Summary of the day so far
Trump said Wednesday will be “Liberation Day” when he announces reciprocal tariffs on nearly all US trading partners. Global stock markets were a sea of red on Monday and investors fled to gold amid recession fears.
The Trump administration has announced a review of federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations of antisemitism.
Senate majority leader John Thune said he believes Donald Trump is “probably messing with you” with his remarks on Sunday that there are “methods” by which he could run for a third term.
A coalition of civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block portions of Donald Trump’s executive order that would require voters to prove their citizenship in order to vote.
Trump took aim at ticket scalping in a new executive order signed today, which directs the Department of Justice and the FTC to crack down on ticket resellers who price-gouge.
Tens of millions of dollars is being withheld for Planned Parenthood chapters across the US in an attempt by the Trump administration to force the clinics to change their operations.
A federal judge has put the Trump administration plans to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants on pause, ruling Monday that protections struck down by officials should be reinstated while lawsuits continue.
Some GOP senators are speaking out against Trump’s tariffs on Canada and are considering signing on their support for a resolution blocking them, CNN reports.
Senator Rand Paul has signed on as a cosponsor of the resolution, expected to come to a vote tomorrow. Senator Susan Collins, meanwhile, highlighted how the brewing trade war could impact Maine.
“Imposing tariffs on Canada, which is our closest neighbor, a friendly ally, is a huge mistake and will cause disruption in the economies of both countries,” Collins told reporters on Monday, who noted that she wore a Canadian flag pin alongside a US flag pin on her lapel.
At least four Republicans must join the 47 Democrats who have pledged support for the resolution for it to pass. But, according to Politico, it’s unlikely to get a vote in the House.
GOP leadership worked language into the stopgap funding bill to bar any member of Congress from calling for a vote on Trump’s policies connected to declared national emergencies, including the fentanyl emergency cited as the justification for the tariffs.
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Former congressman Anthony D’Esposito has been nominated by Trump as inspector general for the labor department. D’Esposito, a former NYPD detective who lost his bid for re-election in 2024 after just two years in office, came under fire last year after a NYT investigation revealed he had put a woman he was having an affair with and his fiancee’s daughter on his payroll. He paid them a combined total of $29,000 and the actions could have violated congressional code of conduct rules.
D’Esposito denied any wrongdoing at the time, and called the investigation a “partisan ‘hit piece’”.
The independent watchdogs are tasked with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse in federal agencies. The position has been vacant since Trump fired former labor department IG, Larry Turner, along with 16 other IGs during his first week in office.
Trump said at the time he would “put good people in there that will be very good”.
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A federal judge has put the Trump administration plans to deport hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants on pause, ruling Monday that protections struck down by officials should be reinstated while lawsuits continue.
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) enables migrants escaping armed conflicts, natural disasters or other destabilizing issues to live and work in the US. Trump administration officials sought to end the humanitarian protections – which are codified by law – for Venezuelans who were granted 18-month extensions by the Biden administration.
Ending the initiative could enable officials to deport close to 350,000 people, the New York Times reports, with hundreds of thousands more facing uncertainty later this year.
Judge Edward M Chen, a federal judge in San Francisco, found that the actions, undertaken by homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, would inflict severe harm, both on migrants and their families, and on communities across the US.
From the NYT:
In his ruling on Monday, Judge Chen said the government had failed “to identify any real countervailing harm” in continuing the program for Venezuelan TPS holders. He said the plaintiffs had also demonstrated they were likely to succeed in showing that the actions taken by the Ms. Noem were “unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.”
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The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has issued an order to eliminate gender-specific physical fitness standards for combat roles in the military, a move that could mean fewer women will qualify for those positions.
“All combat roles are open to men and women but they must all meet the same, high standard,” Hegseth said in a post on social media. “No standards will be lowered and all combat roles will only have sex-neutral standards.”
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Trump administration withholds tens of millions of dollars from Planned Parenthood – report
Tens of millions of dollars is being withheld for Planned Parenthood chapters across the US in an attempt by the Trump administration to force the clinics to change their operations, Politico reports.
The clinics, which provide important healthcare services for low-income Americans have been cited for “possible violations” of the president’s executive orders, according to letters issued to nine chapters on Monday.
The Department of Health and Human Services has given the organization 10 days to provide evidence they will comply with the executive orders including those that ban diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The administration referenced Planned Parenthood’s mission statements and other public-facing messaging that highlight their “commitment to black communities” and also stated the funding was being frozen due to the organization’s willingness to serve undocumented immigrants.
More from Politico:
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement that the withheld funds would cause ‘devastation.’
‘We know what happens when health care providers cannot use Title X funding: people across the country suffer, cancers go undetected, access to birth control is severely reduced, and the nation’s STI crisis worsens,’ she said.
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Trump takes aim at ticket scalping in executive order
Trump took aim at ticket scalping in a new executive order signed today, which directs the Department of Justice and the FTC to crack down on ticket resellers who price-gouge.
“I didn’t know too much about it but I checked it out and it is a big problem,” Trump said before he signed the order, adding that his friend, Kid Rock – or Bob, as the president referred to him – had been trying to do something about it for 20 years.
Robert Ritchie, better known by his moniker “Kid Rock”, was clad in a head-to-toe bright red ensemble, complete with an American flag decal emblazoned across his middle, and stood to Trump’s right with his hands folded until he was asked to speak.
“It doesn’t matter your politics,” Kid Rock said, outlining how the issue has impacted his ability to offer lower-priced entry to his concerts for fans. “The artists don’t see any of that money and ultimately I think this is a great first step.”
The order directs officials at the FTC and the justice department to ensure scalpers comply with tax rules and pushes for more price transparency through the ticket-selling process. But Kid Rock is hoping for more.
“I would love down the road if there would be legislation and we can put a cap on the resale of tickets,” he said. “I am a capitalist and a deregulation guy,” he added with a laugh. “But they have tried this in some places in Europe and it seems to be the only thing for us as artists to be able to get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the prices we set.”
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House majority leader Steve Scalise has dismissed the idea of Donald Trump seeking a third term, suggesting that the president’s remarks yesterday were designed to “get people talking”.
“I don’t know what he was referring to. I never saw it,” Scalise told NBC News, adding:
You know, you see it like with Greenland, like with Panama canal. There’s a lot of things the president talks about. Ultimately, it gets people talking and addresses some other issues too.
Asked if he would support changing the US Constitution to allow Trump to run for a third term, he said:
There’s no proposal to change the constitution right now.
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Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order today aimed at protecting fans from “exploitative ticket scalping”, a White House official said.
The order directs the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and attorney general, Pam Bondi, to ensure that ticket scalpers are in full compliance with the tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service and others applicable law, according to a fact sheet seen by Reuters.
The order directs the Federal Trade Commission to ensure that competition laws are appropriately enforced in the concert and entertainment industry, it said.
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Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, has left the hard-right House Freedom caucus, according to multiple reports.
“With a heavy heart, I am resigning from the Freedom Caucus,” Luna wrote in a letter obtained by Axios. Luna, a strong Trump ally, is the fourth member that the Freedom caucus has lost or ejected in the last two years, it says.
According to reports, her withdrawal comes amid a break with her colleagues on whether the House should allow proxy voting for new parents.
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A coalition of civil rights groups filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block portions of Donald Trump’s executive order that would require voters to prove their citizenship in order to vote.
The 25 March executive order seeks to require all 50 states to require voters to prove their citizenship and then outlines only select documents that are included (a birth certificate is not among them). Nearly one in 10 eligible US voters lack easy access to documents to prove their citizenship, according to a study last year from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Experts have said the order is unlawful because the US constitution gives the states and Congress, not the president, the authority to set rules for federal elections.
Lawyers wrote in their complaint, filed in the federal district court in Washington DC:
The Order is an attack on the constitutionally mandated checks and balances that keep American elections free and fair. Through this unconstitutional action, the President intrudes on the states’ and Congress’s authority to set election rules in an attempt to make it far more difficult for eligible U.S. citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote.
The suit also challenges a different portion of the executive order that seeks to require states only to accept ballots that arrive by election day, regardless of when they are mailed. The constitution, the lawyers write, gives states the power to set their own ballot receipt deadlines.
The order also directs the US Election Assistance Commission, an under the radar agency, to make the changes to the federal voter registration form and to withhold funding from states that refuse to comply. The suit also says that the commission is an independent agency and the president cannot order it to take such action.
Senate GOP leader says Trump 'probably messing with you' with third term remarks
Senate majority leader John Thune said he believes Donald Trump is “probably messing with you” with his remarks on Sunday that there are “methods” by which he could run for a third term.
“You guys keep asking the question,” Thune told reporters on Monday, adding:
I think he’s probably having some fun with it, probably messing with you.
Asked if he thought Trump could serve a third term, Thune replied:
Not without a change in the constitution.
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The Trump administration’s announcement of an inquiry into Harvard for allegations of antisemitism comes two months after the university agreed to embrace a controversial definition of “antisemitism.”
As part of two settlements reached in a US court, Harvard agreed to define antisemitism in a way that, critics say, might punish criticism of Israel.
Harvard agreed in January to observe the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of “antisemitism” in a settlement reached in federal court in Boston.
Two separate groups of students had sued Harvard, saying they faced harassment from fellow students and faculty members, partly stemming from campus protests after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel and the overwhelming Israeli military retaliation that followed. In its settlement, the university agreed to use a definition that defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”.
Harvard – in addition to agreeing to implement the IHRA guidelines – also agreed to publish an annual public report covering violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act for the next five years.
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The Trump administration’s announcement of a review of Harvard over allegations of antisemitism comes 10 days after another major university caved to Trump’s demands.
In a January executive order, Donald Trump announced his administration would be investigating various universities and colleges for allegations of antisemitism.
Columbia University was the first institution targeted by the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of various government agencies. To preserve federal funding, Columbia caved to many of the Trump administration’s demands, as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding.
Columbia acquiesced in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty, Reuters reported.
Harvard is the latest institution targeted by the Trump administration.
The federal government will collaborate with relevant contracting agencies to assess whether Stop Work Orders should be issued for any identified contracts. Any institution found to be in violation of federal compliance standards may face administrative actions, including contract termination,” the Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the US General Services Administration (GSA) said in a joint statement.
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Trump administration announces review of Harvard
The Trump administration has announced a review of federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations of antisemitism.
The Task Force will review the more than $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the Federal Government. The review also includes the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates,” the Education Department, Department of Health and the General Services Administration said in a joint statement, Reuters reports.
Summary of the day so far
Donald Trump refused to say whether he was planning to leave office in 2029, after an interview with NBC where he said he was not joking about the possibility of seeking a third term.
Trump said Wednesday will be “Liberation Day” when he announces reciprocal tariffs on nearly all US trading partners. Global stock markets were a sea of red on Monday and investors fled to gold amid recession fears.
The White House said “this case has been closed” when asked about the status of the investigation into the now-infamous Signal chat in which officials conducted a high-level military operation on the unclassified commercial app and inadvertently included a journalist.
Attorney general Pam Bondi directed the justice department to dismiss a Biden-era lawsuit challenging a Republican-backed Georgia election law that was passed after Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.
The US sent 17 more people accused of being gang members to El Salvador without providing their names or any other identifying information, the latest move in the Trump administration’s controversial method of deporting people to be imprisoned abroad without due process in the US.
The US announced sanctions against six Chinese and Hong Kong officials over their role in extraterritorial enforcement of the territory’s national security law, one of the first moves by the Trump administration to punish China over its crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
Trump issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden.
An official allied with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has been put in charge of the US Institute of Peace, a congressionally created and funded thinktank targeted by Donald Trump for closure.
The headquarters of the Republican party of New Mexico was set on fire on Sunday and “ICE=KKK” spray painted on the building in what the party called “a deliberate act of arson”.
Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to another person involved with the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and commuted the sentence of a former business associate of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s scandal-plagued son.
Thomas Caldwell, 69, of Berryville, Virginia, has been granted a pardon for his alleged role in the Capitol attack following a series of pardons Trump has given out to those involved with or present during the events on 6 January 2021.
Caldwell, a navy veteran, stood trial earlier this year alongside leaders of the Oath Keepers militia. He was acquitted by a jury in Washington’s federal court of seditious conspiracy and two other conspiracy offenses, but was sentenced in January to time served with no probation. The US Department of Justice previously described the actions of the Oath Keepers militia as “terrorism”.
Trump has also issued a commuted sentence for Jason Galanis, who had been serving a 14-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to a multimillion-dollar scheme involving fraudulent tribal bonds. He is the second former business partner of Hunter Biden to be granted clemency.
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The US has announced sanctions against six Chinese and Hong Kong officials over their role in extraterritorial enforcement of the territory’s national security law.
A statement by the state department said the six officials, which include Hong Kong’s secretary of justice and its police commissioner, “have engaged in actions or policies that threaten to further erode the autonomy of Hong Kong in contravention of China’s commitments, and in connection with acts of transnational repression”. It added:
Beijing and Hong Kong officials have used Hong Kong national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence, and harass 19 pro-democracy activists who were forced to flee overseas, including a US citizen and four other US residents.
The sanctions mark one of the first moves by the Trump administration to punish China over its crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
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White House says Signal chat case 'closed'
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt was asked about the status of the investigation into how a journalist was added into a high-level group chat about US military plans in Yemen.
“This case has been closed here at the White House as far as we are concerned,” Leavitt told reporters.
She said that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, “continues to be an important part of his national security team”.
“There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can, obviously, not happen again,” she added.
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Donald Trump will announce plans to place reciprocal tariffs on nearly all US trading partners at a Wednesday event in the Rose Garden, the White House said.
Trump will be joined in the Rose Garden by his cabinet, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said.
Leavitt said Trump believes “it’s time for reciprocity” but said the details of the announcement are up to the president to announce.
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The US has sent 17 more people accused of being gang members to El Salvador without providing their names or any other identifying information, the latest move in the Trump administration’s controversial method of deporting people to be imprisoned abroad without due process in the US.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio announced the overnight military transfer on Monday, asserting that the group included “murderers and rapists” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, which the Trump administration has recently labeled foreign terrorists.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele posted on social media that the deportees were “confirmed murderers and high-profile offenders, including six child rapists”.
Approximately 300 immigrants, mostly Venezuelans, were recently deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), a mega-prison notorious for brutal conditions.
Family members have repeatedly denied gang affiliations, while the administration has refused to provide evidence, invoking “state secrets” privilege.
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An official allied with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has been put in charge of the US Institute of Peace, a congressionally created and funded thinktank targeted by Donald Trump for closure, according to a federal court filing.
Two board members of the Institute of Peace have authorized replacing its temporary president with Nate Cavanaugh, Associated Press reports.
The action follows a Friday night mass firing of nearly all of the institute’s 300 employees.
An executive order last month from Trump targeted the institute, which seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, and three other agencies for closure. Board members, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, and the institute’s president were fired. Later, there was a standoff as employees blocked Doge members from entering. Doge staff gained access in part with the help of the Washington police.
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A nearly two-century-old tree with a history tied to the former president Andrew Jackson will be removed from the White House grounds because it is deteriorating, Donald Trump said on Sunday.
The southern magnolia stands near the curved portico on the south side of the building. It is where foreign leaders are often welcomed for ceremonial visits, and where the president departs to board the Marine One helicopter.
According to the National Park Service website, “folklore tells us” that Jackson brought the tree’s seeds from his home near Nashville, Tennessee. It was apparently planted in honor of his wife Rachel, who died shortly before he took office in 1829.
“The bad news is that everything must come to an end, and this tree is in terrible condition, a very dangerous safety hazard, at the White House Entrance, no less, and must now be removed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
“This process will take place next week, and will be replaced by another, very beautiful tree.”
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New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams has asked a federal judge to drop the criminal corruption charges against him before a Thursday deadline to proceed with his re-election bid.
An attorney for Adams, in a letter to US district judge Dale Ho, said the mayor wants the case dropped before petitions to get on the June primary ballot are due on 3 April.
“With the petition-filing deadline just days away, we respectfully urge the Court to issue its decision as soon as practicable,” he wrote.
Adams was indicted in September on charges alleging he accepted over $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and travel perks from a Turkish official and others seeking to buy influence while he was Brooklyn borough president.
He faces multiple challengers in June’s Democratic primary. He has pleaded not guilty and insisted he is innocent.
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Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, will deliver a “major speech” in Washington on Thursday to lay out her vision to “build America’s manufacturing might and protect our national defense”, her office said.
A press release announcing her visit to the capital said Whitmer “will outline her bipartisan approach to bring supply chains home from China, create more good-paying jobs, and invest in our defense industry”. The release continues:
The governor is focused on a long-term strategy that puts America at the forefront of manufacturing and strengthens our national defense. Governor Whitmer will continue to work with anyone to continue getting things done, grow the economy, and protect our nation.
The governor will sit down with the former Fox News host, Gretchen Carlson, after her speech.
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Despite a federal government hiring freeze, the office of personnel management, the human resources agency leading efforts to drastically reduce the federal workforce, has hired its first new career employee: a driver to transport leaders of OPM.
The OPM has been carrying out the efforts of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the new executive office led by billionaire Elon Musk seeking to cut back on government agencies and programs.
Even though there is a federal government-wide hiring freeze, the acting director of the OPM, which is carrying out Doge’s attacks, authorized the new driver’s hiring, emails reviewed by Reuters say.
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that Musk’s & Doge’s mission has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency, and instead is aimed at enabling Musk to use – and abuse – power within the federal government,” said Kathleen Clark, a professor of ethics at Washington University in St Louis. “Authorizing a Musk-controlled agency like OPM to hire a driver while slashing essential federal workers who actually help Americans in need is a good example.”
According to Reuters, the OPM said it has “ongoing security concerns” that required the hiring of the new driver. The acting director of the agency said he has received death threats.
One of Trump’s first acts as president was to create Doge, a Musk-led initiative to root out “waste, fraud and abuse”. The initiative has mostly pursued long-time rightwing policy objectives, slashing employment at oversight and aid agencies.
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The headquarters of the Republican party of New Mexico was set on fire on Sunday and “ICE=KKK” spray painted on the building in what the party called “a deliberate act of arson”.
Fire officials in Albuquerque, the largest city in Democratic-controlled New Mexico, were called to the blaze around 6am and put it out in five minutes, Reuters reports.
The single-story structure suffered damage to its entryway and smoke damage throughout, Albuquerque Fire Rescue said on social media.
The FBI said it was leading the investigation to find the “culprit(s) responsible,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement.
The fire comes after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said it arrested 48 immigrants, 20 of them with criminal convictions, during raids in Albuquerque, state capital Santa Fe and Roswell, New Mexico, earlier this month.
BREAKING: The entryway of the Republican Party of New Mexico’s headquarters in Albuquerque was destroyed in an apparent deliberate act of arson, NMGOP said in a statement. Whoever did this also spray painted the words 'ICE=KKK’ on the NMGOP building.
— Zach Rael (@ZachRaelNews) March 30, 2025
APD, ATF, and federal… pic.twitter.com/rUPHZ5UzkZ
The graffiti appeared to equate the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan hate group to Ice, the agency Donald Trump has tasked to deport millions of illegal immigrants. Ice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Republican party of New Mexico chair, Amy Barela, said in a statement:
Our state leaders must reinforce through decisive action that these cowardly attacks will not be tolerated.
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Justice department drops challenge to Georgia election law
Attorney general Pam Bondi has directed the justice department to dismiss a Biden-era lawsuit challenging a Republican-backed Georgia election law that was passed after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state.
The law, signed by Georgia’s Republican governor Brian Kemp in 2021, makes it illegal to provide food or water to voters standing in lines to cast their ballots. The lawsuit, filed under Joe Biden, alleged the law was intended to suppress Black voter turnout.
Bondi, in a press release on Monday announcing the lawsuit’s dismissal, accused the Biden administration of pushing “false claims of suppression”.
“Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us,” she said. She claimed Black voter turnout in Georgia “actually increased” after the law was passed.
Analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that while the number of ballots cast by Black voters increased from 2020 to 2024, Black turnout actually declined by 0.6% because the increase in the number of ballots did not keep up with population increases, Associated Press reports.
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More Republican voters think that Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, should resign than those who think he should remain in his job, according to a poll conducted after he and other Trump administration officials shared sensitive military attack plans with a journalist who was accidentally added to a message group chat.
A firestorm of controversy over the error appears to have affected the perception of Hegseth – an army national guard veteran and former Fox News host – among voters, including Republicans.
A new poll found that 54% of all registered voters think Hegseth should leave his role as head of the Pentagon, with 22% believing he should remain and 24% not sure.
A total of 38% of Republican voters agree that Hegseth should quit, compared to just a third who think he should retain his job. A majority of independents, at 54%, also think he should resign, according to the poll, which was released on Friday and conducted by JL Partners on behalf of the Daily Mail.
The Signal group chat controversy follows a difficult start to the Trump administration for many of the president’s cabinet picks, who faced criticism from Democrats over their lack of experience or extreme views.
Polling conducted before this latest controversy showed that a majority of US voters are disappointed with Trump’s cabinet members, registering a record level of dissatisfaction in the last four presidential administrations in which NBC has taken such polling.
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The Trump administration has asked the supreme court to intervene in six cases during its first two months in office, in an attempt to lean on the conservative-majority high court to carry out its policy decisions.
During Trump’s first term, he nominated three conservative justices and similarly requested emergency decisions from the supreme court. Since Trump stepped into office this year, the administration has requested that the supreme court rule in their favor, to challenge decisions by lower courts that have blocked Trump agenda policies, the Associated Press reports.
The administration has had varied success with these type of emergency appeals, called a “shadow docket”. A Georgetown University law professor found that during his first term, the Trump administration made 41 emergency appeals, winning all – or part of all – in 28 cases. Prior to that, Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush filed emergency appeals in just eight cases over 16 years.
Last Friday, the Trump administration filed its most recent emergency appeal to the supreme court in a contentious immigration-related case. The administration asked the court to overrule a federal judge and appeals court, in an effort to continue expulsions under the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime measure recently used to send nearly 300 Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
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Trump administration sued more than 130 times over executive orders
The Trump administration faces more than 130 lawsuits over his executive orders.
Many of the lawsuits have been filed in liberal-leaning parts of the country as the court system becomes ground zero for pushback to his policies, the Associated Press reports.
Federal judges have ruled against the administration more than 40 times, issuing temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, the justice department said Friday in a supreme court filing.
The issues include birthright citizenship changes, federal spending, transgender rights and deportations under a rarely used 18th-century law.
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The media commentator Brian Stelter praised NBC for releasing the transcript of Kristen Welker’s call with Donald Trump on Sunday where he said he wasn’t joking about the possibility of trying to seek a third term in office, which is forbidden by the 22nd amendment to the constitution.
Stelter also pointed out on X that Trump’s “stated premise about seeking an unconstitutional third term is predicated on his popularity, which he wildly exaggerates”.
He then posted a series of polls showing that the president’s approval ratings are underwater.
"We're very popular," Trump said, based on his imaginary "high 70s" approval rating. "And you know, a lot of people would like me to do that," remain in power for a third term. "I basically tell them, we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration." pic.twitter.com/SDbZyk2FkH
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 30, 2025
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New York congressman Dan Goldman, a Democrat, pointed out that he had said last year that Donald Trump “was never joking about trying to serve an unconstitutional third term”.
“This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy,” Goldman posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday evening.
He threw down a challenge.
“If congressional Republicans believe in the Constitution they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term,” he added.
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said of Trump’s view of a possible third term: “This is what dictators do.”
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Trump refuses to say whether he is planning to leave office at end of term
On Air Force One after leaving Florida, following his interview with NBC where he said he was not joking about the possibility of seeking a third term, Donald Trump claimed he was being asked about it a lot.
And the US president later refused to answer when asked point blank on board whether he was planning to leave office in 2029, Good Morning America reported on Monday morning.
He refused to comment further on specifics, the network’s segment added.
The talk of a third term has blared out at the start of a week where there are special elections tomorrow, new tariffs are expected on Wednesday and budget votes in the Senate on Thursday, so more busy days in US politics news ahead.
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To John Dean’s point about Barack Obama deciding not to try to challenge the constitution and seek a third term in office, the Democratic influencer Harry Sisson and others on social media brought up an intriguing prospect.
Sisson posted on X: “Trump should really stop talking about running for a third term unless he wants to get absolutely humiliated by President Obama in a presidential race.”
Obama served two terms, winning the election for the Democrats, with his vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden, in 2008 when he beat the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin to become the first Black US president.
He then won re-election in the 2012 election, handily beating Mitt Romney.
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John Dean said that the debate around whether a US president can run for a third term is not new.
“It actually goes back to a Law Journal article in 1999 where a bunch of scholars got together and looked at the 22nd amendment and said: ‘You know, maybe a president cannot be re-elected twice but maybe he can serve [again] twice.’”
Dean said the scholars discussed the possibility of a president becoming a vice-presidential candidate after serving two terms and then when the nominee at the top of the ticket is elected president he could step aside and let his No 2 and former president take over to serve as president for a third time, using the succession statute.
“This is really obtuse, it’s pretty good scholarship, it’s been debated for a number of years. Hillary Clinton looked at it when she was nominated [in 2016 for the Democrats], thinking maybe her husband, the former president [Bill] should be her vice-president.
“Then she realized, ‘well, he’s not really eligible to become president in my reading and and most readings of the 22nd amendment’, so she precluded that. A lot of people thought [Barack] Obama should go for another term, he didn’t. He read the constitution and said: ‘I’m not for end runs.’”
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Republican John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon as president, who was jailed for his involvement in the cover-up of Watergate and later testified to Congress as a witness for the investigation into the scandal, criticized Trump’s apparent aspiration for a third term, in an interview with CNN.
“He likes constitutional end-runs … and that’s what seems to be on his mind is how he can get around the very clear language of the 22nd amendment [to the US constitution], which precludes getting elected to more than two terms,” Dean said.
CNN asked, if there are ways to get around the law, constitutionally what could those be?
Dean said: “They would have to be written by the supreme court, that would redefine the constitution. I just describe it as a constitutional end run.”
An end run is an American football term for the ball-carrier running around the end of the defensive line in their attempt to reach the line to score a touchdown.
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The key line from the 22nd amendment, forbidding anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again. reads:
“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
The US Congress approved the amendment in 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures, where it was then ratified in 1951.
Previous presidents had not had term limits. The first and third US presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, established the tradition, however, of opting not to run for re-election after serving two terms.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected for a third and fourth term, in 1940 and 1944, and his decisions heightened concerns about the presidency not being subject to term limits.
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Critics attack Trump notion of serving third term
Donald Trump’s repeated musings that there is scope for breaking with the US constitution’s explicit ban on running for a third term in office is attracting criticism from some in both parties.
Changing the constitution so that it no longer forbids a third term is a very high hurdle to leap over. You need a two-thirds majority vote in the US Congress or two-thirds of US states agreeing to convene a constitutional convention at which an amendment would be proposed, NBC reports. Then agreement from such a vote would need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
Trump talked about a possible third term before he was inaugurated and has brought it up at least twice more since he became the 47th president of the United States, in a return to the White House that has shaken the US government to its core.
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat, posted on X about the possibility of Trump service again: “So, that’s actually not allowed…The Constitution isn’t optional, sir. This isn’t a reality show — it’s reality. Two terms, that’s it.”
Republican John Dean, from the Nixon era, talked of Trump trying an “end run”.
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In the Wisconsin supreme court race – seen as such an important contest that Elon Musk has been handing out $1m checks – can the abortion issue be a silver bullet for the Democrats in galvanizing their voters?
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Trump approval ratings dip over tariffs
Immigration remains a strength for Donald Trump, but his handling of tariffs is getting more negative feedback, according to a poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
About half of US adults approve of Trump’s approach to immigration, the survey shows, but only about four in 10 have a positive view of the way he’s handling the economy and trade negotiations.
The poll indicates that many Americans are still on board with Trump’s efforts to ramp up deportations and restrict immigration. But it also suggests that the Republican president’s threats to impose tariffs – which have been accompanied by tumbling consumer confidence and wild stock market swings – might be erasing his advantage on another issue that he made central to his winning 2024 campaign.
The economy was a drag on then president Joe Biden, who saw the share of Americans who approved of his handling of the economy fall to a low of roughly three in 10 in 2023. Trump drew considerable strength in November from voters who prioritized the economy, but just before he took office in January, an AP-NORC poll found that few Americans had high confidence that he’d make progress on lowering prices in his first year.
Views of Trump’s job performance overall are more negative than positive, the survey found. About four in 10 US adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and more than half disapprove.
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Wall Street expected to join global sell-off
Wall Street is set to join the global sell-off when trading begins in around two hours.
Investors in New York are increasingly anxious about the tariffs which Donald Trump plans to announce on Wednesday.
Raffi Boyadjian, lead market analyst at XM, says:
Hopes that this week’s reciprocal tariffs would not be as harsh as feared were dashed over the weekend after US President Trump doubled down on his pursuit of using import levies to ‘make America great again’. With just a couple of days to go until the White House outlines the details of the reciprocal tariffs – the broadest set of restrictions yet to be unveiled by the Trump administration – there is a growing sense of panic in the markets about the scale and implications of the April 2 announcement.
Our business blog has more on how the markets are reacting.
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Chance of US recession at 35%, says Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs has raised the probability of a US recession to 35% from 20% and said it expects more rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, as Trump’s tariffs roil the global economy and upend financial markets.
The brokerage also lowered its US GDP growth forecast for 2025 to 1.5% from 2.0% and projected three interest rate cuts each from the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank from its previous expectation of two each.
Trump said on Sunday his reciprocal tariffs, to be announced this week, would include all countries.
Associated Press interviewed Derek Muller, a professor of election law at Notre Dame, about Donald Trump’s comments on a third term, specifically in response to NBC’s Kristen Welker asking if JD Vance could be elected and then “pass the baton” to Trump (see earlier post).
Muller noted that the 12th amendment, which was ratified in 1804, says: “No person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”
Muller said that indicates that if Trump is not eligible to run for president again because of the 22nd amendment, he is not eligible to run for vice-president, either.
“I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” Muller said.
In addition, pursuing a third term would require extraordinary acquiescence by federal and state officials, not to mention the courts and voters themselves.
Muller suggested that Trump is talking about a third term for political reasons to “show as much strength as possible”.
“A lame-duck president like Donald Trump has every incentive in the world to make it seem like he’s not a lame duck,” he said.
Trump, who would be 82 at the end of his second term, was asked during the NBC interview whether he would want to keep serving in “the toughest job in the country” at that point.
“Well, I like working,” the president said.
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Global stock markets fall ahead of Trump 'Liberation Day' tariffs
Global stock markets were a sea of red on Monday and investors fled to gold ahead of a wave of US tariffs this week that have fuelled recession fears.
Tokyo plunged more than 4%, leading losses across Asian and European markets, amid nerves Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcements due on his “Liberation Day” on Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reports.
Adding to fears, Trump said on Sunday that tariffs would include “all countries”, not just those with the largest trade imbalances with the US.
Automakers were hit particularly hard in the wake of Trump’s announcement that he would also impose 25% duties on imports of all vehicles and parts.
In Europe, Porsche, Volkswagen and Stellantis, which owns several brands including Jeep, Peugeot and Fiat, all dropped around 3%.
Toyota, the world’s biggest car-maker, plunged over 3%, along with Nissan and Mazda.
Gold, seen as a safe haven asset in times of uncertainty, hit a record high over $3,100 an ounce.
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Putin 'open' to Trump call after comments
The Kremlin has said that Vladimir Putin was still “open” to speaking to Donald Trump after the US president said he was “very angry” with the Russian leader over little progress on a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Trump earlier criticised Putin as he pushes to end more than three years of conflict in Ukraine.
Trump told NBC he was “pissed off” at Putin for questioning Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility as someone to negotiate with.
“The president remains open to contact with President Trump,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a briefing call.
He said there was no phone call scheduled between the two leaders, but that one could be “organised promptly” if deemed “necessary”.
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Warning of HIV resurgence amid Trump cuts
The federal government has cancelled dozens of grants to study how to prevent new HIV infections and expand access to care, decimating progress toward eliminating the epidemic in the United States, scientists say.
Over the last month, more than 300 research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been terminated – 65 of them were specifically related to researching advancements in HIV care. Some scientists were notified about losing funding as recently as last Thursday. NIH, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the largest funding source of medical research in the world, leaving many scientists scrambling to figure out how to continue their work.
“The loss of this research could very well result in a resurgence of HIV that becomes more generalized in this country,” said Julia Marcus, a professor at Harvard Medical School who recently had two of her grants cancelled.
You can read more here
In yesterday’s interview, NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Donald Trump if one potential avenue to a third term was having Vice-president JD Vance run for the top job and “then pass the baton to you”.
“Well, that’s one,” Trump responded. “But there are others too. There are others.”
“Can you tell me another?” Welker asked.
“No,” Trump replied.
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We are getting some reaction to Trump’s comments about a possible third term.
Representative Daniel Goldman, a New York Democrat who served as lead counsel for Trump‘s first impeachment, said:
This is yet another escalation in his clear effort to take over the government and dismantle our democracy. If Congressional Republicans believe in the Constitution, they will go on the record opposing Trump’s ambitions for a third term.
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'There are methods which you could do it,' says Trump about possible third term
Good morning, and welcome to our US politics blog amid news that Donald Trump is “not joking” about a possible third term.
The comments on Sunday are the clearest indication yet he is considering ways to breach a constitutional barrier against continuing to lead the country after his second term ends at the beginning of 2029.
“There are methods which you could do it,” Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News from Mar-a-Lago. And he told host Kristen Welker: “I am not joking.”
He elaborated later to reporters on Air Force One from Florida to Washington: “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged.” Trump lost that election to Joe Biden.
Still, Trump added: “I don’t want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, we’ve got a long time to go.”
As Associated Press reports, the 22nd amendment, added to the constitution in 1951 after President Franklin D Roosevelt was elected four times in a row, says “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”.
Any attempt to remain in office would be legally suspect and it is unclear how seriously Trump might pursue the idea. The comments nonetheless were an extraordinary reflection of the desire to maintain power by a president who had violated democratic traditions four years ago when he tried to overturn the election he lost to Biden.
We’ll be bringing you more reaction from Trump’s allies and opponents as the day progresses. There are also plenty of other developments:
Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month. You can read more on this in our Ukraine blog.
In the same NBC interview as Trump made his Putin and third term comments, he also threatened to bomb Iran, saying that if “they don’t make a deal” to curb their nuclear weapons programme, “there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” You can read Iran’s reaction in our Middle East blog.
Trump spoke to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, on Sunday evening as the UK seeks to avoid tariffs that the US president has threatened to impose on a wide range of trade partners on Wednesday. He is calling it “Liberation Day”, saying the world’s top economy has been “ripped off by every country in the world”. Starmer and Trump “agreed to stay in touch in the coming days”.
Elon Musk gave out $1m checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin supreme court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization”. Musk and groups he supports have spent more than $20m to help conservative favourite Brad Schimel in Tuesday’s race, which will determine the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state.
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