Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here’s the latest:
The US Department of Justice ended its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, which was widely seen as politically motivated revenge for his refusal to lower interest rates as Donald Trump wants. Senator Thom Tillis had threatened to withhold his deciding vote to confirm the president’s nominee, Kevin Warsh, as Powell’s successor unless the investigation of Powell ended.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, wrote to Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, demanding that she explain her threat that she could later reopen the investigation into Powell, and asking whether Fed governor Lisa Cook is still under investigation. The senators also asked what role Trump had played in the investigations.
The justice department also announced that it is taking steps to “strengthen the federal death penalty”, including by bringing back firing squads.
En route to his beach resort, Trump engaged in a social media posting spree, mixing racist attacks on Hakeem Jeffries and Candace Owens with six posts about construction projects he has ordered to put his own stamp on the nation’s capital.
A strategist for billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer, who has spent $120m of his fortune in his campaign to be the next governor of California, drew attention on Friday to the fact that corporate interests are spending big to try to defeat him.
Pentagon kills two more suspected drug smugglers in Eastern Pacific
US Southern Command said in a press release issued minutes ago that it has killed two suspected drug smugglers in a strike on a small boat in the Eastern Pacific on Friday.
The statement was accompanied by video of a massive explosion striking the boat.
Since the first strikes last September, the Pentagon has now taken responsibility for killing 183 suspects in 54 attacks, which are considered extrajudicial killings by legal experts.
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Republican-backed ballot measure to require voter ID in California will be put to voters in November
Voters in California, who currently need to provide an ID and Social Security number when they register to vote, will be asked in November if they want to change the state’s law to require them to show a government-issued ID each time they cast a ballot in person or provide the last-four digits of a government-issued ID each time they vote by mail.
A voter ID ballot initiative introduced by Republican state assemblymember Carl DeMaio qualified for the November ballot on Friday after obtaining enough signatures.
If the measure passes, California’s secretary of state and county election offices would also be required by law to verify every voters’ registration each time they vote.
“The California Voter ID Initiative is a common-sense and bipartisan way to restore the trust and confidence all voters should have in our election system,” DeMaio said in a statement celebrating the measure making it on to the midterm ballot.
“Divisive politicians with partisan agendas will try to politicize this effort,” he argued, “and nearly half of the 1.35 million signatures we collected to put this common-sense reform on the ballot came from Democrats and Independents.”
As Cal Matters reports, voting rights advocates argue voter ID laws suppress turnout among eligible voters, particularly those who are poor and don’t have documents that can be expensive or cumbersome to obtain.
California labor unions plan to campaign against the ballot measure.
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In California governor race, energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric launches $10m effort to defeat billionaire Tom Steyer
A strategist for billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer, who has spent $120m of his fortune in his campaign to be the next governor of California, drew attention on Friday to the fact that corporate interests are spending big to try to defeat him.
Steyer’s campaign strategist, Rebecca Katz, whose firm has previously helped elect Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Ruben Gallego and John Fetterman, noted on social media that PG&E is spending $10 million on an anti-Steyer political action committee, Californians for Resilient and Affordable Energy.
As the San Francisco Standard reported, the energy firm is disguising its effort by funding another anti-Steyer PAC, California Is Not for Sale, a group supported by the state’s real estate and construction industry. That group is running a misleading ad attacking Steyer for wanting to increase commercial property taxes which implies that the change would also raise residential property taxes, which Steyer’s campaign says is not true.
Trump mixes racist attacks on Hakeem Jeffries and Candace Owens with boasts about his Washington renovations in latest posting spree
Donald Trump has arrived in Palm Beach, to spend the night at his Mar-a-Lago beach club before delivering remarks at a crypto event on Saturday and then returning to Washington to grace the White House Correspondents’ dinner with his presence.
From Air Force One, however, the president remained focused on the work he likes best: a social media posting spree, in this case, mixing racist attacks on Hakeem Jeffries and Candace Owens with six posts about the construction projects he has ordered to put his own aesthetic stamp on the nation’s capital.
Between boasts about having the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool coated with a blue swimming pool lining, Trump attacked Jeffries, the Democratic House leader with a good chance to be speaker after the midterms, and Owens, an influential rightwing conspiracy theorist and podcaster with a term, “Low IQ individual”, he seems to reserve almost exclusively for Black and brown Americans.
The president recently made that baseless accusation about Tucker Carlson, a former supporter who has criticized his war on Iran, but the pattern of his habitual usage is clear.
On Wednesday the president used that term for supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has two degrees from Harvard University. He has previously hurled it at accomplished, well-educated Democratic officials, including: former vice-president Kamala Harris and congresswomen Jasmine Crockett, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Maxine Waters.
Earlier this year, the president tried to justify his immigration crackdown on Minnesota by claiming that the entire Somali-American immigrant community is of inferior intelligence.
In 2019, Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen testified to Congress that Trump had ordered him to send threatening letters to his own former school, threatening to have anyone who released his transcripts jailed.
“When I say con man, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant, but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores,” Cohen told the House oversight committee.
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Like Trump, Vance uses iPhone for official calls despite security concerns
A decade on from the 2016 election, when then FBI director James Comey called Hillary Clinton “extremely careless” for using a private email server to conduct official business as secretary of state, concerns about cybersecurity seem to have almost evaporated around the Trump White House.
Last year, the Atlantic reported that Donald Trump had refused to stop using a personal iPhone, “with a broadly circulated number” despite having been warned in 2024 that Chinese hackers had gained access to US commercial telecommunications infrastructure and so could be listening to his calls.
On Friday, we got visual evidence that Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, appears to be similarly unconcerned with keeping his official calls secure, or even secret.
A photograph taken outside the White House on Friday showed Vance holding up his iPhone as he spoke to the president, or another caller with the name “Donald J. T-” and the initials “DT”.
The name of the caller, and the make of the phone, was visible because Vance held the phone away from his ear, even though the speakerphone was not engaged, at a distance that suggested the person he was listening to speaks at a volume typical of those on the cusp of their 80h birthdays.
A second image showed the vice-president, who was left behind as Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, traveled to Pakistan without him for a second round of talks, speaking with two contacts: a “JK” and an “SW”.
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Elizabeth Warren demands clarity from Jeanine Pirro over threat to reopen investigation into Jerome Powell and Trump's role
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrats on the Senate banking and judiciary committees, wrote to Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host serving as US attorney for the District of Columbia, demanding that she explain her threat that she could reopen a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, and asking whether Fed governor Lisa Cook is still under investigation.
Both Powell and Cook have been identified by Donald Trump as enemies he wants to force out of the central bank so he can replace them with appointees who might be more compliant with his desire to cut interest rates despite the risk of inflation.
“In recent months, your office has been engaged in a pretextual investigation into Chair Powell,” Warren and Durbin wrote in their letter to Pirro. “Though nominally an examination of his congressional testimony about the Federal Reserve’s renovation of two Washington, D.C. office buildings, the investigation was, in reality, driven by President Trump’s displeasure that Chair Powell had not voted to lower interest rates at his request”.
“Earlier today, you promised a temporary pause to the investigation. Specifically, you announced, ‘This morning the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the (Fed’s) building costs overruns … I expect a comprehensive report in short order … Accordingly, I have directed my office to close our investigation as the IG undertakes this inquiry.’ Your announcement also contained a stark warning that you were prepared to reopen the criminal probe at any moment: ‘Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.’”
“These probes should be closed – and should stay closed, with a clear statement that there is no basis for reopening them,” the senators wrote. “Instead, your announcement leaves the door wide open for you to relaunch the criminal probe against Chair Powell – or future baseless investigations into Powell or other Fed Governors and a future Fed Chair – should it once again become politically expedient for you to do so.”
The senators requested written responses to a series of questions about the two investigastions, and about Trump’s role in them, by Monday.
Rights lawyers welcome federal court ruling that Trump's 'racist' ban on asylum is illegal
After the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia blocked Donald Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access, ruling that federal law gives people the right to apply for asylum at the border, lawyers for a coalition of rights groups that successfully challenged the attempted ban expressed relief.
“This decision puts an end to the inhumane Trump policy of sending people, including families with little children, back to horrific danger without even a hearing,” Lee Gelernt, who argued the appeal for the ACLU, said. “The court made clear that the president does not have the unilateral power to wipe away all of the asylum laws enacted by Congress.”
“The circuit court reaffirmed our conviction that a president cannot unilaterally eliminate the right to seek asylum by executive order. We hope that the US government remembers its obligation to consider applications for refugee protections and recommits to upholding the basic rights of people fleeing persecution,” Keren Zwick of the National Immigrant Justice Center said.
“Since January of last year, the government has used the proclamation to implement a near-total shutdown of asylum processing, slamming the door on vulnerable families, children, and adults seeking refuge,” Melissa Crow of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies said. “As the court rightly concluded, US law is clear: people seeking safety have a legal right to apply for asylum. The government cannot wield racist, baseless claims of an ‘invasion’ to override Congress and deprive them of that right.”
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Unlike Biden, Trump fails to use word 'genocide' in statement on Armenian genocide anniversary
As Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, points out, Donald Trump “is once again refusing to call the effort by the Ottoman Empire to annihilate Armenians what it was – genocide,” in his presidential statement on the start of the genocide on this day in 1915.
Schiff went on to call Trump’s statement “a tragic retreat from U.S. recognition of the genocide during the prior administration”.
Unlike Trump, and Barack Obama, during his presidency Joe Biden did refer explicitly to “the Armenian genocide” in his statements on the anniversary from 2021-2024, casting aside concerns about angering Turkey’s government.
Biden, of course, is held responsible by many Americans for not only failing to call Israel’s US-backed assault on the Palestinian population of Gaza a genocide, but also enabling it by providing arms and diplomatic support.
Trump’s reversal of Biden’s precedent also enraged the Armenian National Committee of America.
“President Trump is doubling down on his disgraceful surrender to Turkish threats – continuing, now for the sixth time, enforcing Ankara’s gag-rule against honest American remembrance of this crime – despite recognition by the White House, Congress, all fifty states, and more than a dozen NATO allies,” the ANCA’s director, Aram Hamparian, said in a statement.
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Here's a recap of the day so far
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Isalamabad, Pakistan tomorrow for further talks with Iran. The press secretary added that vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio will be waiting here in the US for updates. They will be on standby and will be prepared to dispatch to Pakistan if necessary.
Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit the highest level of his second term, according to a polling average from the New York Times. Fifty-eight per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance, while only 39% approve according to a collation of polls from the Times.
The US justice department announced on Friday that it is taking steps to “strengthen the federal death penalty”, including bringing back firing squads and readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration. The justice department also said that it is “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases”. In addition, the justice department said that it has “rescinded” the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and has “authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants”.
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The Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, Roger Wicker, has said that “the time is over for negotiations with Iran’s regime.”
On social media, the GOP lawmaker from Mississippi said that the “radical successors” of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei can “never be trusted to keep any promise or agreement”.
Wicker added that Trump should direct the military to “finish destroying Iran’s conventional military capabilities and eliminating any last remnants of their nuclear program”.
Earlier this week, Wicker chided administration officials for critcizing Nato allies and their reluctance to assist the war in Iran.
“These alliances continue to pay dividends for the United States. People need to stop saying otherwise,” Wicker said.
GOP chair of banking committee welcomes inspector general's review of Fed renovations
Tim Scott, the Republican chair of the Senate banking committee, said that despite the justice department’s decision to close the criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, the “American people deserve answers about the unacceptable cost overruns at the Federal Reserve”.
Scott has invited the inspector general of the central bank to present the banking committee with findings of a Fed renovation review in the next 90 days.
“These serious concerns warrant scrutiny, and l’m pleased this matter is continuing to receive it,” the GOP senator said.
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The US justice department announced on Friday that it is taking steps to “strengthen the federal death penalty”, including bringing back firing squads and readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump administration.
“Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences – clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals,” the justice department said in a news release.
In the statement, the department said that the actions taken include “readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration” which “relies on pentobarbital as the lethal agent”, and “expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad”.
The justice department also said that it is “streamlining internal processes to expedite death penalty cases”.
In addition, the justice department said that it has “rescinded” the Biden-era moratorium on federal executions and has “authorized seeking death sentences against 44 defendants”. The statement added that Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, has “already authorized seeking death sentence against nine of these defendants”.
Shortly after taking office last January, Donald Trump signed an executive order committing to pursue federal death sentences and directing the attorney general to ensure that states have sufficient supplies of lethal injection drugs for executions.
Read the full report:
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Earlier, when Karoline Leavitt spoke to reporters, she noted that today’s gaggle would probably be her last before she gives birth to her second child and takes some parental leave.
“I know all of you have the president’s phone number personally, so I have no doubt that you won’t have a shortage of statements and news from this building while I’m gone,” she joked.
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Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit the highest level of his second term, according to a polling average from the New York Times.
Fifty-eight per cent of Americans disapprove of the president’s performance, while only 39% approve according to a collation of polls from the Times. Dissatisfaction with Trump’s job performance appears to spike after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran at the end of February, and the ensuing hike in gas prices across the nation.
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Investigation into Jerome Powell continues under office of the inspector general, says Karoline Leavitt
In response to the news that the justice department has dropped the criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, Karoline Leavitt said that the inquiry “still continues” under the Office of the Inspector General.
The White House also urged Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who was blocking any nomination from moving forward, to confirm Kevin Warsh – the president’s pick to lead the central bank – as “speedily as possible”.
Tillis had threatened to stall Warsh taking over until the investigation into Powell was closed.
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White House confirms Witkoff and Kushner will travel to Pakistan for further talks with Iran
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner with travel to Isalamabad, Pakistan tomorrow for further talks with Iran.
The press secretary added that vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio will be waiting here in the US for updates. They will be on standby and will be prepared to dispatch to Pakistan if necessary.
Word inside the beltway is that Senator Tom Tillis has scored a victory for himself and common sense in his determination to block the nomination of Kevin Warsh, Trump’s pick to replace Jerome Powell as Fed chair, until the justice department ended its investigation.
The Republican of North Carolina memorably said last month he was “sick of stupid” in some of the excesses of the second Trump administration.
Tillis has yet to comment today on the decision to drop the criminal investigation into Powell.
The investigation into Powell was always going to be an incredibly difficult case to prosecute, involving trying to prove that Powell intentionally misled the US Congress over spending on headquarters renovations, with all the while the case reeking of political interference.
Tillis said earlier this week during Warsh’s Senate hearing: “Let’s get rid of the investigation so I can support your nomination.”
More on the news today from our colleague Lauren Aratani, in this piece.
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King Charles and New York major Zohran Mamdani are understood to be planning to attend a joint wreath-laying at the memorial in lower Manhattan marking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the city that killed almost 3,000 people when hijackers flew passenger jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
In further reporting from politics news site Politico, the outlet understands that the event will take place next Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the forthcoming visit.
Its wry observations include that: “Mamdani, son of one of world’s most prominent postcolonial theorists, will have a camera-ready moment when he greets the man whose forebears oversaw the British imperial project that undergirds his father Mahmood Mamdani’s academic career.”
Mamdani is New York’s first democratic socialist mayor. He very recently met Barack Obama for the first time and the former president and the mayor led a sing-along of the Wheels on the Bus for a gathering of little kids.
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King Charles expected to meet New York mayor Mamdani – report
King Charles is expected to meet New York mayor Zohran Mamdani during his visit to the US next week, according to a report moments ago.
The British monarch is traveling to the States to visit Donald Trump at a highly sensitive time, amid a fragile ceasefire in what many view as the US president’s elective US-Israel war on Iran that had spread across the Middle East, a war that has sent energy and other prices surging globally.
Politico reported that His Majesty will meet with the highest-profile mayor in America right now, Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim mayor.
Mamdani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reports.
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Summary
Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a hopping spring day in Washington, DC so far and there’s more news to come. Donald Trump is expected to leave the White House mid-afternoon to go to Mar-a-Lago and he’ll be there and back again for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in the nation’s capital tomorrow evening. We’ll bring you all the developments as they happen.
Here’s where things stand:
Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee, said the news that the justice department is dropping its “bogus” investigation into Jerome Powell is “just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair”.
The justice department is ending its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and his management of ongoing renovations to the central bank. Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said that she was directing her office to close the inquiry. The inspector general for the Federal Reserve, an independent watchdog, has been tasked to “scrutinize the building costs overruns” instead.
The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies’ exploitation of US artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the US in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) race.
A majority of Americans blame Donald Trump for surging gasoline prices, which is weighing on his Republican party ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Some 77% of registered voters in the poll said Trump bears at least a fair amount of responsibility sparked by his decision to launch the US-Israel war on Iran.
The US Justice Department’s internal watchdog will review the agency’s handling of records related to financier Jeffrey Epstein, including whether all relevant documents were disclosed and properly redacted. William Blier, acting head of the department’s Office of Inspector General, said the inquiry will examine compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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The Federal Reserve inspector general is in the “best position” to get to the bottom of the “Federal Reserve’s fiscal mismanagement”, according to White House spokesperson Kush Desai.
He added that the administration remains “confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh” as the next Federal Reserve chair.
A reminder that Trump claimed that Powell mismanaged the renovation project for the central bank, claimed that it cost $4bn, and said it was grossly over-budget.
Warren says DoJ only dropped 'bogus' investigation of Powell to 'clear the path' for Warsh confirmation
Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee responded to the news that the justice department is dropping its “bogus” investigation into Jerome Powell.
“This is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair,” Warren said in a statement.
The Massachusetts Democrat also noted that Jeanine Pirro threatened to restart the inquiry at any time, and has yet to drop the investigation into Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve Governor whose attempted firing has made its way to the supreme court.
“Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves. The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh,” Warren added.
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A reminder, the investigation into the Fed chair was threatening to stall Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve when Powell’s term ends on 15 May.
Senator Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican from North Carolina, threatened to withhold his deciding vote to confirm the president’s nominee, Kevin Warsh, as long as the justice department continued its investigation of Powell.
At Warsh’s confirmation hearing before the Senate banking committee earlier this week, Tillis implored the DoJ “get rid” of the investigation into Powell, so he could support Warsh – who he described as having “extraordinary credentials”.
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Justice department ends criminal investigation into Fed chair Jerome Powell
The justice department is ending its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, and his management of ongoing renovations to the central bank.
Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, said that she was directing her office to close the probe as the inspector general for the Federal Reserve, an independent watchdog, has been tasked to “scrutinize the building costs overruns – in the billions of dollars – that have been borne by taxpayers”.
However, she said she would “not hesitate” to restart the investigation “should the facts warrant doing so”.
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A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest developments out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog. This includes the news that Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will begin a trip on Friday that includes visits to Islamabad, Muscat and Moscow, according to Iranian state media.
This comes as planned talks earlier this week, as US vice-president JD Vance prepared to travel to Pakistan, were indefinitely postponed after Tehran showed no sign of attending negotiations. It’s not immediately clear when a summit with Washington will be rescheduled.
Dozens of protesters, including members of Congress, gathered along the National Mall on Thursday to protest against an “intimate” dinner being held by Paramount Skydance’s chief executive, David Ellison, “in celebration of the first amendment” and “honoring the Trump White House and CBS White House correspondents”, and attended by Donald Trump.
Paramount has faced criticism for the dinner, which has been seen by some as illustrative of the cozy relationship between the Ellisons and the White House – right as the Trump administration is weighing whether to approve the company’s $110bn merger with CNN parent company WarnerBros Discovery (WBD). The dinner comes before Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner, which Trump will attend. His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is expected to sit at one of the many tables bought by CBS News for the event.
Earlier Thursday, WBD shareholders voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the merger, which will still require approval from the Department of Justice and European regulators.
The US representative Jamie Raskin, who has been vocal in his criticism of the Ellisons’ ownership of CBS News, referred to the event as “a lavish oligarch’s dinner for Donald Trump”.
“We’re gathered here together tonight [because] in the building behind us, David Ellison is hosting a dinner to honor President Trump, a dinner that’s designed to cement the Ellisons to the president in their years-running corrupt merger scheme,” Raskin said.
Speakers encouraged the crowd not to give up hope on blocking the merger, with many antitrust experts viewing a lawsuit from a coalition of state attorneys general as the most likely vehicle for doing so.
Norm Eisen, founder of Democracy Defenders Action, said Thursday’s dinner honoring the Trump administration “resembles a celebration of the first amendment the same way a book burning is a celebration of the written word”.
“That has nothing to do with celebrating the first amendment,” he added. “You all are celebrating the first amendment by being here to block the merger.”
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When Pete Hegseth was asked about Pope Leo XIV’s condemnation of the war in Iran, and comments from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops suggesting the conflict is not a “just war”, the defense secretary simply said that the pope was “going to do his thing”.
“We know what our mission is,” Hegseth added. “We follow that the orders of the president. We’ve got lawyers all over the place looking at what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and giving us every authority necessary under the constitution and under our laws to execute it.”
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During his remarks at the Pentagon today, Pete Hegseth noted that “Europe and Asia have benefited from our protection for decades, but the time for free riding is over.”
This comes after a leaked Pentagon internal email proposed that the US should reassess its support for Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands because the UK did not do enough to assist the American bombing of Iran.
The memo, reported by Reuters, also argued that Spain should be suspended from Nato for refusing to allow US warplanes to be based in or fly over the country during Operation Epic Fury, though it is not clear if there are mechanisms for doing so.
“Being an ally is not a one-way street. It’s a two-way street. We are not counting on Europe, but they need the strait of Hormuz much more than we do,” Hegseth told reporters. The defense secretary said that European leaders should have “less fancy conferences” and “get in a boat”.
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'We are in control': Hegseth gives up date on Iran war
US defense secretary Pete Hegseth opens the press conference in much the same style as his previous ones: by trumpeting America’s military success in Iran and saying Iran has an opportunity to strike a “good deal”.
He says the blockade in the strait of Hormuz is “growing” and has “gone global”, referring to the seizure of two Iranian dark fleet vessels.
“We are in control; nothing in, nothing out,” he says. He adds that 34 ships have been turned away from the strait so far.
Hegseth is now repeating the exact same lines from previous press conferences, speaking about the Iranian navy “sitting at the bottom of the sea” and praising president Donald Trump’s “fortitude”.
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Donald Trump will start his day in Washington with a number of meetings at the White House. He’ll then travel to Mar-a-Lago at around 3pm ET, and we may hear from the president as he departs. We’ll make sure to bring you the latest lines if he stops for reporters.
The White House said that Trump issued a 90-day extension to the Jones Act waiver, making it easier for non-American vessels to transport oil and natural gas in the wake of the Iran War.
Trump first announced a 60-day waiver in mid-March and the move has been seen as helping to stabilize energy prices and making it easier for more ships to travel to the US following the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The post on social media by a White House press aide said:
New data compiled since the initial waiver was issued revealed that significantly more supply was able to reach US ports faster.
Donald Trump has threatened to impose “a big tariff” on the UK if it does not drop its digital services tax on US social media firms.
The digital services tax, introduced in 2020, imposes a 2% levy on the revenues of several big US tech companies.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Thursday, the US president said: “We’ve been looking at it and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK, so they better be careful.
“If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK.”
The tax targets companies whose worldwide revenues from digital activities exceed £500m ($673m), with more than £25m of the revenues from UK users.
While it raises more than most of the targeted businesses pay in UK corporation tax, Amazon, Google and Apple pass the tax on to the bills of the third-party businesses and sellers that use their sites.
Trump administration vows crackdown on foreign tech companies' use of AI
The Trump administration is vowing to crack down on foreign tech companies’ exploitation of US artificial intelligence models, singling out China at a time that country is narrowing the gap with the US in the AI race.
In a Thursday memo, Michael Kratsios, the president’s chief science and technology adviser, accused foreign entities “principally based in China” of engaging in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to “distill,” or extract capabilities from, leading AI systems made in the US and “exploiting American expertise and innovation.”
The administration, Kratsios wrote, will work with American AI companies to identify such activities, build defenses and find ways to punish offenders.
The memo arrives at a time when China is challenging US dominance in artificial intelligence, an area where the White House says the US must prevail to set global standards and reap economic and military benefits. But the US-China gap in performance of top AI models has “effectively closed,” according to a recent report from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI.
China’s embassy in Washington said it opposed “the unjustified suppression of Chinese companies by the US”.
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An internal Pentagon email outlines options for the United States to punish Nato allies it believes failed to support US operations in the war with Iran, including suspending Spain from the alliance and reviewing the US position on Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands, a US official told Reuters.
The policy options are detailed in a note expressing frustration at some allies’ perceived reluctance or refusal to grant the United States access, basing and overflight rights - known as ABO - for the Iran war, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the email.
The email stated that ABO is “just the absolute baseline for Nato,” according to the official, who added that the options were circulating at high levels in the Pentagon.
One option in the email envisions suspending “difficult” countries from important or prestigious positions at Nato, the official said.
77% of voters blame Trump for surging gas prices, poll finds
A majority of Americans blame Donald Trump for surging gasoline prices, which is weighing on his Republican party ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Some 77% of registered voters in the poll, which concluded early this week, said Trump bears at least a fair amount of responsibility for the recent rise in gas prices, which was sparked by his decision to launch a war on Iran along with US ally Israel.
The view was widely shared across the political spectrum, with 55% of Republican voters, 82% of independents and 95% of Democrats pinning blame on the president for the higher costs.
Some 58% of voters, including one in five Republicans and two-thirds of independents, said they would be less likely to support candidates in the November midterms who support Trump’s approach to the conflict with Iran.
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Epstein files release to be investigated by DOJ watchdog
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
The Justice Department’s internal watchdog will review the agency’s handling of records related to financier Jeffrey Epstein, including whether all relevant documents were disclosed and properly redacted.
William Blier, acting head of the department’s Office of Inspector General, said the inquiry will examine compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation passed by Congress in November requiring the public release of records related to Epstein, with limited exceptions.
He said:
Our preliminary objective is to evaluate the DOJ’s processes for identifying, redacting, and releasing records in its possession as required by the Act.
Blier added that the office will also look into “DOJ’s processes for addressing post-release publication concerns.”
President Donald Trump, who had previously dismissed controversy surrounding Epstein as a “hoax” driven by Democrats, initially opposed the measure before ultimately backing and signing it amid pressure from fellow Republicans.
The Justice Department released approximately 3.5 million pages of documents related to its Epstein investigations, though the disclosure came more than a month after the statutory deadline for release.
Politico reported on Thursday:
Alleged victims of sexual abuse by Epstein have complained that DOJ repeatedly failed to redact photos and other details that could reveal their identities and did not make public all the information prosecutors have about Epstein associates who were allegedly aware of his crimes or conspired with him but were never charged.
Lawmakers have made similar complaints and have said they suspect DOJ has not released some relevant documents.
In other developments:
The Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana, more than four months after Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to move it from schedule I to schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act.
Trump, apparently abandoning his attempt to frighten Iran’s leaders into negotiating by channeling Richard Nixon’s “madman” theory, ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in his conflict with Iran.
Trump has decided to invite wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in December at Trump’s Doral golf resort, the Washington Post reports.
Trump confirmed that the government is considering a plan to bail out or ‘“just buy” Spirit Airlines, but confused Barack Obama with Joe Biden, and Jet Blue with People Express, which has been defunct since 1987.
India’s foreign ministry denounced comments from the rightwing US commentator Michael Savage, posted on social media by Trump, which argued against awarding birthright citizenship to the US-born children of immigrants “from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet”.
