Closing summary
We’re closing the blog for today, thanks for following along. Here are some key links and stories from the day:
In extraordinary blunder, top Trump cabinet members added the Atlantic magazine editor to a Signal group chat discussing secret military plans for recent attacks in Yemen.
The major security breach sparked bipartisan outrage and calls from one Democratic group for Pete Hegseth to resign as defense secretary.
Hegseth said that “nobody was texting war plans” and attacked the Atlantic, but did not refuse specifics of the magazine’s reporting.
An appeals court judge said Monday that Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the US during the second world war than Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration.
Foreign workers at US government-backed media outlets being cut by the Trump administration say they face deportation to their home countries, where some risk imprisonment or death at the hands of authoritarian governments.
The US postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who said earlier this month that he had asked the government team led by Elon Musk for assistance with a number of issues, announced he was resigning immediately.
A Columbia University student who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at the university is suing Donald Trump’s administration for attempting to deport her.
Trump’s administration is seeking sponsors for the White House Easter Egg Roll, in a break with tradition that is likely to draw further scrutiny over his government’s relationship with corporate backers.
Hundreds of firings inside the federal government’s student aid department have sparked concern among workers and student loan advocates, who warn that the student loan system is at risk.
A federal judge has ruled that the US government cannot remove two transgender men from the Air Force, the latest courtroom victory for LGBTQ+ rights advocates challenging Trump’s order banning trans people from military service.
Updated
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, has addressed the Trump administration’s accidentally inclusion of a journalist on a group chat discussing planned attacks in Yemen, saying the leak of “sensitive national security information” on a “non-classified system” was “completely outrageous and shocks the conscience”. His statement continued:
It is yet another unprecedented example that our nation is increasingly more dangerous because of the elevation of reckless and mediocre individuals, including the secretary of defense [Pete Hegseth]. If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach.
Earlier today, Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said “this kind of carelessness is how people get killed”, adding: “It is how our enemies take advantage of us. It is how our national security falls into danger … It is bad enough that a private citizen was added to this chain, but it is far worse that sensitive military information was exchanged on an unauthorized application – especially when that sensitive military information was so, so important.”
The Democratic leaders’ statements came after the Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor in chief was added to a group chat on Signal, the messaging app, in which Hegseth, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other key figures discussed “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.
More here:
Updated
Columbia student protester sues to block deportation: 'Shocking overreach'
A Columbia University student who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at the university is suing Donald Trump’s administration for attempting to deport her.
Attorneys for Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old who has legally resided in the US since childhood, filed a complaint on Monday describing the government’s actions as “shocking overreach” and an “unprecedented and unjustifiable assault” on her rights.
Chung has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus since 2023, and was arrested earlier this month while protesting the university’s “excessive punishments” of student activists, according to the lawsuit, which was first reported by the New York Times.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Trump administration cancels 68 grants related to LGBTQ+ health
The Trump administration has canceled at least 68 grants to 46 institutions related to LGBTQ+ health, including HIV prevention research and studies related to youth suicide, the AP reported.
The grants totaled nearly $40m when they were awarded, but some funds had already been spent, according to the AP. The revoking of funds is part of Donald Trump’s broad attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, with a focus on institutions and organizations that serve trans people. The impacted grants came from the National Institutes of Health, which is part of the US Health and Human Services agency.
One canceled project was at at Vanderbilt University and was studying the health of 1,200 LGBTQ+ people age 50 and older, according to the AP.
Pete Hegseth on his leaked military strikes chat: 'Nobody was texting war plans'
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, has responded to the growing scandal surrounding his and other senior Trump administration officials’ text conversation about airstrikes in Yemen in a group text that inadvertently included a journalist.
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” the head of the defense department said in brief remarks when questioned by reporters about the extraordinary leak of highly sensitive messages on Signal, a commercial chat app.
.@SecDef Hegseth on @JeffreyGoldberg: "You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again...This is a guy who peddles in garbage...Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say." pic.twitter.com/IEYyMPYQBz
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 24, 2025
On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic, revealed that he had been accidentally added to a Signal group that included Hegseth, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other key Trump administration figures.
The group was named “Houthi PC small group”, and in it, officials discussed “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”, Goldberg said. A “TEAM UPDATE” posted by an account bearing Hegseth’s name contained information that if “read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility”, the journalist said.
Goldberg said he learned strikes would be taking place in Yemen hours before they occurred, and saw how, after the attacks, members of the group offered congratulatory messages.
In his brief remarks when pressed by a reporter about the scandal, Hegseth also called Goldberg a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist”, but did not specifically refute any facts of the Atlantic story. A US national security council spokesperson confirmed to the Atlantic that the chat was authentic.
Goldberg’s story says the conducting of a national-security-related action on Signal “may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act” and that Signal is “not approved by the government for sharing classified information”. Delaware senator Chris Coons earlier said in a statement that members of the thread had “committed a crime – even if accidentally”.
Updated
Trump signs order imposing tariffs on countries importing Venezuelan oil
The White House has released Donald Trump’s executive order sanctioning countries that purchase oil or gas from Venezuela, a move the president announced earlier today as his administration faces intense scrutiny for its deportations of Venezuelans.
The order says that starting on 2 April, a tariff of 25% “may be imposed on all goods imported into the United States from any country that imports Venezuelan oil, whether directly from Venezuela or indirectly through third parties”.
The executive order includes false and unsubstantiated claims that the Biden administration had “open-borders policies”, with Trump earlier repeating his baseless assertion that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”.
The order came soon after an appeals court judge sharply rebuked the Trump administration, saying Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the US during the second world war than Venezuelan people recently deported.
Updated
Head of US Postal Service resigns amid protests by workers
Louis DeJoy, the US postmaster general, is resigning effective immediately after five years heading the Postal Service and after recent protests by postal workers concerned about the Trump administration’s threats to USPS.
DeJoy has led the agency since 2020 and had earlier this year asked his governor board to identify a successor, but his abrupt departure today came as a surprise, AP reported.
DeJoy had said he planned to cut 10,000 workers and billions of dollars from the Postal Service’s budget and that he was working with Elon Musk, the AP noted.
Musk has said USPS should be privatized, sparking widespread backlash, and Donald Trump has said he was considering merging USPS with the commerce department, a move Democrats and other critics have said would be unlawful and would strip the agency of independence. Postal workers have been protesting across the country. More background here:
Democratic National Committee calls on Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, has called on Pete Hegseth to resign or be fired from his position as defense secretary over the escalating scandal surrounding the administration’s accidental leak of highly sensitive military plans to a journalist.
Martin said in a statement late Monday:
Pete Hegseth was unfit to lead the Defense Department even before he risked our national security through his own sloppy handling of sensitive military information. Just like his boss Donald Trump, Hegseth – and everyone else involved – put on a stunning display of recklessness and disregard for our national security. Hegseth should resign, and if he doesn’t resign, he should be fired. It’s crystal clear that our men and women in uniform deserve better – and that our national security cannot be left in Hegseth’s incompetent and unqualified hands.
Martin’s comments follow a piece from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealing that he was inadvertently added to a group chat of senior Trump administration officials discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets across Yemen. Goldberg, a prominent US journalist, remained on the chat on Signal, a private messaging app, apparently undetected.
The chat included Hegseth, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Goldberg said he was connected to the group via Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser. The messages included sensitive policy discussions between Rubio and Hegseth. The national security council confirmed to the Atlantic that the group was authentic and said it was investigating how an “inadvertent number” was added.
A New York Times columnist also called on Hegseth to resign, and one critic noted that in 2023, Hegseth had sharply criticized Joe Biden for handling classified information “flippantly”, saying there should be “accountability … at the very top”.
A White House spokesperson said Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz”.
Updated
Hillary Clinton on leak scandal: 'You have got to be kidding me'
Hillary Clinton, who faced widespread media scrutiny for using a private email server while serving as secretary of state, has commented on the Trump administration’s extraordinary leak of secretive war plans when officials accidentally included a prominent journalist on a group chat.
“You have got to be kidding me,” the 2016 Democratic nominee for president wrote on X. She shared a link to Atlantic story written by the magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, which revealed he had been added to a group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and other major Trump administration figures discussing plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Journalists and pundits have been comparing Clinton’s email scandal, which impacted her 2016 race against Trump, to the current breach. Some have shared 2016 comments by Marco Rubio, then a senator, in which he said Clinton should be “held accountable” and was not “above the law”.
Updated
Trump to nominate Susan Monarez for CDC director after abrupt withdrawal of first pick
Donald Trump will nominate Dr Susan Monarez, the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to permanently lead the agency, the White House said on Monday.
The announcement came after the president earlier this month abruptly pulled the nomination for his first choice, David Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor and former Republican Florida congressman who was closely scrutinized for anti-vaccine views. Monarez has been acting director of the CDC since January and previously worked at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, another federal agency, the AP reported.
The president said in a post on Monday: “As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future … Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.”
Updated
Judge blocks Trump's removal of trans service members in another court victory for LGBTQ+ rights
A federal judge has ruled that the US government cannot remove two transgender men from the Air Force, the latest courtroom victory for LGBTQ+ rights advocates challenging Donald Trump’s executive order banning trans people from military service, the AP reports.
On Monday, Christine O’Hearn, a US judge in New Jersey, issued a two-week restraining order barring the enforcement of Trump’s policy on the impacted plaintiffs. O’Hearn’s ruling comes days after a similar ruling by a federal judge in Washington DC.
O’Hearn said the trans plaintiffs, Master Sgt Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt Nicholas Bear Bade, had shown that their removal from service would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations, the AP reported. The judge said they were likely to prevail on equal protection grounds as they had been singled out due to their sex, and that the US could not justify the discriminatory treatment. The restraining order said, in part:
The loss of military service under the stigma of a policy that targets gender identity is not merely a loss of employment; it is a profound disruption of personal dignity, medical continuity, and public service.
Last week, Judge Ana Reyes of Washington DC sharply criticized Trump’s executive order, saying the ban on trans service members was “soaked in animus,” adding: “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, subsequently mocked Reyes and subjected her to personal attacks.
Updated
Trump on the White House leak of Yemen plans: 'I don't know anything about it'
Donald Trump has now been asked about his cabinet members accidentally leaking war plans to an Atlantic journalist who was mistakenly copied on a Signal group chat.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he responded at a briefing, before criticizing the Atlantic as a magazine “going out of business”. The president reiterated that he was not aware of the story, saying: “You’re telling me about it for the first time.”
The use of Signal, a private commercial app, to discuss highly sensitive national security matters and war plans – and the undetected inclusion of a journalist – has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage. More on the White House response from the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon:
The White House confirmed the leak. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told the Guardian: ‘This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.’
But the White House attempted to defend the communications, with Hughes describing the messages as an example of ‘deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials’.
‘The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security,’ Hughes said.
Updated
Outrage after Trump officials accidentally leak war plans to journalist: 'A crime'
The White House’s shocking leak of secret military plans to a journalist, who was accidentally included in a group chat, has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage.
The Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in a stunning story today that he had been inadvertently invited into a chat group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and other high-profile figures in Donald Trump’s administration. Goldberg was apparently undetected in the chat as cabinet members discussed upcoming attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.
Elected officials are expressing disbelief and anger at the extraordinary security blunder, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports.
Delaware senator Chris Coons said: “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally.” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “This administration is playing fast and loose with our nation’s most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe.”
Republican senator John Cornyn called it “a huge screw-up” and said it was being investigated. New York Republican representative Mike Lawler said: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels – and certainly not to those without security clearances. Period.” More reactions here:
State department on White House leak of war plans: 'No comment'
A spokesperson for the US state department has repeatedly refused to comment on the administration’s extraordinary blunder of discussing secret military plans on a chat that included a prominent journalist.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, revealed today that key figures in Donald Trump’s cabinet – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app, Signal, to discuss plans for US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen. The chat inadvertently included Goldberg, who was added by one of its members and apparently was unnoticed by the rest of the group.
At a briefing, a reporter pressed Tammy Bruce, state department spokesperson, about the scandal, asking, “Why was the cabinet … discussing a potential military operation on Signal, which is a public app, and why didn’t they notice a phone number that was not part of their group, and how concerned is the secretary about the implications of this?”
Bruce responded: “We will not comment on the secretary’s deliberative conversations … You should contact the White House.” Bruce continued to refuse to comment as the reporter asked for the perspective of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. The national security council has said it is investigating the matter.
More background here:
Updated
The day so far
The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing. “There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.
It came hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang. He thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to vacate restraining orders protecting Venezuelans accused of gang ties from deportation, instead insisting on due process for those contesting the allegations. “The named Plaintiffs dispute they are members of Tren de Aragua; they may not be deported until a court decides the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg wrote.
A law firm will present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US. The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of Tren de Aragua.
In an extraordinary blunder, the White House accidentally texted top-secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen to a journalist. Key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group. The breach was revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in the chat. The National Security Council said: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Trump announced that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on trades made with the US. This “secondary tariff” will take effect on 2 April, the president said in a Truth Social post. He cited “numerous reasons” for the move, including his baseless repeated claim that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”. China is the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, with Spain, Italy, Cuba and India also consumers.
On the issue of tariffs, Trump said he will in the very near future announce tariffs on automobiles, aluminum and pharmaceuticals. The president said the US would need all those products if there were problems including wars.
Greenlandic leaders criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Trump has suggested the US should annex. The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright. Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation. “Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede said. “But that time is over.”
The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children. The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status.
Trump appointed his former lawyer Alina Habba, who was previously sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit, to serve as interim US attorney for the district of New Jersey. Habba represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, which he lost, and again in the civil case against the Trump Organization’s civil fraud case, which he also lost. She said she looks forward to “going after the people we should be going after - not the people that are falsely accused”, but declined to elaborate further.
That’s all from me, Lucy Campbell, for today. But stay tuned, my colleague Sam Levin is here to steer you through the rest of the day’s developments.
Here’s more from my colleague Peter Beaumont on the White House adding a journalist to a top-secret Yemen war group chat by mistake.
Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.
In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.
Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.
Others in the chat included Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles and key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.
The discussions seen by Jeffrey Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.
Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.
Read the full story here:
Updated
National security council investigating after Trump administration accidentally texted journalist top-secret Yemen war plans
Members of Congress and national security staffers have been left stunned after top Trump administration officials, including the vice-president and the defense secretary, discussed war plans on Signal – and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote:
The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.
He goes on:
I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.
The National Security Council confirmed it was real and said it was investigating. Democrats are already demanding hearings as concerns arise about the security of classified communications.
Democratic senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, said in a statement:
If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.
Democrat Pat Ryan an Army veteran who also sits on the armed services committee, wrote on X:
Only one word for this: FUBAR.
— Pat Ryan 🇺🇸 (@PatRyanUC) March 24, 2025
If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self. pic.twitter.com/uGihDr5xZa
Marine veteran and Democratic Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said: “If I handled classified and sensitive information in this way when I was in the Marines … oh boy … ”
Amateur hour. These are the genuises that are also selling out Ukraine and destroying our alliances all around the world. No wonder Putin is embarrassing them at the negotiation table. https://t.co/I8qv0AMV31
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) March 24, 2025
Updated
Nazis got better treatment than Venezuelans deported by Trump administration, says US judge
The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing on Monday.
“There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said at the hearing in Washington. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.”
Judge Millett noted that alleged Nazis were given hearing boards and were subject to established regulations, while the alleged members of Tren De Aragua were given no such rights.
There’s no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. They people weren’t given notice. They weren’t told where they were going. They were given those people on those planes on that Saturday and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA. What’s factually wrong about what I said?
Deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign responded: “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.” He argued that some of the men were able to file habeas petitions.
Prior to the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, the law had been used just three times in US history, most recently to intern and remove Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during the second world war.
It comes hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.
The election to fill a Wisconsin supreme court seat is quickly becoming a referendum on the Trump administration and a test of enthusiasm on both sides, the Associated Press reports.
For national Republicans, the race is all about Donald Trump. But Democrats are trying a new tactic, focusing their fire on Elon Musk, the billionaire who is the race’s biggest donor, by far.
The vote on 1 April will be the first major test of US politics since the president secured a second term in November, serving as an early barometer of how voters feel about the direction Trump is taking the country in one of the most contested battleground states (which Trump won by less than a percentage point).
It’s also a test for Musk himself. His nascent political operation, which spent more than $200m to help Trump win in November, is canvassing and advertising in Wisconsin on behalf of the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel. A win would cement his status as a conservative kingmaker, while a loss could give license to Republicans distancing themselves from his efforts to stymie government functions and eliminate tens of thousands of federal jobs.
The contest will determine the court’s ideological balance for the second time in two years, and likely the future of several issues related to abortion rights, unions and congressional maps.
Musk, the race’s biggest donor by far, has helped make the race the most expensive judicial election in the nation’s history, with nearly $67m spent so far. He held a get-out-the-vote event on his X platform on Saturday, writing:
It might not seem important, but it’s actually really important. And it could determine the fate of the country. This election is going to affect everyone in the United States.
Schimel has openly courted Trump’s endorsement, which he received on Friday night, as he campaigns against Dane county judge Susan Crawford, the Democrat-backed candidate. He attended Trump’s inauguration in January, has said that he would be part of a “support system” for Trump. Earlier this month, he attended a “Mega MAGA rally” where he posed for a picture in front of a giant inflatable version of the president, which had a “Vote Brad Schimel Supreme Court” poster plastered on its chest. Schimel has also resurfaced long-debunked conspiracies about voter fraud that Trump has embraced.
Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said:
This race is the first real test point in the country on Elon Musk and his influence on our politics, and voters want an opportunity to push back on that and the influence he is trying to make on Wisconsin and the rest of country.
State Democrats have hosted a series of anti-Musk town halls, including one featuring former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and featured Musk heavily in ads. Crawford has also seized on Musk, going as far as to refer to her opponent as “Elon Schimel” during a recent debate. “Don’t let Elon buy the Supreme Court,” read billboards paid for the state Democratic party that depict Musk as Schimel’s puppeteer.
“There’s so many people who are desperate for a way to fight back against what Trump and Musk are doing nationally,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic party chair, and see the race as an “opportunity to punch back”. He said the party had seen an “explosive surge” in grassroots and small-donor fundraising from across the country tied to Musk’s involvement:
Most voters still don’t know who Crawford and and Schimel are, but they have extremely strong feelings about Musk and Trump.
Updated
Trump administration rolls back restrictions on sharing migrant minor sponsors' immigration status
This report is from Reuters:
The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children.
The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status, according to a Federal Register notice due to be published on Tuesday.
From ORR custody, children are released to sponsors – usually parents or relatives – as immigration authorities weigh their cases.
ORR argued that existing regulations put in place under former president Joe Biden conflicted with federal law, which it said prohibited government agencies from withholding any individual’s citizenship or immigration status.
Critics, however, say that sharing sponsors’ information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) could make parents and other relatives reluctant to come forward to claim their children due to fear they could be detained or deported.
An Ice official in 2018 estimated that 80% of sponsors and family members lacked legal immigration status.
Migrant advocacy groups said the Trump administration last week largely shuttered a federal program that provided legal representation to unaccompanied children in court. They urged the administration to restore it.
“Ending this long-standing program is a direct attack on due process,” Shayna Kessler, a director at Vera Institute of Justice, one of the groups providing legal services to unaccompanied children, said in a statement on Friday.
The Administration for Children and Families, ORR’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the suspension of the program.
Updated
Vladimir Putin has gifted Donald Trump a portrait he commissioned of the US president, the Kremlin confirmed on Monday.
Putin gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in a response to a journalist’s question, declining further comment.
The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful”.
Witkoff met Putin after talks with Russian officials about trying to end the war in Ukraine. During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the US presidency had been shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. “He was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said, recounting Putin’s comments.
It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs.
The White House hasn’t commented on the portrait. Let’s hope Trump likes it better than the other one.
Related: ‘Insecure baby’: Trump draws ridicule after throwing fit over Colorado capitol portrait
Updated
Lawyers to defend 30 Venezuelans deported from US at El Salvador's supreme court
A law firm will on Monday present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The judges in charge of the case are allies of President Nayib Bukele, who has offered to hold US prisoners in its prison system and accepted payment from the US to do so.
Outside the court, lawyer Jaime Ortega told reporters that while 30 Venezuelan nationals had granted them the powers of attorney to represent them, they would request habeas corpus for the rest of the Venezuelans detained in the country.
Some 137 of the group of Venezuelans were deported under an obscure US wartime law targeting “alien enemies” that was quickly blocked by a US federal judge, who ordered the flight carrying the Venezuelan citizens to turn around.
However, the Venezuelan citizens were later received in El Salvador where they were taken into custody in a massive anti-terrorism prison, under a deal in which Washington is paying El Salvador’s government $6m, according to the White House.
Lawyers and family members of many of the migrants deny they are members of Tren de Aragua and the US judge James Boasberg on Monday ruled they must be given the chance to challenge the government’s claim that they are gang members.
The judge also cited accounts of poor prison conditions, including beatings, humiliations, irregular access to food and water and having to sleep standing up because of overcrowding.
El Salvador’s presidential office did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment regarding the prison conditions.
Updated
As expected, the US has extended Chevron’s wind-down of oil exports from Venezuela by two months on Monday, after Donald Trump said that any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on any trades made with the US.
The Trump administration extended until 27 May the wind-down of a license that the US had granted to Chevron since 2022 to operate in sanctioned Venezuela and export its oil. Chevron is only permitted to export that oil to the US.
Trump had initially given Chevron 30 days from 4 March to wind down that license after he accused President Nicolás Maduro of not making progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns.
Chevron did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Earlier on Monday, Trump announced a “secondary tariff” to take effect on 2 April, in a post on Truth Social. The two moves taken together alleviate some pressure on Chevron while putting more pressure on consumers of Venezuelan oil, though it is uncertain how Trump’s administration will enforce the tariff.
Benchmark crude oil futures jumped nearly 1.5% on the news of the tariff.
China, which already has been the subject of US tariffs, is the largest buyer of Venezuela’s oil, the OPEC member’s main export. In February, China received directly and indirectly some 503,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude and fuel, which represented 55% of total exports.
Tariff impositions in China on imports of certain types of Venezuelan oil in past years led to a decline in the volume of Venezuelan crude received by Chinese buyers, which ultimately forced state company PDVSA to widen price discounts to continue selling to its most important market.
Spain, Italy, Cuba and India are other consumers of Venezuelan oil. US imports of the oil are set to end 27 May.
There was no immediate response from Maduro’s government to a request for comment.
Trump’s notice of the tariff occurred days after news that Shell Plc aims to begin producing natural gas at Venezuela’s Dragon gas field and exporting it to neighboring Trinidad and Tobago in 2026, a year ahead of the original 2027 start date.
Donald Trump talked about the Ukraine war at the cabinet meeting. The president said he expected a revenue-sharing agreement with Ukrainian on its critical minerals will be signed soon.
Trump also told reporters as he met his Cabinet that the United States is talking to Ukraine about the potential for American firms owning Ukrainian power plants.
Our dedicated Ukraine blog has all the latest details:
Elon Musk is attending the cabinet meeting chaired by Donald Trump – wearing a red Maga-style hat declaring “Trump was right about everything”.
We will bring you any key moments from the meeting.
Trump picks personal attorney Alina Habba for interim US attorney in New Jersey
Donald Trump is appointing his former lawyer Alina Habba, who was previously sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit, to serve as interim US attorney for the district of New Jersey.
Habba represented Trump in a variety of civil litigation, including a trial in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
She also represented Trump in a New York civil fraud case brought by the state’s attorney general Letitia James over his real estate company’s business practices. A judge in the case found him liable and ordered him to pay $454 million. Trump has appealed the ruling.
“There is corruption. There is injustice. There is a heavy amount of crime right in Cory Booker’s backyard and right under Governor Murphy,” Habba told reporters on Monday, referring to New Jersey Democratic senator Cory Booker and New Jersey’s Democratic governor Phil Murphy, after her appointment was made.
Habba added that she looks forward to “going after the people we should be going after - not the people that are falsely accused”, but declined to elaborate further.
In 2023, a federal judge in Florida sanctioned Trump and Habba and ordered them to pay $1m for filing a frivolous lawsuit which alleged that Hillary Clinton and others conspired to damage Trump’s reputation in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump and Habba are appealing that ruling.
Habba is the latest in a string of Trump’s former attorneys to be appointed to key roles in the justice department. Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Kendra Wharton, three of his defense attorneys, are currently serving as deputy attorney general, principal associate deputy attorney general and associate deputy attorney general, respectively.
Trump’s pick to serve as solicitor general, John Sauer, represented Trump before the Supreme Court in the presidential immunity case, while attorney general Pam Bondi previously represented him during his 2019 impeachment trial.
Donald Trump keeps doubling down on his talk of taking over Greenland despite growing criticism.
The US president on Monday said his administration was dealing with people in Greenland who wanted something to happen, referencing his repeated calls for the US to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
“I think Greenland is going to be something that maybe is in our future,” Trump told reporters after a meeting with his Cabinet.
His comments came as Greenlandic leaders criticized a planned trip this week by a high-profile US delegation to Greenland led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance.
Greenland’s prime minister, Múte B Egede, has called for the international community to step in and accusing Washington of “foreign interference”.
The US has declared three members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as “alien enemies” and that it plans to extradite them to Chile, the Department of Justice said.
The justice department said in a statement on Monday that the three individuals are wanted in Chile for violent crimes.
Trump says he will soon announce tariffs on autos, aluminum and pharmaceuticals
Donald Trump has said he will in the very near future announce tariffs on automobiles, aluminum and pharmaceuticals.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, the president said the US would need all those products if there were problems including wars.
Trump asks supreme court to halt ruling ordering the rehiring of federal workers
The Trump administration asked the supreme court on Monday to halt a ruling ordering the rehiring of thousands of federal workers dismissed in mass firings aimed at dramatically downsizing the federal government.
The emergency appeal argues that the judge cannot force the executive branch to rehire some 16,000 probationary employees.
It also calls on the conservative-majority court to rein in the growing number of federal judges who have slowed Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda, at least for now, by finding that his administration has not followed federal law.
The order came from US district judge William Alsup in San Francisco, who found the firings did not follow federal law and required immediate offers of reinstatement be sent.
The agencies include the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury.
The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to reduce the federal workforce.
Alsup expressed frustration with what he called the government’s attempt to sidestep laws and regulations governing a reduction in its workforce – which it is allowed to do – by firing probationary workers who lack protections and cannot appeal.
He told the hearing:
It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie.
The case is among multiple lawsuits challenging the mass firings, and a second judge also ordered the rehiring of thousands of probationary workers the same day.
Judge blocks Trump bid to deport Venezuelans under centuries-old war law
A federal court has thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to deport Venezuelan immigrants under a roughly 225-year-old war powers law, ruling that individuals must receive hearings before their removal.
US district judge James Boasberg on Monday rejected the government’s attempt to vacate restraining orders protecting Venezuelans accused of gang ties from deportation, instead insisting on due process for those contesting the allegations.
“The named Plaintiffs dispute they are members of Tren de Aragua; they may not be deported until a court decides the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg wrote.
The clash is rooted in Donald Trump’s 15 March proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which permits deportation of foreign nationals during wars or “invasions”. The administration claims activities of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua constitute such an invasion.
One of the deported alleged gang members is a 23-year-old gay makeup artist with no apparent gang affiliations, who was shipped to El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison without a hearing alongside hundreds of Venezuelan men. His attorney, Lindsay Toczylowski, went on MSNBC last week and claimed he was “disappeared” despite having a scheduled immigration court appearance, after officials misinterpreted his tattoos as gang symbols.
Related: ‘Deported because of his tattoos’: has the US targeted Venezuelans for their body art?
According to Boasberg’s order, five Venezuelan immigrants had secured emergency relief – hours before the Trump administration said it would use the Alien Enemies Act – fearing immediate deportation without a chance to contest their alleged gang membership. Several of the migrants who filed the lawsuit argue they actually fled Venezuela to escape the gang.
Trump has called Boasberg, an Obama-appointed judge, a “radical left lunatic” and called for his impeachment, prompting supreme court chief justice John Roberts to issue a rare rebuke.
Boasberg explained Monday that his orders don’t block normal immigration enforcement, noting the administration had already designated Tren de Aragua a Foreign Terrorist Organization, allowing deportations through standard channels.
After a little over an hour, oral arguments just ended in the supreme court challenging Louisiana’s congressional map. The justices seemed closely divided and it’s hard to know exactly how they’re going to rule.
Mark Carney says he is available for call with Trump, but on Canada's terms
Canada’s new prime minister Mark Carney said on Monday he was available for a call with Donald Trump but would do so “on our terms as a sovereign country”.
Calls with the US president traditionally take place soon after the election of a new leader, but the two men have yet to speak since Carney was elected leader of the ruling Liberal Party on 9 March, automatically becoming prime minister.
Speaking to reporters in Newfoundland, Carney said he assumed Trump was waiting to see who won the general election before calling the winner. He added:
I’m available for a call, but you know, we’re going to talk on our terms as a sovereign country, not as what he pretends we are.
Carney on Sunday triggered an election for 28 April, a contest that is widely expected to focus on the strained relationship with the US amid threats to Canada’s economic and political future.
Trump has figured prominently into Canada’s political narrative, repeatedly threatening to wage economic war on the US’s closest ally and one of its largest trading partners, with the end goal of annexing the country’s northern neighbor.
Those threats, and the prospect of painful tariffs on Canadian goods, have electrified the country, with a groundswell of patriotism, calls to boycott American goods and an “elbows up” rallying cry.
You can read more on that from my colleague Leyland Cecco here:
Updated
Back at Louisiana v. Callais, Edward Greim, a lawyer representing those challenging the map, is now making his arguments to the justices. A good portion of his argument has focused on whether or not the state had a good reason to redraw the state’s congressional map. There has been a lot of tussling over whether the court order the state was under was good enough of a reason.
Trump to impose 25% tariff on countries that buy oil or gas from Venezuela
Donald Trump said on Monday that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on trades made with the US.
This “secondary tariff” will take effect on 2 April, the president announced in a Truth Social post. He cited “numerous reasons” for the move, including his baseless repeated claim that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”.
He adds: “Among the gangs they sent to the United States, is Tren de Aragua, which has been given the designation of ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization’.” Tren de Aragua has been the organisation cited by Trump when he controversially invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law meant only to be used in wartime, to deport more than 250 mainly Venezuelan alleged gang members to El Salvador last week. It was formally designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the US last month.
In his post, Trump goes on: “In addition, Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the freedoms which we espouse.”
Finally, he referred to 2 April as “LIBERATION DAY IN AMERICA”.
In February, Trump announced the US would scrap a license granted to Chevron since 2022 to operate in Venezuela and export its oil and gave the company until April to wind down its operations there, after he accused President Nicolás Maduro of not making progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering a plan to extend Chevron’s license by 60 days and impose financial penalties on other countries that do business with the South American nation. It followed a meeting with Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth and other top oil executives.
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Trump will gather his cabinet secretaries for a third known meeting on Monday morning with Elon Musk expected to attend, a senior administration official has told NBC News.
The official described the 11 am ET gathering as a “follow up on the last Doge meeting”, in reference to a meeting on 6 March where Trump placed limits on the billionaire tycoon’s authority amid backlash to new cuts by the so-called “department of government efficiency”. He wrote on his Truth Social platform after that meeting:
We just had a meeting with most of the secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one. It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people. We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done.
Updated
Back at the hearing, Stuart Naifeh, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund representing Black voters, is now beginning his oral argument.
This court has been clear that states have breathing room to take reasonable efforts to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and they may also balance the many other interests that enter the redistricting calculus.
It was perfectly appropriate after two federal courts had found that Louisiana had likely violated section two, that the state sought to comply with those rulings and that it exercised its authority to protect favored incumbents and unite preferred communities of interest and accounting for those types of political considerations is squarely the legislature’s prerogative.
Updated
Here’s some useful background to the case regarding Louisiana’s majority-Black districts that Sam Levine is covering for us which, he writes, could be vehicle for court to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.
The case, Louisiana v Callais, arrives at the supreme court after years of legal wrangling over Louisiana’s congressional map.
After the 2020 census, Louisiana’s Republican-controlled legislature only drew one majority-Black congressional district when it redrew the boundaries for the state’s six seats in Congress. A group of Black voters, who make up about a third of the state’s population, sued the state in 2022, arguing that section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race, required lawmakers to add a second majority-Black congressional district.
A federal judge agreed with that argument, blocked the state from using the map, and told the state to add a second majority-Black district, which it did.
A group of non-African American voters then sued in a different court, saying the new map unconstitutionally sorted voters based on their race. They pointed out that the new district was unusually shaped and that race had predominated in drawing it. A court struck down Louisiana’s new map in 2024, but the US supreme court allowed it to be used for elections last year. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, won the seat last fall.
A ruling in favor of the non-African American voters who challenged the districts could further chip away at the Voting Rights Act by making it nearly impossible for lawmakers to draw districts that comply with the landmark civil rights law.
Sara Rohani, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represents the voters who challenged the original map in Louisiana and is arguing in defense of the current one, said:
It would basically lead to just endless collateral attacks on maps that were drawn to remedy Voting Rights Act violations and even potentially existing districts that are compliant with section 2.
You can read more here:
At the hearing J. Benjamin Aguiñaga, Louisiana’s solicitor general, is doing a delicate dance in his arguments to the justices. In response to a question from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Louisiana has argued in other litigation that Section 2 is unconstitutional as applied to the state. But he acknowledges courts have not embraced the state’s interpretation of the law so far.
“At least as things stand now, we’re duty bound to comply with the Voting Rights Act,” Aguiñaga said.
Updated
Oral arguments are just getting started in Louisiana v. Callais are just getting here.
“Louisiana would rather not be here,” J. Benjamin Aguiñaga, the state’s solicitor general, opened his arguments. “Our fundamental question today is how do we get out of this predicament.”
Updated
Venezuela receives hundreds of deported migrants from US after flights restart
This report is from Reuters.
A group of 199 Venezuelan migrants deported from the US arrived on Monday after the two countries reached an agreement to restart flights, Venezuela’s interior minister Diosdado Cabello said.
A diplomatic spat last week inflamed already tense relations as the US accused Venezuela of refusing to accept deportations flights, while Caracas accused Washington of blocking them. As that unfolded, a plane-load of deported Venezuelans had arrived from Mexico, a country that has agreed to accept migrants from other countries sent by the US.
Cabello said flights have been inconsistent “not because of Venezuela,” adding that they will “depend on the United States.” The US sent the deportees first to Honduras, where they were picked up by Venezuelan state airline Conviasa and arrived in Caracas at 1am local time. The US does not deport migrants directly to Venezuela due to the strained diplomatic relationship between the two countries.
“We expect to see a consistent flow of deportation flights to Venezuela going forward,” the US state department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs said in a post on X confirming the flight.
It comes after Donald Trump invoked an obscure wartime law to rapidly deport people who were, according to the White House, members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which Washington has declared a terrorist group and alien enemy.
Despite a judge quickly blocking the measure, the Trump administration deported more than 200 Venezuelans - 137 under the wartime act - to El Salvador where they are being detained in the country’s massive anti-terrorism prison.
Venezuela denies the migrants’ involvement in the criminal group, which the government claims was eradicated. Lawyers and family members of the migrants also deny their gang ties and say some may have been deported because of their tattoos, which they said US immigration authorities claimed imply gang ties.
Cabello said on Monday that the Venezuelans in El Salvador were being “held hostage” and demanded that their rights be respected.
Supreme Court hears Louisiana racial gerrymandering claim
The US supreme court is hearing a case this morning that could upend Louisiana’s congressional map and have significant implications for the makeup of the US Congress and voting rights.
At the center of the case is Louisiana’s 6th congressional district. State lawmakers drew the oddly shaped district in 2022 after they were ordered to add a second majority-Black district in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. A group of non-Black voters challenged that district, saying lawmakers had unlawfully sorted voters based on their race. The supreme court allowed the map to be used for elections last year and Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, won the seat.
The supreme court has long said that lawmakers can consider race if it serves a “compelling interest” and its use is “narrowly tailored” to that interest. Those challenging the map say the state did not meet that standard.
The case is being closely watched both because of the close partisan balance of the US House and to see whether the court will further weaken protections for minority voters when it comes to redistricting.
We’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Updated
Mia Love, first Black Republican woman elected to Congress, dies aged 49
Mia Love, a daughter of Haitian immigrants who became the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress, died on Sunday at the age of 49.
The former US House member of Utah had undergone recent treatment for brain cancer and received immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial at Duke University’s brain tumor center. Her daughter said earlier this month that the former lawmaker was no longer responding to treatment. Love died at her home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, according to a statement posted by the family.
Love didn’t emphasize her race during her campaigns, but she acknowledged the significance of her election after her 2014 victory. She said her win defied naysayers who had suggested that a Black, Republican, Mormon woman couldn’t win a congressional seat in overwhelmingly white Utah.
She was briefly considered a rising star within the GOP and she kept her distance from Donald Trump, who was unpopular with many Utah voters during his successful run for his first presidency in 2016.
In an op-ed published earlier this month in the Deseret News, Love described the version of America she grew up loving and shared her enduring wish for the nation to become less divisive. She thanked her medical team and every person who had prayed for her.
British prime minister Keir Starmer and Donald Trump held a brief call on Sunday to discuss progress on a new economic deal between the two countries, Downing Street said this morning.
At the lobby briefing, asked about reports that the government may cut the digital services tax, to help US tech firms and to persuade the White House to reduce the impact of tariffs on the UK in return, the PM’s spokesperson replied:
Firstly, just taking a step back, the UK is working with the United States on an economic prosperity deal, building on our shared strength of that commitment to economic security. As part of those discussions, the prime minister and President Trump discussed progress made in those discussions last night. The UK will only do a deal in the national interest, which reflects this government’s mandate to deliver economic stability for British people.
The spokesperson did not say whether or not the digital services tax came up in the call. But he said the government remained in favour of the tax in principle.
On the prospects of a trade deal, the spokesperson said that “good progress” was being made. But he confirmed that what was being envisaged was less a full-blown free trade agreement, and more a deal just covering certain sectors.
Downing Street also refused to respond directly to the claim from Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff that Starmer’s stance on Ukraine amounts to “posturing”.
Asked if Starmer was happy for one of Trump’s closest advisers to be talking in these terms, the PM’s spokesperson said that Starmer himself has explained in detail why he is working on plans for a “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine, and why a peace deal would need military underpinning.
The prime minister is focused on delivering the right outcome in Ukraine. There’s frequent engagement with President Trump to that end, with shared vision with President Trump in terms of bringing a durable peace in Ukraine.
Appeals court to hear arguments in deportations case
Donald Trump’s forceful attack on the American judiciary hits the appeals court today for a high-stakes hearing over the president’s controversial use of wartime powers to deport foreign migrants.
Politico reports that the Trump administration will urge a three-member appeals panel to overturn federal judge James Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport planeloads of migrants without due process. Justice Department lawyers will also demand Boasberg be thrown off the case following a ferocious weeklong effort to publicly discredit him led by the president himself. The hearing starts in Washington at 1.30pm ET, each side will be allocated 30 minutes to make their case.
The hearing will mark a significant test of the president’s ability to compel the entire US justice system to fall into line. At a hearing last Friday, Boasberg condemned government lawyers for using “intemperate and disrespectful language I’m not used to hearing from the United States”.
Politico notes that all eyes today will be on the two Republican appointees on the panel: George W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson and Trump appointee Justin Walker. (The third judge is Patricia Millett, a Barack Obama appointee.) Will they embrace Trump’s expansive view of executive power, or will they show concern about what Boasberg has called the “very frightening” possibility of almost any migrant being rapidly expelled to a third country based solely on the say-so of the executive branch?
Trump continued his attacks on Boasberg over the weekend, calling him a “constitutional disaster” in a post to his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
We’ll bring you all the latest on this afternoon’s hearing as we get it.
Updated
Kremlin says Russia and US have common understanding on need for settlement in Ukraine
Some information is trickling in from what is being discussed in the talks between US and Russian officials at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Reuters is reporting that the Kremlin said that Moscow and Washington shared a common understanding on the need to move towards a settlement to end the war in Ukraine, but that there are still many different aspects that need to be worked out.
A fast US brokered ceasefire in Ukraine is unlikely for many reasons. Vladimir Putin has said any talks must address what he frames as “the root causes” of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, primarily his concerns around an expanding Nato alliance. Ukraine has made membership of the alliance a key strategic aim that it says would help protect the country in the event of future Russian aggression.
Putin also said during his call with Donald Trump earlier this month that any long-term deal would require an ending of intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv from its allies. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the call that Ukraine’s allies would never agree to such a move, adding that he hopes supplies will continue.
My colleague Yohannes Lowe has all the latest on Ukraine and the US-Russia ceasefire talks over on our Ukraine live blog:
‘They chose the billionaire’: Tim Walz returns to Minnesota as part of ‘revenge’ tour
The former Democratic VP nominee’s tour around the US is part brand redemption, part Democratic catharsis, part rally, writes my colleague Rachel Leingang from Rochester, Minnesota.
Tim Walz is trying to regroup to help Democrats fight the Trump administration, but he’s still trying to figure out why he and his party lost in November.
“I knew it was my job to try and pick off those other swing states, and we didn’t,” he said about the 2024 election. “I come back home to lick my wounds and say, goddamn, at least we won here.”
Walz was speaking on Saturday in Rochester, Minnesota – in the district he once represented in Congress, as part of his soul-searching tour around the country after the Democrats’ bruising 2024 defeat. He hasn’t ruled out a 2028 run for president, though neither have most 2028 hopefuls.
Walz told a crowd of roughly 1,500 people that filled an auditorium and spilled into an overflow room on a Saturday morning:
I thought it was a flex that I was the poorest person and the only public school teacher to ever run for vice-president of the United States. They chose the billionaire. We gotta do better.
Thinking about the path forward for Democrats, Walz acknowledges he doesn’t have a solid answer, but said Democrats need to do better at articulating their values and the ways their policies would improve people’s lives. He likes the idea of a “shadow cabinet”, borrowing a UK tradition where opposition parties have their own versions of cabinet members to speak out against the ones in power.
He also said Democrats shouldn’t let Republicans capture the narrative on issues like trans rights.
He sees the Trump administration as an “existential threat” that will chip away at programs such as social security, but wonders how Democrats aren’t able to message these popular, middle-class issues against oligarchs. “How did this happen?” he pondered.
Once Democrats get back in office, it’s time to shore up the programs they want to protect, he said.
Donald Trump is on his revenge and retribution tour. Well, I said I’ll be on one, too. I’m going to bring revenge just raining down on their heads with their neighbors getting healthcare. They’re gonna rue the day when we got re-elected because our kids with special needs are going to get the care that they need.
You can read the full piece here:
Updated
Chuck Schumer defied calls to give up the top Democratic position in the Senate after he voted for Republicans’ funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, saying on Sunday: “I’m not stepping down.”
Schumer has faced a wave of backlash from Democrats over his decision to support the Republican-led bill, with many Democrats alleging that the party leader isn’t doing enough to stand up to Donald Trump’s agenda.
Explaining his decision during an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Schumer said: “I knew when I cast my vote against … the government shutdown … that there would be a lot of controversy.” He said that the funding bill “was certainly bad”, but maintained that a shutdown would have been 15 or 20 times worse.
Schumer has argued that billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) would have used a shutdown to “eviscerate the federal government”, which he said would have been “devastating”.
A delegation of officials from the United States will visit India from 25-29 March for trade talks with Indian officials, a US embassy spokesperson said on Monday.
Assistant US trade representative for South and Central Asia Brendan Lynch will lead the group. “This visit reflects the United States’ continued commitment to advancing a productive and balanced trade relationship with India,” the spokesperson said.
President Donald Trump is expected to impose reciprocal tariffs from 2 April on various nations, causing alarm among Indian exporters, Reuters reported.
India has an “obvious expectation”, a government source said, that the Trump administration could exempt it from reciprocal tariffs as the two nations continue talks on a bilateral trade pact.
The source said US vice-president JD Vance is also likely to visit India in April.
Donald Trump’s second administration has shown an “unprecedented degree of resistance” to adverse court rulings, experts say, part of a forceful attack on the American judiciary that threatens to undermine the rule of law, undercut a co-equal branch of government and weaken American democracy.
The attacks, experts say, threaten one of the fundamental pillars of American government: that the judicial branch has the power to interpret the law and the other branches will abide by its rulings.
The attack came to a head this week when the Trump administration ignored an order from US district judge James Boasberg to turn planes carrying deportees around. “I don’t care what the judges think,” Thomas Homan, charged with enforcing Trump’s deportation agenda, said in a Fox News television interview on Monday as the decision came under scrutiny. The next day, Trump called for Boasberg to be impeached, calling him a “radical left lunatic”.
For months, the Trump administration has made it clear they believe they can ignore judicial orders. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” vice-president JD Vance tweeted on 9 February.
Elon Musk, Trump’s top adviser, has repeatedly called for impeaching judges, and is donating to Republicans in Congress who have supported doing so. House Republicans have introduced resolutions to impeach Boasberg and four other judges who have ruled against Trump.
IRS nears deal with Ice to share data of undocumented immigrants – report
The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reportedly nearing a deal to allow immigration officials to use tax data to support Donald Trump’s deportation agenda, according to reports by the Washington Post.
Under the proposed data-sharing agreement, said to have been in negotiations for weeks, Immigration And Customs Enforcement (Ice) could hand over the names and addresses of undocumented immigrants to the IRS, raising concerns about abuse of power from the Trump administration and the erosion of privacy rights.
If access to this confidential database is agreed upon, it would mark a significant shift, likely becoming the first time immigration officials have relied on the tax system for enforcement assistance in such a sweeping way.
Under the agreement, the IRS would cross-reference names of undocumented immigrants with their confidential taxpayer databases, a move that would breach the longstanding trust in the confidentiality of tax information. Such data has historically been considered sensitive and thereby closely guarded, so the reported deal has raised alarm bells at the IRS, according to the Washington Post.
Donald Trump’s administration is likely to exclude a set of sector-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on 2 April, Bloomberg News and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials.
Trump said in February that he intended to impose auto tariffs “in the neighbourhood of 25%” and similar duties on semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports, but he later agreed to delay some auto tariffs after a push by the three largest US automakers for a waiver.
Sector-specific tariffs are now not likely to be announced on 2 April, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing an administration official.
The official added that the White House was still planning to unveil reciprocal tariff measures on that day, although planning remains fluid.
Bloomberg News reported on Saturday that sector-specific tariffs would be excluded.
Updated
Danish police have sent extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland as the icy island steps up security measures ahead of a planned visit this week by second lady Usha Vance, AP reports.
The extra officers, deployed the day before, were part of regular steps taken during visits by dignitaries to Greenland, a self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark, a spokesperson said.
Citing office procedure, Danish police declined to specify the number of extra police flown on the chartered flight. News reports put the number at dozens of officers.
Vance’s visit comes at a time when Donald Trump has suggested the United States should take control of Greenland.
Greenlandic news outlet Sermitsiaq posted images of two US Hercules workhorse military aircraft on the tarmac Sunday in Nuuk, the capital, adding that the planes later departed.
Vance will leave on Thursday and return Saturday, a statement from her office said. She and one of her three children will be part of a US delegation that will “visit historic sites” and “learn about Greenlandic heritage.”
Updated
Greenland leaders criticise US delegation trip as Trump talks of takeover
Greenlandic leaders have criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Donald Trump has suggested the US should annex, Reuters reports.
The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright.
Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation.
“Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede told local newspaper Sermitsiaq. “But that time is over.”
The Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, is now in a caretaker period after a 11 March general election won by the Democrats, a pro-business party that favors a slow approach to independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Democrats, called for political unity and said the visit by the US delegation during coalition talks and with municipal elections due next week, “once again shows a lack of respect for the Greenlandic people.”
Waltz and Wright plan to visit the Pituffik space base, the US military base in Greenland. The White House said they will get briefings from US service members there. They will then join Vance to visit historical sites and attend the national dogsled race.
Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the US team is “confident that this visit presents an opportunity to build on partnerships that respects Greenland’s self determination and advances economic cooperation.”
“This is a visit to learn about Greenland, its culture, history, and people and to attend a dogsled race the United States is proud to sponsor, plain and simple,” Hughes said.
Trump has made US annexation of Greenland a major talking point since taking office for a second time on 20 January. Greenland’s strategic location and rich mineral resources could benefit the US. It lies along the shortest route from Europe to North America, vital for the US ballistic missile warning system.
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