Category Archives: US Politics

Senior Trump officials give conflicting lines on tariffs after markets turmoil

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Commerce secretary insists on CBS that tariffs will ‘stay in place’ as treasury secretary tells NBC negotiation is possible

Senior officials within Donald Trump’s administration gave conflicting messages on Sunday about the US president’s global tariffs that have caused a meltdown in stock markets, prompted warnings of a world recession and provoked rare expressions of dissent from within his Republican party.

Cabinet members fanned out across Sunday’s political talk shows armed with talking points on Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff on almost all US imports, with higher rates targeted at about 60 countries. If the intention was to calm nerves with a clear statement of intent, then it backfired as top officials gave starkly contrasting signals.

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Cory Booker urges action in first event since historic speech: ‘This is a moment for America’

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Democratic senator calls on voters to get creative in pushing back against Trump at town hall in New Jersey

The Democratic senator Cory Booker took a version of his record-breaking Senate floor speech on the road Saturday to a town hall meeting in a New Jersey gymnasium, calling on people to find out what they can do to push back against Donald Trump’s agenda.

Booker took questions at suburban New Jersey’s Bergen Community College the same day that more than 1,200 “Hands Off” demonstrations took place around the country. The town hall event was punctuated both by celebratory shouts of “Cory, Cory” as well as at least a half-dozen interruptions by protesters.

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‘Hands Off’ protests take off across US and Europe to oppose Trump agenda – as it happened

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Protesters gather at more than a thousand events across the US and in cities abroad, such as London, Berlin and Paris. This blog is now closed.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in central London on Saturday as part of global demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration.

Crowds gathered in Trafalgar Square with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”. The rally is one of hundreds of so-called “Hands Off” demonstrations around the world – including in cities across the US, Paris and Berlin.

We see the foundations of our society, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, the very safety nets that people have fought for, for generations, to ensure that our country lives up to its promise, are being targeted by the billionaires and the oligarchs and the corporations.

This insidious rise of authoritarianism is fueled by corrupt billionaires and mega corporations who believe that they have the right to control every aspect of our lives, our healthcare, to our schools, to our thoughts, to our very free speech under the false banner of patriotism and freedom …

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Ted Cruz warns of midterm ‘bloodbath’ if Trump tariffs cause a recession

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Texas senator’s comments another sign of Republican unease over ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and stock market plunge

Ted Cruz, the US senator from Texas, has warned that his fellow Republicans risk a “bloodbath” in the 2026 midterm elections if Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs cause a recession.

Cruz also warned that the president’s tariffs, if they stay in place for long and are met by global retaliation on American goods, could trigger a full-blown trade war that “would destroy jobs here at home, and do real damage to the US economy”.

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Barack Obama calls on Americans to defend democratic values in face of Trump agenda

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‘It is up to all of us to fix this,’ former president said in speech at Hamilton College in New York

Barack Obama has called on US citizens, colleges and law firms to resist Donald Trump’s political agenda – and warned Americans to prepare to “possibly sacrifice” in support of democratic values.

“It has been easy during most of our lifetimes to say you are a progressive or say you are for social justice or say you’re for free speech and not have to pay a price for it,” Obama said during a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on Thursday.

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Senate approves Republican plan for trillions in tax breaks and spending cuts

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Vote fell mostly along party lines and now goes to the House, where it could be voted on as soon as next week

Senate Republicans plugged away overnight and into early Saturday morning to approve their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts framework, hurtling past hardened Democratic opposition toward what Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” that is central to his agenda.

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent GOP senators. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment. The US economy is churning after the president’s vast tariff scheme sent stocks plummeting, and experts are warning of soaring costs for consumers at home and threats of a potential recession. Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against the bill.

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Trump officials quietly move to reverse bans on toxic ‘forever chemicals’

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EPA bids to change chemical risk evaluations, which could expose public to higher levels of PFAS and other pollutants

The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods.

The bans, largely at the state level, touch most facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from bisphenol in children’s products to mercury in personal care products to PFAS in food packaging and clothing.

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George Santos prosecutors seek seven-year prison term for campaign fraud

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Disgraced Republican congressman ‘made a mockery’ of election system and merits long sentence, US officials say

Prosecutors are seeking more than seven years in prison for disgraced former congressman George Santos after he pleaded guilty to federal fraud and identity theft charges.

The US attorney for the eastern district of New York argued in a court filing on Friday that a significant sentence was warranted because the New York Republican’s “unparalleled crimes” had “made a mockery” of the country’s election system.

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Federal judge rules return of Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador prison

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White House has said US courts can’t order return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose wife has been protesting outside court

A federal judge on Friday afternoon ordered the US to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison after a Trump administration attorney was at a loss to explain what happened.

The wife of the man, who was flown to a notorious Salvadoran prison had earlier joined dozens of supporters at a rally before a court hearing on Friday, where his lawyers had asked the judge – Paula Xinis – to order the Trump administration to return him to the US.

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She’s a waitress raised on a farm – can Rebecca Cooke win a key Wisconsin seat?

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Moderate Democrat believes she can unseat Republican Derrick Van Orden, who was at the Capitol on January 6

Wisconsin’s third congressional district has voted for Donald Trump every time he’s been on the ballot, but the moderate Democrat Rebecca Cooke, a waitress who grew up on a dairy farm, thinks she can flip the state’s most competitive seat next year.

Last year, Cooke outperformed other Democrats when she tried to unseat incumbent Derrick Van Orden, a retired US Navy Seal who attended the January 6 “Stop the Steal
” rally at the Capitol and shouted “lies” during Joe Biden’s 2024 state of the union address. She lost the race by less than three points.

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Democrats decry reported dismissal of NSA director Tim Haugh

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Lawmakers say dismissing head of US Cyber Command puts country at risk at a time of ‘unprecedented cyber threats’

Top congressional Democrats are protesting against the reported firing of Gen Tim Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), with one lawmaker saying the decision “makes all of us less safe”.

Haugh and his civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, have been dismissed from their roles, the Washington Post reported late on Thursday, with CNN reporting likewise, both outlets citing multiple unnamed officials and other senior sources close to the matter who had requested anonymity.

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US added 228,000 jobs in March despite Trump’s deep cuts to federal workforce

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Figure up from 117,000 jobs added in February, far higher than expected, as unemployment rose slightly to 4.2%

The US added 228,000 jobs in March, far more than expected, as the US economy shook off the blow from the Trump administration’s deep cuts to federal workers.

The figure was up from an adjusted 117,000 jobs added in February. Unemployment rose slightly to 4.2%.

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Wisconsin recipient of $1m from Musk was active in Republican campaigning

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Nicholas Jacobs was immersed in party activities, even working to elect the Musk-favored candidate who lost

Archived social media posts from a student Republican operative, Nicholas Jacobs, who received a $1m check from Elon Musk, show that he was deeply immersed in Republican electioneering over the last year, working not only to elect Donald Trump but other party candidates in the state.

They included failed Wisconsin Republican senate candidate Eric Hovde; first-term congressman Tony Wied; incumbent Milwaukee Republican vice-chair Brett Galaszewski; and Brad Schimel, the state supreme court candidate whom Musk has spent $25m supporting.

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Trump reportedly threatening to freeze $510m in grants from Brown University

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University says it has not yet been notified, but school was among dozens warned of academic crackdown

The Trump administration is taking aim at Brown University with threats to freeze $510m in grants, widening its promise to withhold federal funding from schools it accuses of allowing antisemitism on campus, according to multiple media outlets including Reuters and the New York Times.

University officials said they had not yet been formally notified, but the school was among dozens warned last month that enforcement actions could be coming as the administration seeks to crack down on academic institutions .

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Danish PM tells US ‘you cannot annex another country’ on visit to Greenland

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Mette Frederiksen, who met island’s new and outgoing PMs, says she wants to cooperate with Trump on Arctic security

The Danish prime minister has put on a show of unity with Greenlandic leaders in her first visit to the Arctic island since Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire the territory, telling the US: “You cannot annex another country.”

Speaking onboard an inspection ship in front of a military helicopter, alongside Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and its outgoing prime minister, Múte B Egede, Mette Frederiksen switched from Danish to English to address the diplomatic standoff with the Trump administration.

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Republicans join Democrats in Senate vote to rescind Trump Canada tariffs

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Resolution that would block tariffs passes 51-48 in Senate, in vote that shows Republican unease over president’s plans

Several Republican senators joined Democrats to pass a resolution that would block Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, a rare rebuke of the president’s trade policy just hours after he announced plans for sweeping import taxes on some of the country’s largest trading partners.

In a 51-48 vote, four Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and both Kentucky senators, the former majority leader Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul – defied Trump’s pressure campaign and supported the measure. Democrats used a procedural maneuver to force a vote on the resolution, which would terminate the national emergency on fentanyl Trump is using to justify tariffs on Canada.

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Trump goes full gameshow host to push his tariff plan – and nobody’s a winner

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There were charts and scores, as if The Price Is Right had come to Washington. The big prize? A global trade war

It was Jeopardy!, or The Price Is Right, come to Washington.

On an unseasonably chilly day in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump stood with a giant chart listing which reciprocal tariffs he would impose on China, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other hapless contestants.

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Joe Rogan breaks with Trump, calling Venezuelan deportations ‘horrific’

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Influential podcast host and prominent Trump supporter criticizes administration for removal of gay makeup artist

Joe Rogan, the influential podcast host and prominent supporter of Donald Trump, has criticized the president’s administration over the deportation of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser to a prison in El Salvador, calling it “horrific”.

Andry José Hernández Romero, who is gay, had sought asylum in the US, telling officials he faced persecution because of his sexual orientation and political views. But US immigration officers argued the crown tattoos on his wrists were proof he was part of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang, despite Hernández Romero telling them he was not. Last month, he was flown from Texas to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, a facility that his lawyer said was “one of the worst places in the world”. His removal comes as the administration undertakes what Trump has pledged would be a mass deportation campaign.

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Trump’s tariffs: how might Europe respond to unleashing of trade war?

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Bloc’s options include retaliating with tariffs on US goods and services and forming closer ties with other countries

Donald Trump is getting ready to impose sweeping and immediate tariffs on all foreign goods, thereby unleashing a trade war and upending the multilateral trading system that the US helped to build after the second world war.

Here is how Europe might respond:

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Wednesday briefing: What the latest wave of tariffs mean for the US, UK, Europe – and you

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In today’s newsletter: The administration’s sweeping tariffs have left markets bracing for volatility – but what impact will they have on an unsteady global economy?

Good morning. According to Donald Trump, it’s “liberation day”: the advent of a new trade order in which Americans reap the benefit of massive tariffs on imports, and the rest of the world picks up the tab.

Unsurprisingly, the United States’ trading partners tend to take a very different view. And they are doing everything they can to avoid being passive targets for the White House’s carnivorous vision of American exceptionalism.

Israel-Gaza war | Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz announced a major expansion of the military operation in Gaza on Wednesday, saying large areas of the enclave would be seized and added to the security zones of Israel. Follow the latest here.

Israel-Gaza war | Some of the bodies of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in Gaza, were found with their hands or legs tied and had gunshot wounds to the head and chest, according to two eyewitnesses. The accounts add to evidence pointing to a potentially serious war crime on 23 March.

UK news | More than 20 women have contacted police to say they fear they may have been attacked by the serial rapist Zhenhao Zou, with detectives fearing there may be even more victims to come. Zou, 28, was convicted last month of raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2024.

US politics | Cory Booker, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, has broken the record for longest speech ever by a lone senator by spending 25 hours and five minutes inveighing against Donald Trump in the chamber. Booker’s speech was intended to highlight the “grave and urgent” danger that Trump poses to democracy.

Cinema | Val Kilmer, the actor best known for his roles in Top Gun, Batman Forever and The Doors, has died at the age of 65. His daughter Mercedes told the New York Times that the cause of death was pneumonia.

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