Category Archives: Trump administration

Elon Musk shows he still has the White House’s ear on Trump’s Middle East trip

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Although Musk has pivoted from Doge, the Saudi summit shows how he’s retaining proximity to the US president

Over the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a “Star Trek future” while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla’s self-driving robotaxis to the country.

“We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom,” Saudi Arabia’s minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk.

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Trump cabinet member’s links to El Salvador crypto firm under scrutiny

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Commerce chief Howard Lutnick’s firm backed controversial crypto giant Tether as Bukele ties deepened

Trump administration’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, and his family have had extensive business interests linked to El Salvador, whose authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has grown close to the White House and who has courted controversy by imprisoning people deported from the US in an immigration crackdown.

El Salvador also plays host to a booming cryptocurrency and new media industry, which has numerous ties to Donald Trump allies who are seeking to make money from various ventures which have sometimes drawn the attention of authorities or ethics watchdogs.

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Trump meets Syria’s president after lifting US sanctions on country

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Meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia seen as key towards recognition of new Syrian authority’s legitimacy

Donald Trump has met Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia and said that Washington is exploring normalising ties with Syria, a day after an announcement that all US sanctions on Syria would be lifted.

The US president met Sharaa, a former militant who fought against US forces in Iraq, before a conference of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), part of Trump’s four-day visit to the Middle East, where he is expected to court Gulf allies for investments in the US. Trump is due to land in Doha next, where he will meet the Qatari leader, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

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Critic of Covid boosters set to enact tough agenda as top US vaccines official

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Vinay Prasad, outspoken critic of pharmaceutical industry and of his peers in public health, to take over CBER

Vinay Prasad, an oncologist and hematologist who has called for more regulatory scrutiny of pharmaceuticals, including Covid vaccines, was named the top US vaccines official earlier this month.

Marty Makary, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced in a 6 May email obtained by the Guardian that Prasad would now lead the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), which oversees biological products like blood, vaccines, and cellular and gene therapies. Biotech stocks plunged at the news.

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Trump 2.0 takes quid pro quo fears to new heights with $400m flying grift

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Accepting a ‘gift’ of a luxury jet from Qatar is just the most eye-catching of the president’s ethically questionable acts

Fox & Friends, the show beamed into millions of rightwing Americans’ homes every morning, is not generally considered to be the place where Donald Trump faces the tough questions. The “& Friends” in the show’s title gives that away.

But on Monday morning, the show’s co-host Brian Kilmeade put the billion-dollar question to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. News had just broken that Trump had decided to accept a gift of a $400m luxury jumbo jet from the government of Qatar, a petro-state which the president once denounced as a “funder of terrorism”.

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Episcopal church says it won’t help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status

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Church refuses White House directive, citing longstanding ‘commitment to racial justice and reconciliation’

The Episcopal church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation”.

Presiding bishop Sean Rowe announced the step on Monday, shortly before 59 South Africans arrived at Dulles international airport outside Washington DC on a private charter plane and were greeted by a government delegation.

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Brazil’s president seeks ‘indestructible’ links with China amid Trump trade war

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Remark comes as Brazil, Colombia and Chile’s leaders fly to Beijing amid international uncertainty generated by Trump

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has heralded his desire to build “indestructible” relations with China, as the leaders of three of Latin America’s biggest economies flew to Beijing against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s trade war and the profound international uncertainty his presidency has generated.

Lula touched down in China’s capital on Sunday for a four-day state visit, accompanied by 11 ministers, top politicians and a delegation of more than 150 business leaders.

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‘Just wildly illegal’: top Democrats push to censure Trump’s plan to accept Qatar jet

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Four senators, including Cory Booker, say they will press for vote against president’s plan to take $400m gift from Qatar

Top Democrats in the US Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Donald Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in the Trump’s personal presidential library.

Four Democratic members of the Senate foreign relations committee said on Monday that they would press for a vote later this week. They said that elected officials, including the president, were not allowed to accept large gifts from foreign governments unless authorized to do so by Congress.

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Trump administration offers refugee status to 49 white South Africans

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Group, including families and small children, departed for US after Trump order created relocation program

A group of 49 white South Africans departed their homeland on Sunday for the United States on a private charter plane having been offered refugee status by the Trump administration under a new program announced in February.

The group, which included families and small children, was due to arrive at Dulles international airport outside Washington DC on Monday morning local time, according to Collen Mbisi, a spokesperson for South Africa’s transport ministry.

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‘Substantial progress’ at US-China trade talks, says Scott Bessent

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US treasury secretary’s remarks on second day of meetings come after Trump hails ‘total reset’ in America-China ties

The US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has reported “substantial progress” in talks with China’s top economic officials to avoid a damaging trade war, but offered no details of an agreement reached as two days of negotiations wrapped up in Geneva.

Bessent said that details would be announced on Monday and that Donald Trump was fully aware of the results of the “productive talks”.

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Trump says planned gift of luxury plane from Qatar is a very ‘transparent’ deal

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News of present known as ‘flying palace’ from royal family to replace Air Force One has ignited accusations of bribery and corruption

Donald Trump has indicated he is ready to accept a luxury plane being offered to the US president as a gift from Qatar’s royal family, almost immediately igniting accusations of bribery and corruption as well as commensurate criticism.

A statement from Qatar on Sunday acknowledged it had held discussions with the US about “the possible transfer” of a plane to be used temporarily by Trump as his presidential aircraft, usurping Air Force One. The emirate’s statement denied a final decision over the transfer had been made – or that it was a gift.

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US transportation secretary plans to reduce flights at Newark airport

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Move after airport sees radar outages, flight delays and cancellations due to shortage of traffic controllers

The US transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, plans to reduce the number of flights in and out of the Newark Liberty international airport for the “next several weeks”, as the facility – one of the country’s busiest airports – struggles with radar outages, numerous flight delays and cancellations due to a shortage of air traffic controllers.

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Duffy said he would convene a meeting with all the airlines flying out of Newark this week to determine the reduction, adding that it would fluctuate, with a larger reduction coming in the afternoons when international flight arrivals make it busier at the airport, one of the main hubs serving the New York City area.

Guardian staff contributed to this report

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Quakers march 300 miles to protest Trump’s immigration crackdown

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Group marches from New York City to Washington, carrying on a long tradition of Quaker activism

A group of Quakers were marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington DC to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

The march extends a long tradition of Quaker activism. Historically, Quakers have been involved in peaceful protests to end wars and slavery, and support women’s voting rights in line with their commitment to justice and peace. Far more recently, Quakers sued the federal government earlier this year over immigration agents’ ability to make arrests at houses of worship.

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Trump to embark on Middle East trip to meet Gulf allies

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President eager to discuss trade and investment but no plans to visit Israel amid tensions over Gaza war

Donald Trump this week will embark on the first foreign trip of his second administration with a tour of the Middle East, as he looks to secure investment, trade and technology deals from friendly leaders with deep pockets amid turbulent negotiations around numerous regional conflicts, including Israel’s war in Gaza.

The tour through the Middle East is largely a repeat of his first international trip in 2017, when he was feted in the region as a transactional leader eager to secure quick wins and capable of providing support for the regional monarchies’ economic and geopolitical interests.

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New Jersey mayor to continue fight against Ice detention center after arrest

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Newark’s Ras Baraka says court fight against Geo Group will go on despite being jailed and charged with trespassing

Speaking out after his arrest on Tuesday, the Newark mayor Ras Baraka said his city would continue its fight in court against the company that runs an immigration detention facility in New Jersey.

“I know there are some protests that other people are planning, and if I feel obligated to be there, I will,” Baraka told the Rev Al Sharpton on MSNBC Saturday afternoon. “This doesn’t stop the city’s contention with the Geo Group, and we’re going to continue in court with them.”

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‘From all sides’: universities in red states face attacks from DC and at home

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As universities begin to push back on Trump’s policies, those in Republican-led states face multiple threats

Days after the University of Michigan president, Santa Ono, announced that he was leaving his post to lead the University of Florida, his name was quietly removed on Wednesday from a letter signed by more than 600 university presidents denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with academic institutions.

As Ono is set to become the highest-paid public university president in the country, in a state that has often been at the forefront of the rightwing battle against higher education, the reversal, first reported on by Talking Points Memo, underscored the challenges of standing up against the government’s sweeping attacks on education in solidly red states.

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Are we heading for another world war – or has it already started?

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The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships

In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.

The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.

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Mayor of Newark arrested for trespassing at Ice detention center

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Ras Baraka, who has spoken out against Trump’s immigration policies, was at the center with Democratic members of Congress

The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested for trespass at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention center in New Jersey on Friday as Democratic members of Congress also attempted to conduct what they say was a visit to the controversial facility to conduct “federal oversight”.

News of Baraka’s arrest at Delaney Hall was reported on X by Alina Habba, the acting US attorney for the district of New Jersey, and a former personal attorney and adviser to Donald Trump.

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White House to take choice of Pentagon chief of staff out of Hegseth’s hands

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Exclusive: The intervention to marginalize Ricky Buria is aimed at insulating the Pentagon from any more missteps

Exasperated by the turmoil that has dogged Pete Hegseth’s office in recent weeks, the White House will block the US defense secretary’s choice of chief of staff and select a candidate of its own, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hegseth had suggested giving the chief of staff position to Marine Col Ricky Buria after the first person in the role, Joe Kasper, left last month in the wake of a contentious leak investigation that brought the ouster of three other senior aides.

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Immigrants set for Libya deportation sat on tarmac for hours, attorney says

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Any Trump administration efforts to send non-Libyans to the north African country would violate a prior court order

Immigrants in Texas who were told they would be deported to Libya sat on a military airfield tarmac for hours on Wednesday, unsure of what would happen next, an attorney for one of the men has said.

The attorney, Tin Thanh Nguyen, told the news agency Reuters that his client, a Vietnamese construction worker from Los Angeles, was among the immigrants woken in the early morning hours and bussed from an immigration detention center in Pearsall, Texas, to an airfield where a military aircraft awaited them.

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