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      Trump says he thinks Zelenskyy is ready to give up Crimea despite previous comments

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      US President Donald Trump has said he thinks Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to give up Crimea, despite his Ukrainian counterpart’s previous assertions on the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey on Sunday a day after meeting with Zelenskyy at the Vatican, Trump said “Oh, I think so,” in response to a question on whether he thought Zelenskyy was ready to “give up” the territory.Zelenskyy said last week that Ukraine could not accept US recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, after Trump accused him of intransigence on the issue. Zelenskyy on Friday insisted the territory was the “property of the Ukrainian people”. He did not immediately respond to Trump’s latest comments.Two sets of peace plans published by Reuters on Friday showed that the US is proposing Moscow retain the territory it has captured, including the strategic Crimean peninsula.German defence minister Boris Pistorius on Sunday said the US proposal for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia was “akin to a capitulation”.In an interview with the broadcaster ARD, he said that Kyiv knew that a peace agreement may involve territorial concessions.“But these will certainly not go … as far as they do in the latest proposal from the US president,” Pistorius said. “Ukraine on its own could have got a year ago what was included in that [Trump] proposal, it is akin to a capitulation. I cannot discern any added value.”Despite the comments on Crimea, the US president expressed newfound sympathy for his Ukrainian counterpart on Sunday, saying he “wants to do something good for his country” and “is working hard”.Reflecting on his conversation with the Ukrainian president, the US president also said that he was “surprised and disappointed, very disappointed” that Russia had bombed Ukraine after discussions between Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s peace envoy, Steve Witkoff. “I was very disappointed that missiles were flying, by Russia,” the US president said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump said that Zelenskyy “told me that he needs more weapons, but he’s been saying that for three years”.Asked what he wants Putin to do, Trump replied: “Well, I want him to stop shooting. Sit down and sign the deal. We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it.”“Do you trust President Putin?” Trump was asked.“I’ll let you know in about two weeks,” Trump said. Pressed to elaborate on what he expects to happen in two weeks, Trump evaded the question. “Two weeks or less,” he said, vaguely, “but you know they’re losing a lot of people. We have 3, 4,000 people dying every week.”Trump also said that his relationship with Zelenskyy was improved by the face-to-face at the Vatican: “Look, it was never bad. We had a little dispute, because I disagreed with something he said, and the cameras were rolling and that was OK with me.”“Look, he’s in a tough situation, a very tough situation. He’s fighting a much bigger force, much bigger,” Trump added. The president then repeated his frequent false claim that the United States had given Ukraine $350bn to aid its defense from the Russian invasion.“I see him as calmer,” Trump said, comparing the Zelenskyy he met at the Vatican with the one he confronted in the Oval Office in February. “I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal.”The president also claimed that there had been “a little bit” of progress in trade talks with China, talks that Chinese officials have said are not taking place. “They want to make a deal, obviously,” Trump said. “Now, they’re not doing any business with us, you know, because, not because of them, because of me. Because at 145%, you can’t do business,” he said, in reference to the import tariff rate he imposed this month. “But something’s going to happen, that’s going to be possible.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: President says he wants Putin ‘to stop shooting’ after talks with Zelenskyy

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      Donald Trump appears to have warmed to Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the two presidents met at the Vatican, with the US leader emerging from talks with a plea for Vladimir Putin: “stop shooting”.Trump on Sunday said Zelenskyy “wants to do something good” for Ukraine and is “working hard”, adding he was also “surprised and disappointed” that Russia continued to strike Ukraine after discussions between his peace envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Putin.Asked what he wants Putin to do, Trump replied: “Well, I want him to stop shooting,” he told reporters. “Sit down and sign the deal. We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it and be done with it.”Trump hints at two-week goal to progress on Ukraine peace dealWhile speaking to reporters, Trump hinted at a two-week deadline to strike or at least make progress on a peace deal. Trump has previously threatened to walk away from negotiations if a swift agreement is not reached.When asked if he trusted Putin, Trump replied, “I’ll let you know in about two weeks.” Pressed to elaborate on what he expects to happen in two weeks, he evaded the question. “Two weeks or less,” he said, vaguely, “but you know they’re losing a lot of people. We have 3, 4,000 people dying every week.”Read the full storyMore than 100 people detained after federal raid in Colorado SpringsMore than 300 law enforcement officers from at least 10 federal agencies raided an illegal after-hours nightclub in Colorado Springs early on Sunday, arresting more than 100 people authorities said were undocumented immigrants and seizing guns, cocaine, meth and pink cocaine. More than a dozen active-duty military members were detained as well, authorities said.The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) posted a video on X of the post-raid scene, with dozens of partygoers holding their hands up. Another video showed dozens of people fleeing the building through its entrance after federal agents smashed a window.Read the full storyUS treasury secretary says ‘there is a path’ with China over tariff negotiationsThe US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said “there is a path” to an agreement with China over tariffs after he had interactions with his Chinese counterparts last week in Washington, but he continued to defend Trump’s trade plan as “strategic uncertainty” amid accusations the White House was sending mixed signals over its policy.Read the full storyTrump golf club to host speaker who markets bleach as health treatmentTrump’s private golf resort in South Florida will next week host one of the world’s leading purveyors of chlorine dioxide, a potentially life-threatening form of industrial bleach that is claimed without evidence to be a cure for cancer, Covid and autism.Andreas Kalcker is among 50 listed speakers at the “Truth Seekers Conference”, a two-day event opening on Thursday at the US president’s resort, Trump National Doral Miami. The event features several anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists who have been brought together by the far-right commentator Charlie Ward.Read the full storyHakeem Jeffries and Cory Booker livestream sit-in against GOP funding planHouse minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and New Jersey senator Cory Booker were holding a sit-in protest and discussion on Sunday on the steps of the US Capitol in opposition to the Republicans’ proposed budget plan. Billed as an “Urgent Conversation with the American People”, the livestreamed discussion comes before Congress’s return to session on Monday, where Democrats hope to stall Republicans’ economic legislative agenda.Read the full storyTwo suspects arrested for theft of Kristi Noem’s purse, Secret Service saysTwo suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft last week of the US homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s purse as she ate at a Washington DC restaurant, officials said on Sunday.Noem’s purse was nabbed on Easter Sunday and reportedly contained about $3,000 in cash and her keys, driver’s license, passport and homeland security badge. The homeland security department said Noem had cash in her purse to pay for gifts, dinner and other activities for her family on Easter.Read the full storyBehind the Trump protest movement that launched on RedditAnti-Trump “hands off” protests grew from tens of thousands of people on 5 February to millions around the country by April. Demonstrations on 19 April were also well attended nationwide. “It’s gone from a trickle to a tidal wave really quickly,” said Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for the movement 50501, short for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.Here’s how the movement grew.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Trump said he would restore Columbus Day in full and shirk Joe Biden’s practice of celebrating an Indigenous People’s Day in parallel to the public holiday. “I’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes,” he wrote on social media, accusing Democrats of trying to “destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much.”

      Americans anxious about their country’s slide into authoritarianism found some solace in the past week over what appears to be growing pushback by American universities against Trump’s assault on higher education.

      Environmental conservation groups are expressing major concerns over Trump’s recent proclamation to reverse fishing regulations across the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine national monument, a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean spanning nearly 500,000 sq miles.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 26 April 2025. More

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      US treasury secretary says ‘there is a path’ with China over tariff negotiations

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      The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said “there is a path” to an agreement with China over tariffs after he had interactions with his Chinese counterparts last week in Washington.“I had interaction with my Chinese counterparts, but it was more on the traditional things like financial stability, global economic early warnings,” Bessent told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday, explaining that he had spoken to the Chinese during International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington. “I don’t know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi,” he added.On Friday, Donald Trump asserted in an interview that tariff negotiations were under way with China, comments he repeated on his way to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, but were later denied by China’s foreign ministry, which said the US “should stop creating confusion”.A day later, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said Beijing abides by international rules on US-imposed tariffs and would seek solidarity with other countries.“Certain countries adhere to their own priorities, engage in bullying pressure and coercive transactions, and provoke trade wars for no reason, exposing their extreme egoism,” Wang said on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Kazakhstan.On Sunday, Bessent attempted to weave through the conflicting signals over what progress was being made to de-escalate a trade war threatening to sap global growth.“The Chinese will see this high tariff level is unsustainable for their business,” he said. He added that Beijing’s denial that negotiations are ongoing was for a Chinese audience.“I think they’re playing to a different audience,” Bessent said. “We have a process in place and, again, I just believe these Chinese tariffs are unsustainable.“The first path will be, again, a de-escalation, which I think the Chinese are going to have to have. Then I think there can be an agreement in principle, these 17 or 18 important trade deals that we’re negotiating.”But Bessent warned that “a trade deal can take months” and said negotiations with other significant US trading partners were progressing. “Some of those are moving along very well, especially the – with the Asian countries,” he said, praising Trump’s negotiating strategy.“In game theory it’s called strategic uncertainty,” he said. “So, you’re not going to tell the person on the other side of the negotiation where you’re going to end up. And nobody’s better at creating this leverage than President Trump.”The treasury secretary’s comments come as top US retailers have reportedly warned the White House that tariffs will cause empty store shelves and price hikes within weeks.Bloomberg reported that Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein raised US prices of its products from dresses to kitchenware on Friday ahead of imminent tariffs on small parcels. The average price for the top 100 products in the beauty and health category increased by 51%, and more than 30% for home and kitchen products and toys, including a 377% increase in the price of a 10-piece set of kitchen towels.Trump predicted on Sunday that tariffs would ultimately benefit US taxpayers and boost employment. “When Tariffs cut in, many people’s Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.“Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year. Also, massive numbers of jobs are already being created, with new plants and factories currently being built or planned.” He called it a “bonanza” for Americans and said “the external service is happening”.Separately on Sunday, US agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins said the US was holding daily conversations with China over tariffs. “Every day we are in conversation with China, along with those other 99, 100 countries that have come to the table,” Rollins said on CNN’s State of the Union.Rollins said the president was prepared to bail out American farmers if the trade war continues squeezing commodity exports, particularly soybean and pork sales to China.“First of all, the prayer is that that doesn’t need to happen – but secondly, if it does, for the short term, just as in Trump 1, we are preparing for that,” Rollins said.Rollins said it could take months before it is known whether a bail-out is needed.“I don’t think we’re going to need it, but if we do, it will be there,” Rollins said. More

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      ‘A trickle to a tidal wave’: behind the Trump protest movement that launched on Reddit

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      It started with a Reddit post.“50 PROTESTS – 50 STATES – 1 DAY,” the user who goes by Evolved Fungi wrote, kicking off a movement that has since drawn hundreds of thousands to the streets in protests against Donald Trump across the country.The movement – pronounced “fifty-fifty-one”, meaning 50 protests, 50 states, one movement – first called for a day of action on 5 February, a date chosen seemingly at random. Local organizers would lead protests in their cities and towns, but the movement would not have a leader, and it would not be centralized.As Trump moved quickly to dismantle agencies, policies and norms, slashing through the federal government, people wanted to express their dismay – and they weren’t seeing it from their elected leaders.“Trump and his cronies are actively trying to take over our country and destroy our democracy, and the Democratic party is not doing enough to stop them, so people are going to step in,” said Hunter Dunn, the national press coordinator for the movement. “That was the basic idea.”The 5 February protest drew tens of thousands across the country. A subsequent February protest got more people into the streets. Come 5 April, a large coalition that included 50501 resulted in millions of people around the country rallying in their cities and towns in a “hands off” demonstration. And on 19 April, was another big showing nationwide Some communities also held mutual aid events such as food and supply drives and potlucks, Dunn said.The movement is one of many coming together to rally in the streets, organize events, contact lawmakers and build a resistance to Trump’s second term.“It’s gone from a trickle to a tidal wave really quickly,” Dunn said.A 50501 subreddit remains an active organizing space, where people discuss ideas for local protests, messages they should put on posters, strategies for getting more people involved. The movement is active on nearly all social media channels, and local offshoots have their own pages as well.The group is planning its next day of mass protest on 1 May, which will be focused on workers’ rights and immigrant rights. 50501 is far from the only group organizing around May Day, a frequent day of action for labor groups around the world.There are now thousands of volunteers across all 50 states and in DC who help with 50501 in their communities, Dunn said. People come together to organize an event, like a protest or demonstration, and form small teams. Those small teams can then become part of state-level 50501 groups. The state-level groups help inform a national group. Local organizers vote on dates for national days of protest, he said.“50501 is not an organization,” the movement’s handbook, posted on its website, says. “It is not a company. It’s not a brand, club, or influencer. It is an agreed-upon idea to end the executive overreach of the Trump administration. Do not look to 50501 for leadership or permission to hold your own government accountable. The time has come for you to get involved. You are 50501. Together our voices cannot be ignored.”Seasoned activists were initially skeptical – they didn’t know the group behind the protest, and they feared it could be a set-up from the other side, designed to make the opposition look weak, or worse, to draw people into a trap. Now, though, established and centralized groups have partnered with 50501 on protests after their fears weren’t realized.In response to some of the early skepticism, Evolved Fungi responded on Reddit that he was “not a foreign agent, or bad actor, or whatever people seem to want to think” but “just a regular guy”. In fact, he has said on Reddit that he started organizing protests in opposition to infant circumcision. He did not respond to a request for an interview and has not yet been named publicly.“People didn’t need to find each other and then plan a date and a place – they needed a date and a place to find each other,” he wrote of the concept. “And at the core, that’s what 50501 is – a date and a place to find each other and stand together.”He later reflected on the first few actions and how the movement had grown from his concept: “You aren’t led by me, you’re led by that spirit in EVERY ONE OF US that sees a wrong and needs to do something to make it right! The same spirit that made me first write about 50501, as a normal guy who saw something wrong and did something about it to try to make it right. Just like you are doing.”The movement lists four groups as partners: Political Revolution, Voices of Florida, NoVoiceUnheard and Build the Resistance. Dunn said Political Revolution has helped build out its website and other places to coordinate events and provided technical support. Voices of Florida has helped train new organizers on how to speak to the press and keep people safe at protests, he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSarah Parker, the executive director of Voices of Florida, told Rolling Stone: “We’re building the airplane while flying it. It’s amazing to see new people building this amazing infrastructure. It’s bottom-up, not top-down.”Many of those involved in the movement are new to political organizing and action, but others have been parts of previous movements, such as Black Lives Matter, or, for some older activists, as far back as anti-Vietnam war protests, Dunn said.Dunn got involved after he saw an Instagram post about 50501. He had previously organized in his local school district as a high schooler to help pass diversity initiatives and worked on some local political campaigns. He helped organize a 50501 protest in Los Angeles on 5 February.Another organizer, Sydney, told the Guardian in February that she hadn’t organized protests before, but didn’t see anyone in her part of Pennsylvania planning a 5 February action. “I decided to pick the ball up and do it myself. And I learned a lot extremely quickly. It’s probably one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done,” she said.Sydney, who asked to use only her first name, said the Pittsburgh protests have grown from a couple hundred people to more than 1,000 at the 19 April event. “It feels amazing. I mean that in the best way possible. But there are some days where I’m like, is this actually happening? Is this real? It’s been amazing to watch.”Each day of action has had more people than the one before it, she said.“I’m seeing more and more parts of Pennsylvania actually take up their own mantle and start their own actions, because, for whatever reason, they can’t get to Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Philadelphia,” she said. “I hope that that momentum results in our elected officials hearing our voice and hearing that we are not happy with the way things are going, and listening to us.”Dunn expects the protests to continue to grow as more of Trump’s agenda takes hold.“I always like to tell people, when they ask how they can join, there’s four things you need to do: you need to be pro-democracy. You need to be trying to protect the constitution. You need to be against executive overreach. You have to be non-violent. If you’re those four things, you’re 50501 if you say you are.” More

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      What is Tren de Aragua and has the group ‘invaded’ the United States?

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      The Trump administration has fixated on portraying a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, or TdA, as a state-sponsored international terrorist organization that has invaded the US.Donald Trump uses the argument to justify extreme enforcement measures against Venezuelan immigrants and cast a cloud across the Venezuelan diaspora, especially communities in the US.The US president claims the criminal group “is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare” here, which in turn should allow agents to arrest Venezuelans and exile them to Guantánamo Bay or El Salvador’s Cecot prison without even a court hearing.Yet experts say the claims do not reflect reality and, instead, Donald Trump has concocted a bogeyman to fuel his extreme immigration crackdown.What is Tren de Aragua?TdA is a gang that originated in Venezuela but has since expanded its reach to other countries in Latin America, alongside a more general mass diaspora of more than 7.7 million Venezuelans fleeing autocratic rule under the president, Nicolás Maduro.Some scholars track the group’s early days to 2005, when a trade union’s members started to embezzle funds and extort contractors while working on a railroad project – hence the “tren”, or “train”, in the Aragua region.TdA then took off in Venezuela’s Aragua state around 2014, within the Tocorón prison, where members had access to restaurants, a swimming pool, a zoo, a nightclub and other amenities atypical of a lock-up. The penitentiary became TdA’s headquarters – where leaders on the inside directed criminal activity on the outside – until 2023, when the Venezuelan government raided Tocorón and the gang began to fragment.One scholar wrote: “The TdA is of modest prominence and is nowhere near as established as other gangs in Central and South America.” Some of those more influential criminal organizations, such as MS-13 and Mexico’s cartels, have long had a foothold in – or even have their origins in – the US.That said, TdA has been powerful enough to torment and exploit other Venezuelans at home and abroad, preying particularly on vulnerable women, who are forced into the sex industry to pay off their debt after the gang smuggles them to nearby countries such as Chile, Colombia or Peru.TdA members have also started working with Mexican cartels, infiltrating groups of immigrants and then colluding with Mexico’s organized crime networks to extort them.Has Tren de Aragua ‘invaded’ the US?Tren de Aragua does have a presence in the US, but that presence is diffuse, uncoordinated, and on a smaller scale than the Trump administration’s repeatedly sounding the alarm and citing TdA in immigration-related arrests might make it seem. Three experts put it bluntly when they wrote for the New York Times: “Tren de Aragua is not invading America.”That’s not to say that individual TdA members – or people purporting to be TdA members for clout – haven’t caused real harm and suffering for many communities across the US. In Miami, a former Venezuelan police officer was reportedly abducted and murdered by a TdA member. Another supposed gang member allegedly shot two New York police officers. And the criminal organization has seemingly imported its sex-trafficking model, exploiting Venezuelan women who owe them for transportation into the US.Even so, InSight Crime, a thinktank that studies organized crime across the Americas, has said that TdA is growing weaker, not stronger, and “now operates more as a loose collection of franchises than a cohesive organization”.Earlier this month, US authorities revealed federal charges of racketeering, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, firearm offenses and robbery against 27 alleged current or alleged former TdA members and associates, indictments and arrests that attorney general Pam Bondi said would “devastate TdA’s infrastructure”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBy late last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was looking into more than 600 immigrants in the US suspected of having some connection to TdA, though whether they were victims, witnesses or gang members remained unclear.That number represents fewer than 0.09% of the 700,000 Venezuelans who have resettled in the US, many of whom feel they are being smeared.The criteria cited as justification for alleging detainees or people being removed from the US without due process are TdA members include suspects making hand signs, wearing Chicago Bulls paraphernalia or similar, or having certain tattoos, which prominent researchers of gangs have said are not strong indicators, or indicia at all, of gang membership.Meanwhile, several federal judges say essentially that Trump’s using the AEA and claims of “war” and “invasion” are invalid, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed lawsuits across the country challenging its use to skirt due process.Is Tren de Aragua working with Venezuela’s government?Trump is relying on highly controversial measures, chiefly the wartime 1798 Alien Enemies Act, or AEA, to summarily deport people the administration alleges are TdA members, many of whom have not been charged with crimes. His justification is that the gang is acting “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela”.That’s unlikely. TdA was protected by the Venezuelan government in the past, according to InSight Crime. But that agreement no longer stands, with the raid on the criminal organization’s prison headquarters a case in point.The Washington Post reports that a recent National Intelligence Council internal assessment – which relied on information from the US’s 18 intelligence agencies – determined that while TdA has some low-level contacts in Maduro’s government, it is in no way commanded by Maduro. This makes Trump’s using the invasion argument to bypass due process flimsy – and contrary to the US supreme court’s insistence of the right for individuals to challenge the government. More

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      Journalists defend press freedom at muted White House correspondents’ dinner

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      Journalists rallied in defence of press freedom on Saturday, insisting they “are not the enemy of the people” at a Washington media gala snubbed by Donald Trump.The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner was a muted affair with no US president, no comedian and notably fewer politicians or Hollywood stars than in past years.The event took place under the shadow of a second Trump administration that has launched a wave of fresh attacks on freedom of the press, barring the Associated Press from the presidential pool and moving to shut down the Voice of America broadcaster.In a typical year the president attends the WHCA dinner to congratulate journalists on their work, give a jokey speech and take it on the chin as a comedian jabs at their expense. But Trump, who has branded the media “the enemy of the people”, gave the dinner a wide berth during his first term and stayed away again this time.Eugene Daniels, who leads the WHCA, noted that presidents from both sides of the political spectrum are invited every year. “We don’t invite presidents of the United States to this because it’s for them,” he said. “We don’t invite them because we want to cosy up to them or curry favour.“We don’t only extend invites to the presidents who say they love journalists or who say they’re defenders of the first amendment and a free press. We invite them to remind them that they should be.”Daniels then showed a video montage of past presidents, from Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, addressing the dinner with self-deprecating jokes while also expressing their admiration for the press and its central importance in safeguarding democracy. Trump was conspicuous by his absence.As guests watched, Daniels continued: “We journalists are a lot of things. We are competitive and pushy. We are impatient and sometimes we think we know everything, but we’re also human. We miss our families and significant life moments in service to this job.“We care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public’s trust. What we are not is the opposition, what we are not is the enemy of the people and what we are not is the enemy of the state.” The giant ballroom erupted in applause.The Trump administration has had multiple skirmishes with the press in recent months. Federal funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS is under threat. Trump has also launched legal assaults on private network CBS and the local Des Moines Register newspaper in Iowa, and brought to heel ABC, which paid $15m under threat of a libel lawsuit.The dinner announced scholarships for aspiring journalists and paid tribute to trailblazing figures in White House press history. It presented awards recognising excellence in reporting, writing and visual journalism. Winners delivered acceptance speeches that were careful not to criticise Trump directly but did unite around the theme of defending the first amendment, which protects freedom of speech.Alex Thompson of Axios, who won an award for coverage of Biden, silenced a room that was otherwise buzzing all night when he called out the media for failing to adequately investigate Biden’s mental acuity. The issue blew up when the 81-year-old gave a disastrous debate performance four months before the election.“President Biden’s decline and its cover up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception,” Thompson said. “But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves.“We, myself included, missed a lot of this story and some people trust us less because of that. We bear some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows. I say this because acknowledging errors builds trust and being defensive about the further erodes it. We should have done better.”It was a night of few laughs. The WHCA had invited then cancelled comedian Amber Ruffin after she referred to the Trump administration as “kind of a bunch of murderers” and asserted that “nobody wants” Trump to attend the dinner.Ruffin was excoriating in her response to being dropped, telling talk show host Seth Meyers: “We have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That’s what it says in the first amendment.”The dinner – a formal occasion where the dress code is tuxedos and gowns – has in past years hosted celebrities such as George Clooney, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hiddleston Scarlett Johansson, Sean Penn and Steven Spielberg. Not on Saturday, although Jason Isaacs, the British actor who stars in the latest series of The White Lotus, put in an appearance.White House officials and members of Congress were also unusually scarce but did include Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator for Minnesota. She told the Guardian: “I thought it was great. The dinner was back at its roots, honouring these incredible journalists and it was actually a lot of fun. I felt like I was at the journalists’ Academy Awards and it was really good.”Klobuchar added: “They hardly talked about Donald Trump. They just talked about their work and through Democratic and Republican presidents and why they do it.” More

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      Trump disdains conservatism. His governing philosophy is absolute power | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Donald Trump issued his declaration of war against his “enemies within” at the Department of Justice on 14 March. Thus the president launched a constitutional crisis that encompasses not just a group of migrants snatched without due process and transported against federal court orders to a foreign prison, but a wholesale assault on virtually every major institution of American society.“We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose, and very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct,” he pledged. “It’s going to be legendary.”Trump’s speech condensed his mission to its despotic essence. While he distilled his contempt, Trump also marked his disdain for the traditional conservatism of limited government, respect for the law and liberty. He defined his project, built on his executive orders as substitutes for the law, to crown himself with unrestrained powers to intimidate, threaten and even kidnap. His political philosophy is a ruthless quest for absolute power.Trump hailed his appointees for being “so tough” – the enthusiastically compliant attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the irrepressible flunky FBI director, Kash Patel. He attacked lawyers whose firms he would issue executive orders against to eviscerate their work – “really, really bad people”. He claimed Joe Biden and the former attorney general Merrick Garland “tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country”. And he described “people that come into our country” as “stone-cold killers. These are killers like – they make our killers look nice by comparison. They make our killers look nice. These are rough, tough people with the tattoos all over their face.” Trump’s accusations are invariably projections of his own malice that he manufactures into politically pliable paranoia.No staff attorneys within the department were invited to the speech, as people at the justice department told me. The senior lawyers from the Public Integrity Section had already resigned when Trump attempted to coerce them to participate in dropping the prosecution of New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, for corruption in exchange for his support of Trump’s coming roundup and deportation of migrants. After Trump, a convicted felon, concluded by comparing himself to Al Capone, the mafia boss convicted of tax evasion – “the great Alphonse Capone, legendary Scarface, was attacked only a tiny fraction of what Trump was attacked” – Trump’s theme song from his political rallies, YMCA, blared out of the loudspeakers in the department auditorium.The next day, Trump announced his executive order citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, a wartime measure, to incarcerate members of the Tren de Aragua gang he asserted were coordinating with the Maduro government of Venezuela to commit “brutal crimes, including murders, kidnappings, extortions, and human, drug, and weapons trafficking”. (On 20 March, the New York Times reported: “The intelligence community assessment concluded that the gang, Tren de Aragua, was not directed by Venezuela’s government or committing crimes in the United States on its orders, according to the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity.”)The 238 men abducted were taken without any due process to a maximum-security prison operated by the Salvadorian strongman Nayib Bukele, who calls himself “the coolest dictator” and whose government is being paid at least $6m in an arrangement with the Trump administration.In a hearing on 24 March before the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, Judge Patricia Millett, criticizing the absence of due process, said: “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.” She asked the deputy assistant attorney general, Drew Ensign, arguing the administration’s case: “What’s factually wrong about what I said?”“Well, your Honor, we certainly dispute the Nazi analogy,” he replied.Trump’s assertion of emergency power under the Alien Enemies Act is more than a bit analogous to the ideas of Carl Schmitt, the chief legal scholar and apologist of the Nazi regime, “crown jurist of the Third Reich”. The falsity, according to the intelligence community, of Trump’s claim about the men underlines the analogy of Trump’s argument to Schmitt’s. “Authority, not truth, produces law,” Schmitt wrote. “Sovereign is he who decides on invocation of the state of emergency.” And then: “Der Ausnahmefall offenbart das Wesen der staatlichen Autorität am klarsten” – “The State of Emergency reveals most clearly the essence of the authority of the state … The exception is thus far more important that the ordinary rule. The normal state of affairs shows nothing; the emergency shows everything; it confirms not only the rule, rather the rule derives strictly from the emergency.”The ACLU filed a lawsuit on 15 March before Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US district court of the District of Columbia to halt the flight to El Salvador. The judge issued an order for the planes to return to the US, but the Trump administration defied it.Trump’s defiance has set in motion a flurry of legal challenges and court cases heard in district courts and circuit courts of appeals, as well as the supreme court. On 7 April, the court ruled that the detainees had the right to due process, which they were denied. On 11 April, the justices unanimously ordered the administration to facilitate the return of one wrongly taken individual, Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal resident of Maryland who was identified by his family and had no criminal record. On 19 April, the court temporarily blocked a new round of deportations under the Alien Enemies Act.CBS’s 60 Minutes reported: “We could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans.” Bloomberg News reported that about 90% had no criminal records.On 14 April, Trump welcomed Bukele to the White House. Trump has turned the Oval Office into his small stage with cabinet secretaries and staff seated on the couches as his chorus. Bukele was dressed in black casual wear, but not admonished, as Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy was admonished, for supposedly showing disrespect to Trump by not appearing in a suit and tie.Trump and Bukele played the scene as a buddy movie, kidding each other, but not kidding, about repression. “Mr President,” said Bukele, “you have 350 million people to liberate. But to liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some. That’s the way it works, right?”“The homegrowns are next, the homegrowns,” said Trump. “You’ve got to build about five more places.”“Yeah, we got the space,” Bukele said.When the question of Ábrego García was raised by a reporter, Bondi said: “That’s not up to us,” and that it was “up to El Salvador”.“Well, I’m supposed – you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist in the United States, right?” Bukele replied. Trump reassured him: “It’s only CNN.” Bukele called the question “preposterous”.“Well, they’d love to have a criminal released into our country,” said Trump. “These are sick people. Marco, do you have something to say about that?” It was another test of the secretary of state’s sycophancy. Marco Rubio rose to the occasion. “No court in the United States has a right to conduct a foreign policy of the United States,” he said. “It’s that simple. End of story.”Standing behind Rubio, Trump’s most influential aide and the architect of his immigration policy, Stephen Miller, chimed in: “To Marco’s point, the supreme court said exactly what Marco said. That no court has the authority to compel the foreign policy function in the United States. We won a case 9-0. And people like CNN are portraying it as a loss, as usual, because they want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children.”A reporter attempted to point out that the court had in fact ruled it was illegal to deprive the captives of due process. “Well, it’s illegal to, so I just wanted some clarity on it,” he asked. Trump jumped in: “And that’s why nobody watches you anymore. You have no credibility.”On 17 April, the day the supreme court ruled on Ábrego García, Trump said: “I’m not involved in it,” though he had signed the executive order that authorized his kidnapping. Trump was reverting to the tactic of denial, however patently ludicrous, that he had been schooled in originally by Roy Cohn, the Republican power broker and mafia lawyer who had been his private attorney. The Trump administration continues to claim it has no control over the captives in the Salvadorian prison and they cannot be returned.Trump’s disavowal of responsibility made the visit to the prison by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to tape a video on 26 March problematic on several levels. If Trump has no control, then how was Noem allowed the run of the place? If the prisoners were combatants under the Alien Enemies Act, then their status made her appearance a violation of the Geneva convention’s Article 1 that outlaws “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment”, and Article 13 that prohibits “acts of violence or intimidation” and “insults and public curiosity” – that is, using prisoners for propaganda purposes.If Schmitt’s argument is not Trump’s argument, the difference has certainly not confused the judges handling the cases. Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration had acted with “willful disregard” for his order and, while contempt proceedings were paused, threatened to appoint a special prosecutor if the Department of Justice declined to do so.The Maryland federal judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the administration to return Ábrego García, said on 15 April she had seen no evidence of progress. She ruled on 22 April that such stonewalling “reflects a willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations … That ends now.”She also stated: “Defendants must supplement their answer to include all individuals involved as requested in this interrogatory.” That discovery process might range into stranger precincts of Maga depths than imagined. The New Yorker reported on “a Maga salon” at a tech billionaire’s Washington residence to which a Republican lobbyist, Andrew Beck, brought Trace Meyer, self-described as the “Babe Ruth of bitcoin”, where they discussed with state department staffers the “work-in-progress plan” for abducting migrants to El Salvador. The officials had reached “an impasse in the negotiations. Meyer, through his crypto connections, was able to help reopen the conversation.” Add to the discovery list: Beck, Meyer and the state department officials.In denying the Trump administration’s motion for a halt in the Xinis ruling, Judge J Harvie Wilkinson III, of the court of appeals for the fourth circuit, issued a thunderous opinion on 17 April, marking a historic break between principled conservatism and Trump’s regime. Wilkinson is an eminent conservative figure within the judiciary, of an old Virginia family, a clerk to Justice Lewis Powell, and a Ronald Reagan appointee revered in the Federalist Society.“The government,” Wilkinson wrote, “is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”Wilkinson concluded with a siren call about Trump’s threat. “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”Wilkinson has defined the stark conflict headed toward an unstoppable collision. Against Trump’s appropriation of Schmitt’s authoritarian logic, the conservative jurist has thrown down the gauntlet of American constitutional law. Trump’s disdain for that sort of conservatism moves the cases again and again toward the conservative majority of the supreme court, which must decide its allegiance, either like Wilkinson, to the constitution, or instead to Trump’s untrammeled power that would reduce the court itself to a cipher.

      This article was amended on 27 April 2025; an earlier version stated that JD Vance admonished Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not wearing a suit to meet Donald Trump. In fact, it was Brian Glenn, a correspondent for Real America’s Voice.

      Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth More

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      Hope as US universities find ‘backbone’ against Trump’s assault on education

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      Americans anxious about their country’s slide into authoritarianism found some solace in the past week over what appears to be growing pushback by American universities against Donald Trump’s assault on higher education.After a barrage of orders, demands and the freezing of billions in federal funds for research had elicited a mostly demure response from university leaders, some are starting to mount a more muscular defense of academic freedom. A statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” was signed by more than 400 university presidents, and the list is growing. Another, signed by more than 100 former university heads, called for a coalition of local leaders, students, labor unions and communities, across party affiliation, to “work against authoritarianism”.And Harvard became the first university to sue the administration over its threats to cut $9bn in federal funding should it not comply with a set of extreme demands to combat alleged antisemitism, demands that university president Alan Garber labeled “unlawful, and beyond the government’s authority”. The legal action followed several others brought by higher education associations and organisations representing faculty, including one by the American Association of University Professors challenging the administration’s revocation of student visas and detention of several international students, which 86 universities joined with amicus briefs.But Trump was not cowed, continuing his weeks-long assault on universities he has accused of being “dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics”. Delivering on campaign threats, he issued a fresh set of executive actions on Wednesday targeting campus diversity initiatives and seeking to overhaul the accreditation system that has long served as quality check on higher education. And despite reports that the White House had made overtures to Harvard to restart talks about its demands – overtures the school has rejected – his tone suggested otherwise in a Truth Social rant in which he called the Ivy League school “a threat to Democracy” and “an Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institution, as are numerous others, with students being accepted from all over the World that want to rip our Country apart”.But even as universities reposition themselves as defenders of free and independent inquiry, many are stepping up their measures to suppress pro-Palestinian discourse, issuing a flurry of warnings and punishments meant to avert a repeat of the mass protest encampments that sprung up across US campuses a year ago.View image in fullscreenThose measures, against protests and criticism of Israel in classrooms and other university settings, echo some of the demands made by the administration of various universities. While the government has gone much further – requiring, for example, the removal of entire academic departments from faculty control and “auditing” student and faculty’s viewpoints – universities have taken other measures slammed by faculty, students and free expression experts as draconian repression of legitimate political speech.This week, Yale University revoked the recognition of a student group that on Tuesday pitched tents on campus to protest a talk by Israel’s far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, while Columbia University, which has largely capitulated to the Trump administration’s demands, issued a warning to students planning to reestablish protest encampments it banned after last year’s protests.At Tulane University in New Orleans, seven students are facing disciplinary action over their participation at an off-campus pro-Palestinian protest (the university maintains the protest was organised by a student group it had banned). At Columbia, two Palestinian student activists have been charged with “discriminatory harassment” over what the university believes is their role in publishing an op-ed in the university paper, and two Instagram posts, calling for restrictions on the admission of former Israeli soldiers to the university.At Indiana University, a professor of Germanic studies became the first scholar to come under investigation under a new state law mandating “intellectual diversity” after a student accused him of pro-Palestinian speech in the classroom. And in Michigan, the FBI and local authorities raided the homes of several pro-Palestinian students on Wednesday, confiscating electronics and briefly detaining two students, as part of a state investigation into a string of alleged vandalism incidents, including at the home of the University of Michigan’s regent. While the university did not appear to be directly involved in the operation, student activists there noted that the raids followed its “repeated targeting of pro-Palestine activists” through “firings, disciplinary measures, and criminal prosecution”.“In order to give any meaning to free speech, academic freedom, equal rights, and the pursuit of truth and justice, universities have to make drastic changes to their conduct over the last year and a half,” said Tori Porell, an attorney at Palestine Legal, which has represented many students facing universities’ disciplinary action and in the last year received more than 2,000 requests for legal support. “That very conduct has put them and their students and faculty in danger. If universities are serious about standing up to Trump and putting their words into action, they will provide meaningful protection for their students, faculty, and staff.”View image in fullscreenSo far, the Trump administration has shown no signs it intends to slow down its attack on universities – with the education department warning 60 institutions that they are under investigation over alleged antisemitism. But Harvard’s lawsuit, and the first efforts at a unified response, set the stage for what is likely to become a protracted battle.“I think now that we’ve seen Harvard stand up and push back against the unwarranted government intrusion, that we’ll see more of this moving forward,” said Lynn Pasquerella, the president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which has been coordinating university presidents’ collective response to the administration’s actions.Advocates for academic freedom who had previously criticised universities for a weak response to the administration’s “bullying” welcomed Harvard’s suit but called on schools to use the opportunity to show a more consistent defense of free speech and academic freedom.“This legal challenge is a necessary defense of institutional autonomy and the first amendment,” said Tyler Coward, the lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), noting that the group had long been critical of Harvard’s “commitment” to freedom of expression, for instance after the university adopted a controversial definition of antisemitism that Fire warned would “chill” campus speech.“We hope this moment marks a turning point – away from a model of civil rights enforcement that enables government overreach and toward one that protects free speech, academic freedom, and due process.”But while students, faculty and advocates across the country expressed measured hope that some university leaders were starting to grow a “backbone”, they noted it was students and faculty who were leading the charge and mounting the pressure that forced university leaders to act.“The workers and the unions, faculty, students, staff are leading and developing the fight in how to respond to the Trump administration, and we’re sort of dragging the universities along with us, slowly,” said Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, which has led faculty organising efforts on many campuses and filed four separate lawsuits against the administration over its attacks on universities.Wolfson noted that faculty continues to be critical of how universities are handling campus affairs, including pro-Palestinian speech, as well as their engagement with the Trump administration.“But nonetheless, the attacks on the university right now are not being initiated by the administrations of those universities, they’re being initiated by the federal government,” he said. “And so we must band together, where it’s possible, with our administrations to fight back.” More