cristian’s release to US custody so he could return to the US. She also ordered the administration not to deport other migrants covered by the settlement. Trump expected to sign deep-sea mining executive order on Thursday – report Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday to advance the deep sea mining industry, the latest attempt to tap international deposits of nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy, Reuters reports. The order will likely fast track permitting for deep-sea mining in international waters and let mining companies bypass a United Nations-backed review process, Reuters previously reported. Trump has taken several steps already to boost domestic production of critical minerals and combat China’s dominance of the industry that supplies the raw materials needed for a wide range of modern technologies and industries, especially those related to clean energy and defense. Among other things, he has fast-tracked permitting on 10 mining projects across the United States and implemented an abbreviated approval process for mining projects on federal lands. The International Seabed Authority - created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the US has not ratified - has for years been considering standards for deep-sea mining in international waters, although it has yet to formalize them due to unresolved differences over acceptable levels of dust, noise and other factors from the practice. Trump’s deep-sea mining order is likely to stipulate that the US aims to exercise its rights to extract critical minerals on the ocean’s floor, and to let miners bypass the ISA and seek permitting through the US Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s mining code, Reuters previously reported. A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the president’s hardline immigration crackdown. Reuters reports that US district judge William Orrick issued the injunction at the request of 16 cities and counties nationally led by San Francisco that in a lawsuit filed in February argued that the administration was unlawfully trying to force local officials to cooperate with federal immigration arrests. Those jurisdictions include the cities of Minneapolis, New Haven, Portland, St Paul, Santa Fe and Seattle. They argue that the administration is seeking to punish them for exercising their rights to limit the use of their resources for federal civil immigration enforcement. The lawsuit challenged an executive order Trump signed that threatened to cut off federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that limit or refuse to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During his first term as president, Trump in 2017 signed a similar executive order targeting sanctuary jurisdictions. San Francisco sued then too, leading Orrick to block the policy in a ruling that was upheld by the San Francisco-based 9th US circuit court of appeals. “Here we are again,” Orrick wrote on Thursday. He said a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of Trump’s latest executive order was likewise warranted as the local jurisdictions had established that Trump’s order likely unconstitutionally imposed conditions on federal funding without congressional authorization and ran afoul of the localities’ due process rights. The localities sued a day after the US Department of Justice sued the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago, seeking a court order blocking so-called sanctuary laws that the Democratic-led jurisdictions adopted that it said were interfering with Trump’s agenda. Sanctuary laws prevent state and local law enforcement from assisting federal civil immigration officers. The Justice Department has since then also filed a lawsuit challenging a New York law that bars the Democratic-led state from sharing vehicle and address information with federal immigration authorities. The US and China held talks on Thursday morning to help resolve an ongoing trade war, Donald Trump said. The US president told reporters at the White House on Thursday, declining to say to whom he was referring. “It doesn’t matter who ‘they’ is. We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China.” Earlier on Thursday China had denied multiple assertions from the White House that the two countries were engaged in active negotiations over tariffs. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said China and the US had “not conducted consultations or negotiations on tariffs, let alone reached an agreement”. He added that reports to the contrary were “false”. Trump had told reporters earlier in the week that “everything’s active” when asked if he was engaging with China, although this was contradicted when his treasury secretary said on Wednesday that there were no formal negotiations. Both men have suggested this week that there might be an imminent softening of the US approach on trade issues with China, with Trump saying the taxes he has so far imposed on Chinese imports would “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”. Scott Bessent added that there was an opportunity for a “big deal” between the US and China on trade, and that he expected a de-escalation of the “unsustainable” trade war. Donald Trump, who campaigned on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine on his first day in office, on Thursday said that he has his own deadline for the conflict and that Ukraine and Russia have to both negotiate. “I have my own deadline,” he told reporters at ahead of his meeting at the White House with Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre. Trump also said he thinks Russian president Vladimir Putin would listen to him on stopping the strikes on Ukraine, after urging Moscow’s leader in a Truth Social post earlier on Thursday to stop the attacks. Asked by a reporter if he thought Putin would listen to him. “Yes,” Trump said, reports Reuters. As we reported earlier, Donald Trump has lashed out at a lawyer for the Trump Organization who is also representing Harvard University in its lawsuit against his administration, saying the company should fire him. Trump’s post on his social media platform Truth Social did not name the attorney, but it appeared to describe prominent Washington lawyer William Burck of law firm Quinn Emanuel. The Trump Organization is run by Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Asked whether Burck still worked for the Trump Organization, Eric Trump said in a statement on Thursday: I view it as conflict and I will be moving in a different direction. He did not elaborate. Burck is a lead attorney for Harvard in a lawsuit filed this week accusing the Trump administration of illegally moving to freeze more than $2bn in federal funding as part of a pressure campaign against the research institution and other schools. In January, the Trump Organization said it retained Burck, a longtime Republican insider, as an outside ethics adviser to help develop and maintain internal policies to ward against conflicts of interest. Burck and Quinn Emanuel did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Burck, a former White House lawyer for former president George W Bush, has also represented Steve Bannon and other Trump backers. Quinn Emanuel, with more than 1,000 lawyers, is a longtime law firm for Tesla CEO and Trump ally Elon Musk. Harvard’s lawsuit is not the firm’s only case opposing the administration. Quinn Emanuel is separately representing wrongly deported man Kilmar Ábrego García in his lawsuit seeking his return from El Salvador to the US. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in Boston in Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration. Donald Trump will meet with Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, today. In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote: Later today I will be meeting with, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic, and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me, including the made-up HOAX on ‘Suckers and Losers’ and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more ‘successful’ with.” Trump went on to say that Goldberg is bringing along with him the Atlantic’s reporters Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker. He added that he was told by his representatives that the story the Atlantic is writing will be called “The Most Consequential President of this Century”. I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful.’ Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’?” he said in his Truth Social post. In March, Goldberg found himself in the center of a scandal when White House national security adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added Goldberg into a private Signal group chat in which senior members of Trump’s administration – including vice-president JD Vance and defense secretary Pete Hegseth – discussed attack plans on Yemen. Following the Atlantic’s reporting of the group chat, Trump spun the scandal as not a major security breach by his administration but rather a media lapse. Donald Trump has denied federal disaster relief funds to the people of Arkansas, which saw dozens of people die from a series of deadly tornados last month, so legislators are pleading for him to reconsider. More than 40 people have been found dead after a series of tornados and severe storms hit Arkansas and neighboring states Mississippi and Missouri in March, according to CNN. Given the scale of the disaster, the state’s Republican governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, requested federal disaster aid as a part of an emergency declaration. That request was later denied by the Trump administration. Reuters notes that the supreme court previously weighed in on Trump’s targeting of transgender troops during his first term in office, allowing the defense department in 2019 to enforce a more limited restriction that had let certain personnel diagnosed with gender dysphoria, after entering the military, to continue to serve. In the Washington state case, seven active-duty transgender troops, a transgender man seeking to enlist and a civil rights advocacy group sued over the ban. In blocking the policy, US district judge Benjamin Settle called it an “unsupported, dramatic and facially unfair exclusionary policy” and that Trump’s administration had provided no evidence of any harm that had resulted from transgender individuals’ presence in the armed services. The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals declined the administration’s request to put Settle’s order on hold pending an appeal. Trump has targeted the rights of transgender Americans in a series of executive orders including one stating that the US government will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and that they are “not changeable”. Trump also signed an order to end federal funding or support for healthcare that aids the transition of transgender youth and another one attempting to exclude transgender girls and women from female sports. Donald Trump’s administration asked the US supreme court on Thursday to allow implementation of his order banning transgender people from serving in the military, one of a series of sweeping directives by the president to curb transgender rights. The justice department in a filing requested that the court lift Seattle-based US district judge Benjamin Settle’s nationwide order blocking the military from carrying out Trump’s prohibition on transgender service members while a legal challenge to the policy proceeds. Settle found that Trump’s executive order likely violates the US constitution’s fifth amendment right to equal protection under the law. The judge also said there was no evidence that trans troops harm military readiness. Trump in January signed an executive order that cast the gender identity of transgender people as a “falsehood” and asserted that they are unable to satisfy the standards needed for service in the American armed forces. His order stated: A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member. The directive reversed a policy implemented under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden to allow transgender troops to serve openly in the American armed forces. The Pentagon later issued guidance to implement Trump’s order, disqualifying from military service current troops and applicants with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who had undergone gender transition steps. The guidance allowed people to be considered for a waiver on a case-by-case basis if their service would directly support “war-fighting capabilities”. Donald Trump said on Thursday that Boeing “should default China” for not taking the planes it committed to purchase. “This is just a small example of what China has done to the USA, for years,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Boeing is looking to resell potentially dozens of planes locked out of China by Trump’s tariff war after repatriating a third jet to the United States rather than store it without willing buyers. The justice department has charged an alleged high-ranking member of Tren de Aragua in Colombia with terrorism offenses, making the first case of its kind against a member of the gang the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization, the Associated Press reports. The case is part of a broad push to target Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Venezuelan gang that has been blamed for drug smuggling and violence in the US. Donald Trump has designated the gang a foreign terrorist organization and an invading force under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which has been used to justify the deportation of alleged gang members to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison. The justice department’s application of a criminal statute primarily reserved in recent years for extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida underscores the extent to which the administration is relying on a strikingly expansive definition of terrorism as it pursues a national security agenda focused on drug trafficking and illegal immigration. “TdA is not a street gang – it is a highly structured terrorist organization that put down roots in our country during the prior administration,” attorney general Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Today’s charges represent an inflection point in how this Department of Justice will prosecute and ultimately dismantle this evil organization, which has destroyed American families and poisoned our communities.” Jose Enrique Martinez Flores, 24, was charged in Texas federal court with drug offenses as well as conspiring to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Prosecutors described him as part of the “inner circle of TdA leadership”, and accused him of playing a role in the international distribution of cocaine. He is in custody in Colombia awaiting further proceedings. The justice department said he faces up to life in prison. The material support statute has long been a favored tool of the justice department to build prosecutions against people who are suspected of facilitating the operations of a militant group but not always carrying out violence themselves. The addition of TdA to the state department list of foreign terrorist organizations enables the justice department to wield the statute against individuals suspected of supporting that group. The announcement comes days after prosecutors announced what they said was the first case to bring federal racketeering charges, which were famously used to bring down the Mafia, against the Venezuelan street gang. The embattled defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing calls for his resignation over his repeated use of Signal group chats to discuss sensitive US military operations in Yemen, has denied reports that he ordered the installation of a makeup studio in the Pentagon. CBS News reported on Wednesday that Hegseth had ordered a costly remodeling of “a room next to the Pentagon press briefing room to retrofit it with a makeup studio that can be used to prepare for television appearances”. In its report CBS notes the project cost “several thousands of dollars” at a time when the Trump administration is searching for “cost-cutting measures” and slashing federal spending. A defense department official told CBS any changes and upgrades made to the room were “routine”. Hegseth responded in a post on X: Totally fake story. No ‘orders’ and no ‘makeup.’ The former Fox News host has (very nobly) been doing his own makeup thus far, rather than paying for a makeup artist, a defense official told CBS. Donald Trump has repeated his attacks on Harvard as “antisemitic” and a “far-left institution”. In a post on his Truth Social platform, the president also attacked the lawyers appointed by Harvard in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, William Burck and Robert Hur, both of whom have conservative credentials. Harvard filed its lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging it is trying to “gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard”. The university is fighting back against the White House’s threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were “diverse”. Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants. The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around Israel’s war on Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests as anti-American, and the institutions as “liberal” and “antisemitic”, which Harvard has refuted. Here’s the full post from Trump this morning: Harvard is an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart. The place is a Liberal mess, allowing a certain group of crazed lunatics to enter and exit the classroom and spew fake ANGER AND HATE. It is truly horrific! Now, since our filings began, they act like they are all “American Apple Pie.” Harvard is a threat to Democracy, with a lawyer, who represents me, who should therefore be forced to resign, immediately, or be fired. He’s not that good, anyway, and I hope that my very big and beautiful company, now run by my sons, gets rid of him ASAP! The defense secretary Pete Hegseth “directed the installation of Signal, a commercially available messaging app, on a desktop computer in his Pentagon office”, according to the Washington Post (paywall). According to the Post’s report, Hegseth and his aides discussed “how they could circumvent the lack of cellphone service in much of the Pentagon and more quickly coordinate with the White House and other top Trump officials using the encrypted app”. But it was also “a work-around that enabled him to use Signal in a classified space, where his cellphone and other personal electronics are not permitted”. Hegseth’s repeated disclosures of sensitive military intelligence in unsecured Signal group chats have led to growing concerns his behavior has weakened the Pentagon in the eyes of its foreign adversaries and made him and his entourage a top espionage targets. Democrats and a number of conservatives have called for his immediate resignation. Donald Trump will host Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre at the White House today, along with Jens Stoltenberg, who served as head of Nato for a decade before stepping down last autumn. I’ll bring you all the key lines from their scheduled press briefing at 1.30pm ET from the Oval Office. Donald Trump turned his criticism on Russian president Vladimir Putin on Thursday after Russia pounded Kyiv with missiles and drones overnight, saying “Vladimir, STOP!” “I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing,” Trump wrote in a social media post a day after expressing frustration that it was Ukraine’s leader who was hampering peace talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine. Here’s the full post from Truth Social: I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE! Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday he believed that a document with proposals that emerged from Wednesday’s talks in London was now on Donald Trump’s table. The Ukrainian president said that he did not see signs the United States was putting strong pressure on Russia as part of its peace push, and that Kyiv was doing what its allies proposed, though it could not flout its constitution. “After the proposal from the United States, other papers appeared, and I believe that today, this format, this document, is on President Trump’s desk,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference in South Africa. “Anything that contradicts our values or our constitution cannot be included in any agreement.” Zelenskyy is referring to reports that the US could be willing to recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea as part of an agreement to end the war. The Ukrainian president has flatly rejected this as against his country’s constitution, and was subsequently lambasted by Trump who accused Zelenskyy on Wednesday of jeopardizing what he claimed was an imminent peace deal. Last night at least nine people were killed and more than 70 injured in Kyiv after Russia carried out one of the most devastating air attacks against Ukraine for months, with Kharkiv and other cities also targeted. My colleague Jakub Krupa has all the latest developments on Ukraine over on our Europe live blog: Donald Trump began dismantling Joe Biden’s climate change and renewable energy policies on his first day in office in January, declaring a national energy emergency to speed up fossil fuel development. The declaration called on the federal government to make it easier for companies to build oil and gas projects, in part by weakening environmental reviews. Trump has also targeted what he called “overreach” by Democratic-controlled states to limit energy production to slow the climate crisis. Despite overwhelming evidence, the president has called the climate crisis a “hoax” and dismissed those concerned by its worsening impacts as “climate lunatics”. You can read more about Trump’s anti-environmental policies here: Tommy Joyce, an acting assistant secretary of international affairs at the US energy department, has been speaking at an energy summit in London. Joyce, who is in the position while Donald Trump’s choice to head the department of energy’s international affairs office, David Eisner, awaits Senate confirmation, said that clean power policies are “harmful and dangerous”. “The focus during the last administration was on climate politics and policies leading to that (energy) scarcity. These policies have been embraced by many, not just the United States, and harm human lives,” Joyce told business leaders and ministers who gathered at Lancaster House for the conference. Speaking shortly after an address by the UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, Joyce stopped short of criticizing Britain’s push towards clean power. But he said: Some want to regulate every form of energy besides the so-called renewables, completely out of existence and in favour of a net zero. We oppose these harmful and dangerous policies. This is not energy security, and we know exactly where it leads. Beijing said on Thursday that any claims of ongoing trade talks with Washington were “baseless”, a day after Donald Trump suggested there were active discussions with China about tariffs. Asked on Wednesday if his administration was “actively” talking to China, the US president said: “Actively. Everything is active. Everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing.” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he would set tariffs over the next couple of weeks, insisting that a deal with Beijing “depends on them”. Pushing back at these comments earlier today, He Yadong, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of commerce, said: There are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States. Any claims about progress in China-US economic and trade negotiations are baseless rumors without factual evidence. The US put 145% tariffs on imports from China and it responded with a 125% tax on US products. Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr will meet the Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto in Budapest on Friday, Hungary’s foreign ministry has announced. The US president is travelling to Rome for the pope’s funeral on Saturday and it is not clear what the purpose of his son’s visit is. Trump Jr works to expand the company’s real estate, retail, commercial, hotel and golf interests, according to the Trump Organization, of which he is vice-president. The ministry did not reveal the purpose of the visit and officials were not immediately available for comment. Bloomberg reported late on Wednesday that Trump Jr would visit eastern Europe this week as he is seeking to expand his family’s business ties. Trump Jr met Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade last month. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he talked about the war in Ukraine and the need to foster good bilateral relations with the US in his phone call with Donald Trump. “We both agreed that the war should be brought to an end as soon as possible to stop further unnecessary deaths... to meet soon to address various matters regarding US-South Africa relations,” Ramaphosa wrote in a post on X. Relations between the two countries are at a low point for many reasons. One of them is South Africa’s genocide case against Israel – Trump’s close ally - for its military conduct in the war on Gaza, which is being heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Another is Trump’s belief that the white-minority Afrikaner community are being unjustly discriminated against in South Africa. Ramaphosa is meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Pretoria today as he tries to position himself as a peacemaker in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Donald Trump is planning to spare carmakers from some of his most onerous tariffs following intense lobbying by industry executives over recent weeks, according to a report in the Financial Times. Sources told the paper that the US president could exempt tariffs on car parts coming from China while also levying duties on imported steel and aluminum. The exemptions, however, would leave in place the 25% tariff Trump imposed on all imports of foreign-made cars. The 25% duty on foreign-imported car parts, which is due to take effect on 3 May, is also expected to continue, according to the FT. Trump’s move follows criticism of the levies by car industry executives who have echoed warnings that the tariffs would raise car prices in the US, dent profits of carmakers and parts suppliers, and disrupt the intertwined manufacturing operations across countries. John Elkann, the chair of Stellantis, the carmaker that owns the Fiat and Chrysler brands, warned that “American and European car industries are being put at risk” by Trump’s trade policy. Lauren Almeida is a Guardian business reporter The value of Donald Trump’s meme coin jumped by more than 50% on Wednesday after its official website said the coin’s top 220 holders would be invited to a private gala dinner with the president on 22 May. The top 25 holders of the coin will also get “an ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president”, as well as a “special tour”, the website said. Despite the sharp rise, the price of the president’s coin is still far below the peak it hit shortly before his inauguration in January, when it soared from about $6 to as high as $75. The launch of coins for Trump and his wife, Melania, have prompted experts to accuse the pair of “shameful” conflicts of interest. As Donald Trump’s 100 days in office approach, Human Rights Watch has issued a list of what it describes as 100 harmful actions taken by the administration, in what it calls “a relentless barrage of actions that violate, threaten, or undermine the human rights of people in the US and abroad” Tanya Greene, US program director, said “In just 100 days, the Trump administration has inflicted enormous damage to human rights in the US and around the world. We are deeply concerned that these attacks on fundamental freedoms will continue unabated.” Human Rights Watch said its compilation of harm from the first 100 days of the Trump administration included “attacks on free speech, the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants, health, environmental, and social protections, education, foreign aid and humanitarian assistance, and the rule of law.” Human Rights Watch is a New York-based international NGO that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Donald Trump will mark his first 100 days in office next week with a rally in Michigan, his first since returning to the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on social media. The rally will take place in Macomb County one day before Trump’s 100th day in office. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has accused US president Donald Trump of throwing the US economy into turmoil, and vowed to try to protect people in the state from the worst of the consequences. Delivering his annual state of the state speech, Associated Press reports that the man who had hoped to be vice-president in a Kamala Harris administration said: The president of the United States has chosen – chosen! – to throw our economy into turmoil. Global markets are teetering on the brink of collapse. Businesses across this country and here in Minnesota are already laying off employees by the thousands. Working people are paying more for basic goods. And if you haven’t checked your 401(k) lately, don’t do it. As governor, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect Minnesotans from getting hurt and continue to provide shelter from the storm for Minnesotans. Reuters reports that, in its regular daily briefing, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson has said China and the US have not held consultations or negotiations on tariffs. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday it could take between two and three years to restore normal trade with China, following reports that on Tuesday he told a private investment conference that a trade war with China was “unsustainable”. Bessent has been credited in some quarters with forcing Donald Trump to backtrack in the face of market reaction. In an analysis piece for the Wall Street Journal overnight, Meridith McGraw and Brian Schwartz wrote that “so far, the only force that has reliably prompted [Trump] to back down is Wall Street. They said: Both the president and White House officials argue that the sharp U-turns are all part of a long-term plan to force allies and adversaries alike to strike trade deals with the US. And they stress that Trump remains determined to follow through on his pledge to reset global trade. Trump’s current and former advisers said he watches the markets closely, and as an avid media consumer can’t avoid the dramatic ups and downs that have been displayed across television screens and on front pages for weeks. But Trump’s dual goals of driving market gains and reshoring American manufacturing through stiff tariffs are sometimes at odds. Donald Trump again caused economic uncertainty as he declared that his administration would reimpose tariffs it paused on 9 April within “the next two, three weeks” where countries had not struck a deal with the US. Speaking at the White House, the US president said “In the end, I think what’s going to happen is, we’re going to have a great deals, and by the way, if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff. I’d say over the next couple of weeks, wouldn’t you say? I think so. Over the next two, three weeks.” On 9 April Trump had “paused” the majority of tariffs he had set sweepingly on nearly every international US trade partner. His most recent pronouncement leaves importers and exporters unclear whether by the end of the next month they will be paying Trump’s new baseline 10% tariff, the tariff that was set on 9 April, or an entirely new figure. So far, several key parts of the global economic have resisted the pressure from the Trump administration to, as JD Vance put it while speaking in India earlier this week, “rebalance” international trade. The European Union has said it has no intentions of changing its rules on value added tax – a tax imposed on specific goods at the point of sale in EU countries – or on agricultural subsidies. China has shown no sign of bucking under the Trump decision to attempt to impose a 145% tariff on most goods originating there. On Wednesday a Chinese official said the US “should stop threatening and blackmailing China, and seek dialogue based on equality, respect and mutual benefit. To keep asking for a deal while exerting extreme pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work.” Welcome to the Guardian’s ongoing rolling coverage of US politics and the second Donald Trump administration. Here are the headlines … Trump again spooked businesses with his yo-yoing tariff plans, saying at the White House that “if we don’t have a deal with a company or a country, we’re going to set the tariff … over the next two, three weeks” A dozen US states have sued the Trump administration in the US court of international trade in New York on Wednesday to stop its tariff policy, saying it is unlawful and has brought chaos to the American economy Trump signed executive orders on Wednesday targeting universities as his administration seeks to reshape higher-education institutions and continues to crack down on diversity and inclusion efforts Trump once again attacked Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to agree to peace terms that Ukraine says amount to a surrender to Russia. Trump said Zelenskyy’s stance, refusing to permanently concede Crimea to its nuclear-armed neighbour Russia, who had invaded it in 2014, was “very harmful to the peace negotiations”