The Latest: President Donald Trump holds Cabinet meeting

U S President Donald Trump is convening a meeting of his Cabinet He began by touting his record on immigration and the economic system on his first days Trump also signed executive orders to relax particular of his tariffs on automobiles and auto parts a considerable reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers Here s the latest Judge directs administration to detail efforts to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia U S District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland directed the Trump administration Wednesday to once again provide information on its efforts if any to comply with her order to retrieve Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison Xinis temporarily halted the directive for information last week at the administration s request But with the pause expiring at p m Wednesday she scheduled deadlines in May for administration agents to provide sworn testimony about efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the U S The Trump administration arrested Abrego Garcia in Maryland and expelled him to his native El Salvador on March The deportation violated an immigration judge s order barring his deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution by local gangs there Quack quack Calling for RFK Jr Medical Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr s duck-themed ring tone has been making waves at his new citizens appearances The loud quacks of Kennedy s cellphone briefly interrupted Trump during the Cabinet meeting Wednesday shortly before the formal convening began Eagle-eyed watchers of Kennedy may be familiar with the quacking It also interrupted Kennedy s live town hall event with talk show host Dr Phil McGraw on Monday evening Elon Musk present at Cabinet meeting The billionaire outside adviser attended Trump s meeting of Cabinet officers Wednesday Musk who leads the administration s government-slashing efforts was seated to the president s right Throughout the Cabinet meeting Musk has appeared distracted by his hats He initially donned a hat promoting DOGE the Department of Ruling body Efficiency then swapped it out with a Gulf of America hat then later returned to the DOGE hat He then adjusted the Gulf of America hat to make it wide enough to fit over the DOGE one thereby wearing two hats In an earlier interview Wiles the White House chief of staff had noted Musk was no longer physically working from the White House grounds Transportation chief calls for new air traffic control system Sean Duffy the Transportation secretary says the administration wants to install a new air traffic control system soon You and I have talked about this Duffy informed Trump during his Cabinet meeting Wednesday It s a state-of-the-art system that would be the envy of the world Duffy stressed that the administration will need help from Congress to get this done The secretary also revealed the department was working to hire more air traffic controllers noting that they are about people short Trump on Hegseth My least controversial person Trump continues to jab at his embattled defense secretary calling Pete Hegseth my least controversial person as he introduced him during his Cabinet meeting As the rest of the Cabinet chuckled Hegseth quipped that he was being called controversial because we re over the target when it comes to military recruitment Hegseth came under scrutiny again earlier this month after revelations of his involvement in another Signal messaging chat with sensitive military information that included his wife and brother President Trump is convening a meeting of his Cabinet And he began by touting his record on immigration and the market system in his first days We ve just completed what a great number of consider to be the greater part prosperous days of any administration in the history of our country he revealed Jeffries promises to stop bad things from Trump with a new Democratic agenda Over the next days Jeffries says House Democrats will be laying out their own blueprint for what they d do if they were in charge and it won t be about Trump but all about you Firing up campaign mode he wrapped up a nearly hour long address with the fighting words Democrats have been demanding of their leaders We will not rest until we end this national nightmare he declared Trump s first years er days Jeffries stumbled slightly in his opening remarks about Trump s first years before hurriedly correcting himself to days saying the quiet part out loud Various Democrats in Congress are exhausted by what Jeffries called the chaos at the White House as the president bulldozes across the authorities House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries says the first days of Trump s term a debacle The Democratic leader revealed the Trump squad thought they could shock and awe us into submission They thought wrong he disclosed He s vowing Democrats are ready to fight back We re just getting started he reported Wall Street sinks following signals that the US financial market is sputtering A discouraging record suggesting the U S economic activity may have shrunk at the start of the year before majority of of Trump s stated tariffs could take effect is knocking U S stocks lower Wednesday The S P was down in morning trading and on track to break a six-day winning streak The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down points or as of a m Eastern time and sharp drops for AI superstars like Super Micro Computer had the Nasdaq composite down The weaker-than-expected assessment on the U S financial system was a surprise because economists were expecting to see modest increase particularly after the market system closed last year running at a solid pace But importers rushed to bring products into the country before tariffs could raise their prices which helped drag on the country s overall gross domestic product Read more about the financial markets Protest outside breakfast House Speaker Mike Johnson is attending About Washington D C residents and organizers angry over the continuing delay to pass the city s budget protested outside a private breakfast House Speaker Mike Johnson was attending Organizer Alex Dodd of Free DC commented the goal was to disrupt the speaker while you hold billion of our local funding hostage In a message the organization put out it stated it was trying to send a clear message to Johnson We are here to disrupt business as usual We demand the immediate passage of the DC Local Funds Act with no riders and no excuses District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Council are scrambling to address the situation created by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives When Congress recessed April it adjourned without addressing a billion hole in the city s budget that was created when the House eliminated a little-known provision in a budget resolution Vermont judge orders release of a Palestinian man arrested at his US citizenship interview A judge on Wednesday ordered the release of the Palestinian man who led protests against the war in Gaza as a scholar at Columbia University and was arrested by immigration personnel during an interview about finalizing his U S citizenship U S District Judge Geoffrey Crawford in Burlington Vermont issued his ruling following a hearing on Mohsen Mahdawi a legal permanent resident for years who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents April He s been held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St Albans A judge later issued an order barring the establishment from removing him from the state or country Mahdawi s lawyers say he was detained in retaliation for his speech advocating for Palestinian human rights Read more about Mohsen Mahdawi s occurrence Elon Musk now working remotely not in-person The billionaire outside adviser is no longer physically working from the White House although it really doesn t matter much That s according to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles who tells the New York Post that speaking to him on the phone about his efforts at the Department of Authorities Efficiency is having the same net effect as Musk being there in person His folks aren t going anywhere Wiles added in the interview Musk is designated as a special authorities employee which means he can only work days in a -day time period May marks days since Trump was inaugurated on Jan Walmart and Target commented to agree to absorb tariffs ask Chinese suppliers to resume shipments Chinese state media announced Wednesday that various Chinese toy exporters have been notified by Walmart and Target to resume partial shipments and that the U S businesses have agreed to shoulder the extra tariff costs The analysis came after Beijing in March summoned Walmart executives for allegedly pressuring Chinese suppliers to absorb tariff costs One Chinese exporter named Cheng Zhengren described Beijing News he expects to make a shipment in a week or so Without us what do they have to sell the Chinese exporter stated the newspaper Their shelves would be empty US inflation cools consumer step up spending as Americans brace for tariff impact The closely watched inflation gauge cooled last month in a sign that prices were steadily easing before the greater part of Trump s tariffs were implemented At the same time consumers accelerated their spending potentially in an effort to get ahead of the duties Wednesday s description from the Commerce Department indicated consumer prices rose just in March from a year earlier down from in February Excluding the volatile food and resource categories core prices rose compared with a year ago below February s Economists track core prices because they typically provide a better read on where inflation is headed The slowdown in inflation could be a temporary respite until the widespread duties imposed by Trump begin to push up prices in countless categories Economists forecast that inflation could reverse its latest decline and reach or higher by the end of this year Read more about consumer spending Trump blames his predecessor Joe Biden for sharp stock sphere selloff Wednesday morning The news behind the drop was a regime review showing the U S economic activity shrank during the first three months of this year as imports increased because businesses are attempting to frontrun the high import taxes being imposed by Trump Trump refused in a social media post to accept any responsibility for the market system s direction This is Biden s Stock Realm not Trump s Trump posted on Truth Social Tariffs will soon start kicking in and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers Our Country will boom but we have to get rid of the Biden Overhang This will take a while has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS About that hug Whitmer risks backlash from Democrats as she embraces Trump in Michigan First came their much-analyzed Oval Office moment Next their subject-to-interpretation hug The two interactions between President Trump and a sometime antagonist Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer reflect the Democratic governor s efforts to move past last year s hard-fought campaign and find common ground with the Republican president at pitfall of political backlash Whitmer a probable presidential candidate shared a hug with Trump as he arrived in her home state Tuesday less than a month after she shielded her face from cameras during an Oval Office appearance alongside Trump It s typical for a governor or another high-ranking state official to greet the president when he strategies off Air Force One in their state a tradition that s historically transcended partisanship But the embrace between Trump and Whitmer was notable at a time when Americans are increasingly saying Trump s priorities are off and Democrats are agitating for their leaders to take a more confrontational approach to the president Read more about Trump and Gov Whitmer Trump s plan to pave over the Rose Garden lawn will begin soon The renovation will get underway in a couple of weeks White House chief of staff Susie Wiles informed the New York Post in an interview Trump also wants to add a ballroom to the mansion she declared Wiles reported in the interview published online late Tuesday that the ballroom is still in the design phase But Trump is a builder and she would expect the ballroom to go up pretty promptly once the preliminary work is done It was unclear where the ballroom would be added The East Room is the largest room in the White House and is traditionally used for large gatherings such as receptions bill-signing ceremonies and news conferences Trump has added specific of his touches to the White House since returning to power Ukraine ready to sign much anticipated mineral tools deal with the US on Wednesday That s according to two senior Ukrainian authorities who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren t authorized to discuss the matter publicly Market Minister Yulia Svyrydenko is at this moment in Washington for the final coordination of the agreement s technical details the sources disclosed The Ukrainian Cabinet is expected to approve the agreement s text earlier Wednesday after which it will be signed by an authorized ruling body representative The deal will then require ratification in the Ukrainian parliament before it can take effect Read more about the Russia-Ukraine war Samya Kullab and Hanna Arhirova US market shrinks in first quarter as Trump arrangement wars disrupt business The business activity shrank from January through March the first drop in three years It was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump imposed massive tariffs The January-March expansion was the slowest in almost three years and was down from in the last three months of Imports shaved percentage points off first-quarter advancement Consumer spending also slowed sharply Trump inherited a solid financial system that had grown steadily despite high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to fight inflation His erratic arrangement policies including tariffs on China have paralyzed businesses and threatened to raise prices and hurt consumers Read more about the state of the financial market Former Vice President Kamala Harris plans a speech sharply criticizing Trump s policies The speech planned for Wednesday comes amid speculation about whether she ll mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor Harris will address the th anniversary gala for Emerge America an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office that grew in part from Harris run for San Francisco district attorney in the early s Her speech also comes the day after Trump reached days in office It s expected to be her the majority extensive citizens remarks since leaving office in January following her defeat to Trump with planned critiques of the Republican president s handling of the business activity U S institutions and foreign program Read more about Kamala Harris speech Former White House gun prevention official to lead advocacy group founded by the rapper Quavo The gun violence prevention advocacy group is naming the former top official in the Biden administration s office of gun violence prevention as its president Greg Jackson was deputy director of the White House office of gun violence prevention A first for the federal leadership the office was created under President Joe Biden but closed by Trump in the early days of his second term Jackson will serve as a president of the Rocket Foundation which is dedicated to preventing gun violence The group was founded by the rapper Quavo and hosted a summit in Atlanta last June attended by then-Vice President Kamala Harris Quavo s nephew the rapper Takeoff was killed in a shooting and the Rocket Foundation seeks to turn his death into a force for change The US leadership has a new plan for terminating international students legal status The U S administration has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by chosen of the students who suddenly had their status canceled in modern weeks with little explanation In the past month foreign students around the U S have been rattled to learn their records had been removed from a aspirant database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement A few went into hiding for fear of deportation or abandoned their studies to return home On Friday after mounting court challenges federal functionaries disclosed the cabinet was restoring international students legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations In a court filing Monday it shared the new agenda a document issued over the weekend with guidance on a range of reasons students status can be canceled including the revocation of the visas they used to enter the U S Read more about the agenda Trump administration tells Congress it plans to label Haitian gangs as foreign terror organizations The Trump administration has described Congress that it intends to designate Haitian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations people familiar with the notification communicated The Associated Press The State Department similarly labeled eight Latin American crime organizations in February as it ratcheted up pressure on cartels operating in the U S and anyone assisting them The new move indicates that the administration plans to put similar pressure on gangs from Haiti The designation carries with it sanctions and penalties for anyone providing material assistance for the group It comes after a series of strategies against the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua which was designated a foreign terror organization and then dubbed an invading force under an th-century wartime law to justify the deportation of Venezuelan displaced persons to a notorious El Salvador prison under Trump s sweeping immigration crackdown Trump at a rally in Michigan on Tuesday touted his designation of the six Latin American crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations including MS- and Tren de Aragua Read more about the designation of Haitian gangs Trump marks his first days in office in campaign mode focused on grudges and grievances Trump on Tuesday celebrated the th day of his second term yet spent much of his rally marking it in campaign mode fixated on past grudges and grievances He repeatedly mocked his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden attacking his mental acuity and even how he appears in a bathing suit He again uttered the lie that he won the presidential polling And he attacked polling and news coverage not favorable to him And Trump again and again returned to immigration his signature issue at the rally that marked his largest political event since returning to the White House boasting about his administration s mass deportation efforts that have sent arrests for illegal crossings along the U S -Mexico boundary plummeting Read more about Trump s Michigan rally Trump s tariffs loom over the economic activity as shipments from China fall American businesses are cancelling orders from China postponing expansion plans and hunkering down to see what bargain approach surprises President Donald Trump plans to spring on them next The president s massive and unpredictable taxes on imports seem likely to mean emptier shelves and higher prices for American shoppers perhaps within weeks And the higher costs and paralyzing uncertainty could exact an economic toll U S consumers are in the biggest funk since COVID- hit five years ago and economists say recession risks are climbing An early sign of the damage is expected to emerge on Wednesday when the Commerce Department releases its first look at first-quarter economic advancement The business activity is forecast to have expanded at an annual pace of just from January through March according to a survey of economists by the facts firm FactSet That would be the slowest quarter of enhancement in nearly three years and would be down from a Read more about the impact of Trump s tariffs on China Trump offers automakers chosen relief on his tariffs after worries they could hurt US factories Trump signed executive orders to relax a few of his tariffs on automobiles and auto parts a essential reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers Automakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices reduce sales and make U S production less competitive worldwide The amended order provides a rebate for one year of relative to the sales prices of domestically assembled vehicles That figure was reached by putting the import tax on parts that make up of a truck s sales price For the second year the rebate would equal of a truck s sales price as it would apply to a smaller share of the carriage s parts A senior Commerce Department official insisted on anonymity to preview the order on a call with reporters noted automakers explained Trump that the additional time would enable them to ramp up the construction of new factories after automakers warned that it would take time for them to shift their supply chains Read more about the new executive order Source