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      Federal prosecutor reportedly quit over concern Ábrego García indictment was politically motivated – as it happened

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      A career federal prosecutor resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Kilmar Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation of the Maryland resident became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration, ABC News reports.Ben Schrader, announced his resignation as the chief of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee in a LinkedIn post on 21 May, the same day the indictment of Ábrego García was signed by the acting US attorney for that district.Sources told ABC News that Schrader stepped down because of concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.“Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee”, Schrader wrote on LinkedIn that day. “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.”At a news conference on Friday, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to say exactly when the investigation that led to the charges was opened, but she told reporters that the indictment was based on “recently found facts” about a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, and that “thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Ábrego García, this investigation continued”.The indictment was signed by Robert McGuire, who has been the acting US attorney in Nashville since December, and three senior prosecutors from the justice department’s Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was created during the first Trump administration “to dismantle MS-13”.This brings our live coverage of the second Trump administration to a close for the day. Here are some of the latest developments:

      Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order, was returned to the United States and charged with the criminal smuggling of undocumented immigrants inside the United States.

      Ben Schrader, a career federal prosecutor, reportedly resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration.

      Donald Trump suggested that court orders to his administration to return Ábrego García to the US was a sign that “the judges are trying to take the place of a president that won in a landslide”.

      One day after his feud with Elon Musk exploded Trump claimed that he was far too busy to think about the billionaire donor who had accused him of sex crimes and called for his impeachment. That claim was undermined by the fact that Trump spent a chunk of his morning on the phone with at least three television reporters, gossiping about Musk.

      Two federal appeals court judges appointed by Trump overturned a lower court ruling to allow him to resume punishing the Associated Press for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by that name instead of the new one Trump gave it.
      Two judges appointed by Donald Trump to a federal appeals court ruled in his favor on Friday, allowing him to resume blocking the Associated Press from covering him at events in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and in his Mar-A-Lago club.The 2-1 ruling was written by US circuit judge Neomi Rao, who served in Trump’s first administration, and joined by fellow Trump appointee Gregory Katsas.The divided ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit temporarily blocks an order by another Trump appointed judge, US district judge Trevor McFadden, who had ruled in April that the Trump administration had to allow AP journalists access to events while the news agency’s lawsuit moves forward.The AP sued after Trump banned the news organization for refusing to follow him in referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.The court left in place part of a lower-court order that required Trump to give AP access to events held in larger spaces, like the East Room of the White House.The Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on multiple locations across Los Angeles on Friday, clashing with the crowds of people who gathered to protest.Masked agents were recorded pulling several people out of two LA-area Home Depot stores and the clothing manufacturer Ambient Apparel’s headquarters in LA’s Fashion District.There has not yet been confirmation of how many people were taken into custody, but initial estimates provided by news helicopter reports shows roughly two dozen people were loaded into white vans and taken away.Armed agents clad in heavy protective and tactical gear, including some who wore gas masks, could also be seen pushing individuals and trying to corral large groups that congregated to challenge the raids, and smoke grenades were reportedly thrown near the crowds. Pepper spray was used as the federal officers attempted to clear the area.Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Donald Trump suggested that some sort of unspecified action needed to be taken against federal judges who ordered his administration to bring the wrongly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Ábrego García back from El Salvador.Trump continued to insist that the supreme court’s order requiring his administration to bring Ábrego García back to the United States was incorrect. “He should’ve never had to be returned”, Trump said. “Either way it’s a total disaster – this is a pretty bad guy.”In comments posted on YouTube by the Washington Post, Trump seemed to give insight into the political calculation behind his administration’s decision to bring Ábrego García back, as the supreme court had ordered, but first indict him on new criminal charges.“I could see a decision being made” Trump said, “‘bring him back; show everybody how horrible this guy is’”.He then returned to his outrage at federal judges for not allowing him to deport people like Ábrego García who have been accused of crimes without giving them an opportunity to challenge the evidence against them in court.“Frankly, we have to do something, because the judges are trying to take the place of a president that won in a landslide” Trump said. “And that’s not supposed to be the way it is”.Trump seems convinced that Ábrego García is so obviously a gang member that there is no need for a trial. However, the president demonstrated in April that he is deeply confused about at least one piece of the supposed evidence.In a social media post in mid-April, Trump held up a photograph of the tattoos on Ábrego García’s hand, symbols that one corner of the internet is convinced represent the letters and numbers M,S,1 and 3, to signify that he is a member of the gang MS-13.In an interview with Terry Moran of ABC News two weeks later, though, Trump revealed that he had been confused by the photograph, which added the letters and numbers as a form of annotation. “He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed”, Trump insisted to Moran. When Moran pointed out that the letters and numbers had been added to the photograph he held up to illustrate what people thought the four symbols represented, Trump made it clear that he had mistaken the annotation for part of the tattoo. “Go look at his hand”, Trump said.Now that Ábrego García is back in the United States and will be in court, new photographs of his hand will soon be available for Trump to inspect.During a brief news conference on Air Force One, en route to his golf course in New Jersey, Donald Trump told reporters that he has been far too busy to spend any time thinking about Elon Musk, his top donor and former aide who called for him to be impeached on Thursday.“Honestly, I’ve been so busy working on China, working on Russia, working on Iran, working on so many things, I’m not thinking about Elon” Trump said. “I just wish him well.”The president’s comment, one day after Musk accused him of having been involved in his late friend Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes, oddly echoed Trump’s response to a question about Epstein’s longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2020 when she was arrested and charged with helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse girls.Back then, when Trump was asked during a coronavirus briefing in the White House if he expected Maxwell “to turn in powerful men”, he responded: “I don’t know, I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.”“I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well, whatever it is.”Maxwell was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in jail the following year. Her prosecution was led by Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Williams later oversaw the indictment on New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, on corruption charges that were later dropped by the Trump administration.On Friday, Williams left the law firm Paul Weiss to join Jenner & Block, moving from a firm that struck a deal with Trump to one that fought him in court.Trump’s claim that he was far too busy on Friday to concern himself with Musk’s criticism was slightly undermined by the fact that he spent much of his morning at the White House talking about Musk to multiple reporters on the phone. When Jonathan Karl of ABC News called the president at 6:45 am, Trump picked up to talk about Musk and called him “a man who has lost his mind”. Trump also took time to tell Bret Baier of Fox, “Elon has totally lost it”. Trump also spoke to CNN’s Dana Bash, to insist: “I’m not even thinking about Elon, he’s got a problem, the poor guy’s got a problem”. Bash said that Trump also told her he wishes Elon well.Donald Trump, who is again enjoying a long weekend at one of his golf courses, took a moment to respond, obliquely, to Elon Musk’s unsourced claim on Thursday that the Trump administration has not released all of the files from the sex-trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein because Trump is implicated in his late friend’s crimes.During an Air Force One flight to New Jersey on Friday, Trump shared a comment from David Schoen, a lawyer who defended the president at his second impeachment trial in 2021, over the January 6 riot.“I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died”, Schoen wrote on Musk’s social media platform X on Thursday. “He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!”Following Musk’s post on Thursday, which was viewed more than 200 million times (according to Musk’s company), Schoen also wrote on the billionaire’s platform: “I can tell you unequivocally as someone who would know that President Trump never did anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.”A career federal prosecutor resigned in protest the same day that charges were filed against Kilmar Ábrego García, following an investigation that apparently began after the mistaken deportation of the Maryland resident became a legal and political headache for the Trump administration, ABC News reports.Ben Schrader, announced his resignation as the chief of the criminal division at the US attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee in a LinkedIn post on 21 May, the same day the indictment of Ábrego García was signed by the acting US attorney for that district.Sources told ABC News that Schrader stepped down because of concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.“Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee”, Schrader wrote on LinkedIn that day. “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.”At a news conference on Friday, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, refused to say exactly when the investigation that led to the charges was opened, but she told reporters that the indictment was based on “recently found facts” about a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, and that “thanks to the bright light that has been shined on Ábrego García, this investigation continued”.The indictment was signed by Robert McGuire, who has been the acting US attorney in Nashville since December, and three senior prosecutors from the justice department’s Joint Task Force Vulcan, which was created during the first Trump administration “to dismantle MS-13”.In a new statement, Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who visited Kilmar Ábrego García in El Salvador, reiterated the point he made after his trip in April, when he said that he was “not defending the man” but “defending the rights of this man to due process”.Here is Van Hollen’s new statement:
      “For months the Trump Administration flouted the Supreme Court and our Constitution. Today, they appear to have finally relented to our demands for compliance with court orders and with the due process rights afforded to everyone in the United States. As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all. The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”
      This restates what Van Hollen said in an interview with ABC News in April, of the Trump administration: “Here’s where they should put their facts: they should oput it before the court. They should put up or shut up in court.”El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, joined the White House in attacking Senator Chris Van Hollen on social media with a post on Elon Musk’s X in which he referred back to a staged photograph of the Maryland senator’s meeting Kilmar Ábrego García in April.Referencing the release of Ábrego García from custody in El Salvador on Friday, Bukele wrote: we work with the Trump administration, and if they request the return of a gang member to face charges, of course we wouldn’t refuse.”He added: “No more margaritas under custody”.On his return from El Salvador in April, however, Van Hollen accused the government of El Salvador of creating the hoax he called “Margarita-gate”, by placing a pair of cocktail glasses on the table between himself and Ábrego García as they met to make it look as though they were enjoying drinks.Those photographs were posted on X by Bukele, along with a caption that downplayed the seriousness of the situation by falsely claiming that the senator and the wrongly deported man had been “sipping margaritas” as they met.But the senator said that the drinks were placed there during the meeting by someone from the Salvadoran government before the photographs were taken and that neither he nor Ábrego García had touched them. Van Hollen pointed out that there was visual evidence for this in the photographs: the rims of both glasses were covered in salt or sugar, but it was clear from the images that neither glass had been drunk from, since the rims were undisturbed.The US supreme court on Friday permitted the so-called ‘department of government efficiency’, or Doge, a team set up by former Trump aide Elon Musk to take a chainsaw to the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out, Reuters reports.At the request of the Justice Department, the justices put on hold US district judge Ellen Hollander’s order that had largely blocked Doge’s access to “personally identifiable information” in data such as medical and financial records while litigation proceeds in a lower court. Hollander found that allowing Doge unfettered access likely would violate a federal privacy law.The court’s brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the order.White House officials have wasted no time in using the newly announced criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego García to attack Democrats who objected to his deportation without due process in violation of a previous court order.Writing on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, the White House’s official account dedicated to partisan “rapid response” resurfaced an April post from Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat whose constituents include Ábrego García’s wife, to suggest that he should now be ashamed of having stood up for the undocumented Maryland resident’s due process rights.“A grand jury found his full-time job was human smuggling, Chris,” the White House account commented. “He spent his entire life abusing people – including women and children. This is who you spent so much time defending. Shame on you.”The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, also using the platform owned by a former Trump aide who called for the president to be impeached just yesterday, claimed that the indictment against Ábrego García “proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools”.Apparently unaware that the allegations have yet to be tested in court, the president’s chief spokesperson insisted that “Democrat lawmakers” including Van Hollen, “and every single so-called ‘journalist’ who defended this illegal criminal abuser must immediately apologize to Garcia’s victims”.At a news conference, the US attorney general, Pamela Bondi, just announced that Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order, has been returned to the United States and charged with criminal charges related to smuggling undocumented immigrants inside the United States.Bondi said that the US government presented an arrest warrant for Ábrego García to El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.She also said that the grand jury indictment on 21 May was based on recently discovered facts and that the grand jury “found that over the past nine years, Ábrego García has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring.”“Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his country of El Salvador”, Bondi said.Bondi suggested that Ábrego García was involved in other crimes, based on what unnamed co-conspirators allege, but he was only indicted on two counts related to the alleged smuggling.In response to a reporter’s question, Bondi said that Ábrego García would serve a prison sentence in the US if convicted, on charges that carry a possible sentence of 10 years, and then be deported to El Salvador again.We are waiting for the start of a livestreamed justice department news conference, which is expected to deal with the indictment of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador and is reportedly on his way back to the United States to face new criminal charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee which prompted officers to suspect that he might have been transporting undocumented migrants.The criminal indictment, which was filed on 21 May, accuses Ábrego García of being “a member and associate” of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 and charges him with taking part in a conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants inside the United States.The reportedly imminent return to the United States of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Maryland resident who was deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order that he should not be sent there because he had a reasonable fear of persecution in that country, comes nearly two months after the attorney general, Pamela Jo Bondi, insisted that it would never happen.“He is not coming back to our country” Bondi told reporters at a news conference on 16 April. “President Bukele said he was not sending him back. That’s the end of the story.”Asked if she could provide evidence that he was a member of the MS-13 gang, Bondi said only that the allegation was contained in a 2019 court hearing.Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to El Salvador, is on his way back to the US where he will face criminal charges, ABC News is reporting, citing sources.A federal grand jury has indicted Ábrego García for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the US, according to the report.The outlet, citing sources, reports that a two-count indictment, filed under seal in federal court in Tennessee last month, alleges that Ábrego García participated in a years-long conspiracy to transport undocumented migrants from Texas to the interior of the country.Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, according to the report. The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade, according to the report.A US trade delegation including three cabinet officials will meet with trade representatives from China in London on Monday “with reference to the trade deal”, Donald Trump has announced.He posted on Truth Social:
      I am pleased to announce that Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer, will be meeting in London on Monday, June 9, 2025, with Representatives of China, with reference to the Trade Deal. The meeting should go very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
      It comes a day after Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping held a “very good” phone call during which they discussed “some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal”, Trump said.Trump also said Xi had invited him to visit China, an invitation he aid he reciprocated.Xi said of the call that a “consensus has been reached”, adding that the two sides “should enhance consensus” as well as “reduce misunderstanding, strengthen cooperation” and “enhance exchanges”. “Dialogue, cooperation is the only right choice for China and the US,” the Chinese president said.Elon Musk may believe his money bought the presidential election and the House of the Representatives for the Republicans. But he is discovering painfully and quickly that it has not bought him love, loyalty or even fear among many GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill.Faced with the choice of siding with Musk, the world’s richest man, or Donald Trump, after the two staged a public relationship breakdown for the ages on Thursday, most Republicans went with the man in the Oval Office, who has shown an unerring grasp of the tactics of political intimidation and who remains the world’s most powerful figure even without the boss of Tesla and SpaceX by his side.The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who poured about $275m into Trump’s campaign last year, tried to remind Washington’s political classes of his financial muscle on Thursday during an outpouring of slights against a man for whom he had once professed platonic love and was still showering with praise up until a week before.One after another, Republican House members came out to condemn him and defend Trump, despite having earlier been told by Musk that “you know you did wrong” in voting for what has become Trump’s signature legislation that seeks to extend vast tax cuts for the rich.Troy Nehls, a GOP representative from Texas, captured the tone, addressing Musk before television cameras:
      You’ve lost your damn mind. Enough is enough. Stop this.
      It chimed with the sentiments of many others. “Nobody elected Elon Musk, and a whole lot of people don’t even like him, to be honest with you, even on both sides,” Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman, told Axios.“We’re getting people calling our offices 100% in support of President Trump,” Kevin Hern, a representative from Oklahoma, told the site.
      Every tweet that goes out, people are more lockstep behind President Trump and [Musk is] losing favour.
      Republicans were balancing the strength of Trump’s voice among GOP voters versus the power of the increasingly unpopular Musk’s money – and most had little doubt which matters most.“On the value of Elon playing against us in primaries compared to Trump endorsing us in primaries, the latter is 100 times more relevant,” Axios quoted one unnamed representative as saying.The Trump administration is preparing to make good on the president’s threat to strip “large scale” federal funding from California, an effort that could begin as early as Friday, according to CNN.The report says agencies have been directed to start identifying grants the administration can withhold from the state. A whistleblower reportedly told a congressional committee that the administration was planning to cut all research grants to California.The White House has not commented on the plans. The timeline remains speculative, and it is unclear what grants would be targeted.Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funding as a way to force states, institutions and universities to comply with his agenda. Last week, he said California could lose “large scale” funding “maybe permanently” if the state continued to allow transgender athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports.The declaration appeared to be in reference to a transgender track-and-field star from southern California. On Saturday, she won two gold medals and a silver, which she shared with other teen athletes under a new rule by the state’s high school sports body.Trump had also repeatedly threatened to withhold federal disaster aid, assailing the state’s Democratic leaders for their handling of the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles earlier this year.More from House speaker Mike Johnson, who has told CNBC he has been texting with Elon Musk and hopes the dispute is resolved quickly.He said of the “big, beautiful bill”:
      I don’t argue with [Musk] about how to build rockets and I wish he wouldn’t argue with me about how to craft legislation and pass it.
      Johnson earlier issued a warning: “Do not second-guess and don’t ever challenge the president of the United States, Donald Trump.”He had also projected confidence that the Trump-Musk dispute won’t affect prospects for the tax and border bill. “Members are not shaken at all,” he said. “We’re going to pass this legislation on our deadline.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Elon Musk rift deepens as president says ‘poor guy’s got a problem’

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      Donald Trump appeared in no mood to patch things up with former top adviser Elon Musk on Friday, doubling down on his new hostility towards the Tesla and Space X tycoon with a number of disparaging statements.The US president appeared to deny reports of a potential peacemaking phone call with Musk, telling ABC News he was “not particularly” interested in talking to his former confidant right now.The president also spoke to CNN, saying: “I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” Trump told Politico that the relationship with Musk was “going very well, never done better”.Here are the key Trump administration stories of the day:Trump says Musk has ‘lost his mind’ Donald Trump appeared to dismiss a peace overture from his former close political ally Elon Musk, calling him someone who had “lost his mind” as the extraordinary falling out between the two men looked set to continue.The US president and the richest person in the world – who had been tasked with slashing the federal government – fell out in spectacular fashion on Thursday in a series of escalating social media posts that roiled the political world.Read the full storyKilmar Ábrego García returned to US to face criminal chargesKilmar Ábrego García – the man whom the Trump administration mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March – returned to the US on Friday to face criminal charges.In a press briefing, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said a federal grand jury in Tennessee had indicted the 29-year-old father on counts of illegally smuggling undocumented people as well as conspiracy to commit that crime.Read the full storyDoge allowed access to social security dataThe US supreme court on Friday permitted the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), a key player in Donald Trump’s drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to the personal information of millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out.The court’s brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with Doge. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented.Read the full storyUS jobs market slows amid Trump trade war uncertaintyThe US economy added 139,000 jobs in May, a slowdown compared with recent months as American businesses cope with uncertainty around Donald Trump’s continuing trade war.Read the full storyGOP senator employs aide fired over neo-Nazi imageryA staffer for Missouri Republican senator Eric Schmitt was previously fired from Ron DeSantis’s unsuccessful presidential campaign after making a video containing neo-Nazi imagery, and later peddled far-right conspiracy theories in a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank.Read the full storyOutrage after Republican congresswoman disparages Sikh prayer in US HouseA Republican representative is facing a widespread backlash after saying that a Sikh should not have conducted a prayer in the US House.Mary Miller, an Illinois representative, on Friday published – then deleted – a post saying that Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey, should not have delivered the House’s morning prayer.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Enrique Tarrio, the former national leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, and four other members convicted of orchestrating the deadly 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack are suing the federal government for allegedly violating their rights.

      Russia is at war with Britain, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK has to respond by becoming more cohesive and more resilient, according to a former White House adviser.

      Senior US administration officials will meet with a Chinese delegation in London on Monday for the next round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, Donald Trump said on Friday.

      An event by the International Pride Orchestra this week swung from classical Gershwin favourites to choral patriotism to high drag in a rebuff to Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center and its subsequent snub of the LBGTQ+ ensemble.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 5 June 2025. More

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      Money can’t buy him love: Republicans give Elon Musk the cold shoulder

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      Elon Musk may believe his money bought the presidential election and the House of the Representatives for the Republicans. But he is discovering painfully and quickly that it has not bought him love, loyalty or even fear among many GOP members of Congress on Capitol Hill.Faced with the choice of siding with Musk, the world’s richest man, or Donald Trump, after the two staged a public relationship breakdown for the ages on Thursday, most Republicans went with the man in the Oval Office, who has shown an unerring grasp of the tactics of political intimidation and who remains the world’s most powerful figure even without the boss of Tesla and SpaceX by his side.The billionaire tech entrepreneur, who poured about $275m into Trump’s campaign last year, tried to remind Washington’s political classes of his financial muscle on Thursday during an outpouring of slights against a man for whom he had once professed platonic love and was still showering with praise up until a week before.“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk posted to his 220 million followers on X, the social media platform he owns – and which he has used ruthlessly to reshape the political agenda.It was a variation on a theme from a man who has repeatedly threatened to deploy his untold millions in funding primary challengers to elected politicians who displease him or who publicly considered blocking Trump’s cabinet nominations.But a gambit that had been effective in the past failed to work this time – and might not be enough to sink the “big, beautiful bill” that Musk this week condemned as a deficit-inflating “abomination”.One after another, Republican House members came out to condemn him and defend Trump, despite having earlier been told by Musk that “you know you did wrong” in voting for what has become Trump’s signature legislation that seeks to extend vast tax cuts for the rich.Troy Nehls, a GOP representative from Texas, captured the tone, addressing Musk before television cameras: “You’ve lost your damn mind. Enough is enough. Stop this.”It chimed with the sentiments of many others. “Nobody elected Elon Musk, and a whole lot of people don’t even like him, to be honest with you, even on both sides,” Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman, told Axios.“We’re getting people calling our offices 100% in support of President Trump,” Kevin Hern, a representative from Oklahoma, told the site. “Every tweet that goes out, people are more lockstep behind President Trump and [Musk is] losing favour.”Greg Murphy, a North Carolina Republican, called Musk’s outburst of social media posts – that included a call for Trump’s impeachment, a forecast of a tariff-driven recession and accusation that the president is on the Jeffrey Epstein files – “absolutely childish and ridiculous”. Musk had “lost some of his gravitas”.There were numerous other comments in similar vein.They seemed to carry the weight of political calculation, rather than principled sentiment.Republicans were balancing the strength of Trump’s voice among GOP voters versus the power of the increasingly unpopular Musk’s money – and most had little doubt which matters most.“On the value of Elon playing against us in primaries compared to Trump endorsing us in primaries, the latter is 100 times more relevant,” Axios quoted one unnamed representative as saying.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother said: “Elon can burn $5m in a primary, but if Trump says ‘that’s the person Republicans should re-elect,’ it’s a wasted $5m.”Trump said on Thursday that he would have won the battleground state of Pennsylvania even without his former benefactor’s significant financial input.But it is also evidence-based. In April, Musk discovered how finite his influence was when a Republican judge he had backed with $25m of his own money lost by 10 percentage points in an election for a vacant supreme court seat in Wisconsin.It was a chastening experience that bodes ill for any hopes he has of persuading Republicans to change their minds on Trump’s spending bill.Yet Musk still has his sympathisers on Capitol Hill, even if they are a minority.With the “big, beautiful bill” still likely to pass through the Senate, Thomas Massie, a senator for Kentucky – who has been labelled “a grandstander” by Trump for his consistent criticism of the legislation – was unambiguous when CNN asked which side he choose between Trump and Musk.“I choose math. The math always wins over the words,” he replied. “I trust the math from the guy that lands rockets backwards over the politicians’ math.”It was a rare case of economics trumping politics on a day when political self-interest seemed paramount. More

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      The Guardian view on the Trump-Musk feud: we can’t rely on outsized egos to end oligopoly | Editorial

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      It would have taken a heart of stone to watch the death of the Trump-Musk bromance without laughing. Democrats passed the popcorn on Thursday night as the alliance between the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest imploded via posts on their respective social media platforms.Less than a week ago they attempted a conscious uncoupling in the Oval Office. Then Elon Musk’s attacks on Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending plan escalated to full-scale denunciation of a “disgusting abomination” – objecting to its effect on the deficit, not the fact it snatches essential support from the poor and hands $1.1tn in tax cuts to the rich.The president said that Mr Musk had “gone crazy” and was angry that electric vehicle subsidies were being removed, claimed he had fired him, threatened to terminate his government contracts, and mocked the billionaire’s recent black eye. Steve Bannon chipped in, suggesting that Mr Musk should be deported.Mr Musk said Mr Trump should be impeached and alleged the government had not released files on the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein because the president was in them. He threatened to immediately start decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft – now key to Nasa’s programme – and suggested it was time for a new political party. The ultimate insult: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” he wrote.Mr Musk later appeared minded to limit the damage, backing away from the spacecraft threat – not surprising, perhaps, when he had just watched $152bn wiped off Tesla’s value. Each man knows that the other could hurt him, via government fiat or political war chest. Yet both are so unpredictable that the row could still reignite.Two narcissists used to imposing their will were never likely to coexist happily for long, despite the advantages of doing so: this was less a marriage of convenience than of naked self-interest. Mr Trump loathes sharing the limelight; the Tesla boss frequently grabbed it. The president is surely as resentful of as he is dazzled by Mr Musk’s spectacular wealth. He was angered to discover that Mr Musk had arranged private briefings on the Pentagon’s plans for any potential war with China – not only a blatant conflict of interest, but perhaps more upsettingly, a sign of his growing power. Mr Musk’s behaviour has also appeared increasingly erratic. A recent New York Times report alleged he took large amounts of drugs including ketamine while advising Mr Trump prior to the election. Mr Musk has described the story as “bs”.His departure from the president’s orbit is good news. Mr Musk implausibly claimed he would save $2tn annually – approaching a third of the federal budget – by taking a chainsaw to bureaucracy. Wild decisions by the so-called department of government efficiency are mired in the courts. But he has nonetheless caused real damage which will not easily be remedied, gutting agencies and departments which took decades to build. People are dying because of his demolition of USAID.Yet while the bond between the peak of power and the peak of wealth has been severed, politics remains in thrall to money. Mr Trump’s approach is particularly noxious, turning wealth directly into political favours and power, and power into further wealth. This is the new oligopoly. He oversees a cabinet of billionaires, and has directed his real estate tycoon friend Steve Witkoff, a man with no diplomatic experience, to bring peace in the Middle East and Ukraine. But though megadonors are heavily skewed towards the Republicans, Democrats too depend on billionaires. Mr Musk is a symptom of the underlying malaise. Democracy requires better safeguards against the unhealthy marriage of wealth and power than the rampant egos of those who command them. More

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      Musk and Trump are enemies made for each other – united in their ability to trash their own brands | Jonathan Freedland

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      The scriptwriters of Trump: the Soap Opera are slipping. The latest plot development – the epic falling-out between the title character and his best buddy, Elon Musk – was so predictable, and indeed predicted, that it counts as the opposite of a twist. Still, surprise can be overrated. Watching the two men – one the richest in the world, the other the most powerful – turn on each other in a series of ever-more venomous posts on their respective social media platforms has been entertainment of the highest order. X v Truth: it could be a Marvel blockbuster.But this is more than mere popcorn fodder. Even if they eventually patch things up, the rift between the president and Musk has exposed a divide inside the contemporary right, in the US and beyond – and a fatal flaw of the Trump project.Naturally, much of it is personal. That’s why so many declared from the start that this was a star-cross’d bromance, whose destiny was only ever heartbreak. Even as Musk was declaring, back in February, that “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man,” wiser heads knew it was doomed. The egos were too large, the narcissism too strong, for their love to survive. In the Trump universe, as in the Musk galaxy, there is room for only one sun.In their case, the personal combines with business. On this reading, Musk’s disenchantment began in his pocket, his opposition to Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, or “BBB”, currently before Congress, fuelled chiefly by the legislation’s axing of a $7,500 tax credit on the purchase of electric vehicles. With Tesla sales plunging, Musk needed that incentive to lure potential Tesla customers and was furious with Trump for scrapping it. That’s certainly the story Trump is telling. “I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted … and he just went CRAZY!” Trump posted.The suggestion that Musk’s driving motive was profit seems to have particularly antagonised the billionaire, prompting him to call for his former paramour to be impeached and to claim that Trump is named in the Jeffrey Epstein files, in effect implicating the president in a paedophile ring. Musk wants to present his objection not as self-serving but as ideological, casting himself as the fiscal conservative appalled by Trump’s “disgusting abomination” of a bill because it will increase the already gargantuan US deficit by trillions of dollars.Who’s right? It seems a stretch to argue that Trump’s hostility to electric cars was the problem: as Trump himself pointed out, Musk knew about that when he jumped on the Maga train last year. As for ballooning the deficit, you can see why that would irritate Musk. Adding trillions in red ink makes a mockery of the “cost-cutting” drive he headed up with his so-called department of government efficiency.The billionaire was already smarting from the failure of Doge to cut anything like the $2tn in spending he promised would be easy. All he succeeded in doing by, for instance, feeding the US agency for international development, or USAID, into “the wood chipper” was to take the lives of 300,000 people, most of them children, who had depended on that agency and its grants, according to a Boston University study. Even if you are minded, charitably, to accept Musk’s own estimate, he only shrank the federal budget by about $150bn. To watch as that effort was cancelled out by a $600bn tax cut to people earning more than $1m a year would be a humiliation indeed.Whatever its true cause, the Trump-Musk spat has illuminated a fault line in the right – and not only in the US. Battered and quieted by the Trump phenomenon, there still remain a few old-school conservatives with a vestigial presence in the Senate, for whom fiscal rectitude remains an article of faith. While Democrats oppose the “BBB” because its cuts to Medicaid will deprive more than 10 million Americans of basic health cover, these traditional Republicans are queasy about the Liz Truss-style risks of a massive unfunded tax giveaway. Overnight, Musk has become their champion.Ranged against them are the forces of nationalist conservatism, embodied by former Trump strategist and ex-convict Steve Bannon. They don’t have a libertarian yearning for a minimal state; on the contrary, they quite like muscular displays of state power. Witness Trump’s insistence on a Pyongyang-style military parade to celebrate his birthday, and note Bannon’s response to Musk’s impudence in challenging the ruler – he called for Musk’s businesses, Starlink and SpaceX, to be nationalised. Indeed, nationalist conservatism might not be quite the right term for what Bannon offers: nationalist socialism might be more apt, though something close to that has already been taken.There have been other manifestations of this divide. Musk opposed Trump’s tariffs; Bannon is for them. Musk wanted to see the US remain open to high-skilled, tech-savvy immigrants; Bannon wants to shut the door on them. These, then, are the two camps. (You can see similar faultlines on the British right, dividing Thatcherite Conservatives from Reform UK.) For a while, the anti-woke loathing of DEI policies was strong enough to keep the opposing blocs – free traders and protectionists; deficit hawks and big spenders – together. But that glue, as Trump said of Musk, is “wearing thin”.That has some serious implications for US politics and Trump’s presidency. It is conceivable that Trump won’t have the numbers to pass this bill, his central legislative goal, in its current form: the Republican majority in the House is wafer-thin, and one more defecting Republican could sink the proposal in the Senate. Musk has given would-be dissenters cover. The gazillionaire had promised to spend big to help Republicans in the November 2026 midterm elections. Much can happen between now and then, but Trump may now need to look elsewhere for a patron. Who knows, Musk might even follow through on his threat to fund the president’s Democratic opponents. Even if he does not go that far, he controls a prime platform of the right: X could soon become hostile territory for Trump. The point is, Musk is not your usual Trump antagonist. He has as loud a megaphone, and more money, than the president.It all adds up to a sad tale of two men who once had so much in common – perhaps one thing above all. Each has been lucky enough to find themselves in charge of a brand that once enjoyed global admiration and clout – and each man has systematically set about trashing that brand in the eyes of the world. Musk has done it more than once. He bought what had become an admittedly imperfect meeting place of some of the planet’s most influential people, Twitter, and turned it into a sewer of bigotry and lies, X. He built a company, Tesla, whose most obvious customers were high earners concerned about the planet and repelled them by association with a nationalist authoritarian who wants to “drill, baby, drill”.Trump, meanwhile, has taken the US, once a magnet for talent from across the globe, and done his best to dismantle all that made it attractive: its stability, its protection of free speech, the independence of its institutions, the quality of its science and universities. This week’s moves – the travel ban, the suspicion of overseas students, the war on Harvard – to say nothing of the ongoing hostility to democratic allies and coddling of foreign dictators, are just the latest instances of Trump doing to the US brand what Musk has done to Twitter and Tesla. No wonder Trump and Musk have broken up: they were always far too alike.

      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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      Trump’s new travel ban is a gratuitously cruel sequel | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      I’m not much for horror movies, but I have just read that the film Black Phone 2 “will creep into cinemas” in October and that, compared to the original, it’s supposed to be a “more violent, scarier, more graphic” film. I’ll pass on the movie, but that description seems pretty apt to what living under this Trump administration feels like: a gratuitously more violent sequel to a ghoulish original.Consider the Muslim ban. Back in late 2015, candidate Donald Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”. He signed the first version of the Muslim ban on 27 January 2017, and protests erupted at airports across the nation at the revival of a national policy, similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act, that bars entry of whole swaths of people based on our national prejudices. It took the Trump administration three attempts at crafting this policy before the supreme court tragically greenlit it.While Joe Biden later reversed the policy, congressional moves to restrict the president’s ability to institute these blanket bans – such as the No Ban Act – have not succeeded. And on the first day of his second term, Trump indicated he was prepared to institute a wider-reaching travel ban. He has now done just that. The new executive order will “fully restrict and limit the entry [to the US] of nationals of the following 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen” and will also “partially restrict and limit the entry of nationals of the following 7 countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela”.Yes, there are key cutouts in the latest travel ban that make it a different animal from the original 2017 ban, but it still derives from the same family. Green-card holders, those with valid visas issued before the executive order was proclaimed, and professional athletes representing their countries in the forthcoming World Cup, for example, are exempt, illustrating how the administration has learned to write more litigation-resistant immigration exclusion orders.But make no mistake. Such a policy is alienating, counterproductive and simply racist. For one thing, Trump claims that the ban is necessary because the selected countries exhibit either “a significant terrorist presence”, a lack of cooperation in accepting back their nationals, or high rates of visa overstays. According to the Entry/Exit Overstay Report for fiscal year 2023 (the last one available), the number of people from Equatorial Guinea, a small African country, who overstayed their B1/B2 visas (travel to the US for business or pleasure) was 200. From the United Kingdom, it was 15,712.It’s true that the percentage (as opposed to the number) of people overstaying their visas from Equatorial Guinea is significantly higher than UK overstays. But Djibouti, which hosts the primary US military base in for operations in Africa, has an even higher percentage of B1/B2 visa overstayers than Equatorial Guinea – yet it isn’t part of the ban, illustrating how much it is based on narrow political calculations and cheap theatrics.The capriciousness of the policy was immediately evident after Trump released a video explaining his decision. “The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed for our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstayed their visas,” he said, adding: “We don’t want them.” Yet, as everyone knows, the suspect in the Boulder, Colorado, attack is an Egyptian national, another key US ally. And Egypt is not on the list.Nor should it be, because these lists of banned countries collapse individuals into vague categories of suspicion and malfeasance. Why should the actions of one person from any given country mark a completely different person as inadmissible? Trump may sound tough to his supporters when announcing the ban, but such broad-brush applications against basically all the nationals of comparatively powerless countries is hardly the flex that Trump thinks it is. In the eyes of the rest of the world, the new policy mostly makes the administration look like a bully, picking on a handful of Muslim-majority countries, a few African and Asian states, a couple of its traditional enemies, and Haiti.Meanwhile, the rest of the world also sees how the Trump administration has withdrawn temporary protections from more than 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, suspended refugee resettlement from around the world, and yet welcomed in dozens of white Afrikaners from South Africa to the United States as refugees. The ethnocentrism of the policy is as naked as it is opportunistic.The truth is that the damage from Trump’s first-term Muslim ban was long-lasting and had all kinds of collateral impact, including on the mental health of family members living in the United States. And immigrant advocacy organizations are already sharply criticizing this latest version. AfghanEvac, a non-profit organization that facilitates the resettlement of Afghans who worked with American troops, stated that the new ban “is not about national security – it is about political theater”. To include Afghanistan among the banned countries, even as thousands of Afghans worked alongside American forces, is to Shawn VanDiver, the group’s founder and president, “a moral disgrace. It spits in the face of our allies, our veterans, and every value we claim to uphold.”Trump’s latest travel ban, his ramped-up immigration deportation regime, his international student crackdown, and his all but ending asylum in the United States add up to a clearly a concerted attempt to stave off the inevitable while vilifying the marginal. Demographers have been telling us for years now that the US will be a “majority minority” country around 2045, a prospect that has long frightened many of the white conservatives who make up Trump’s base. In response, Trump is pursuing a policy that draws on the most basic kind of nativism around, and one we’ve seen before in the United States.The 1924 Immigration Act severely restricted immigration to the US to keep America as white and as western European as possible. Only in 1965 were the laws finally changed, with the national immigration quotas lifted, laying the foundation for the multicultural society we have today. That earlier movie of epic exclusion lasted some 41 years. So far, this sequel is violent, scary and authoritarian. It had better be a short film.

      Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump v Musk: 10 ways they can further hurt each other

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      The falling-out between the world’s richest person and the president of the world’s largest economy will have consequences – for both of them.Elon Musk, as the boss of multiple companies including Tesla, and Donald Trump, who has benefited from Musk’s support in his journey to the White House, have had a mutually beneficial relationship up until now.Here are 10 ways in which Musk and Trump could hurt each other if they fail to broker a peace deal.What Trump could do to MuskCancel government contracts related to Musk’s businessesResponding to Musk’s criticism of his tax and spending bill, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday that cancelling the billionaire’s government contracts would be a straightforward way to save money.“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump said.In 2024, the New York Times reported that Musk’s companies – which include electric vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX – have over the past year been promised $3bn across nearly 100 different contracts with 17 federal agencies.Investigate Musk’s alleged drug useThe New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have made allegations of heavy drug use by Musk, raising questions about Nasa requirements for its contractors – including SpaceX – to maintain a drug-free workforce. The Times alleged that Musk has received advanced warning of the tests. SpaceX has been contacted for comment.Responding to the Times allegations on X last month, Musk wrote: “to be clear, I am NOT taking drugs!” In 2024 he said he sometimes used ketamine on a doctor’s prescription.Challenge Musk’s immigration statusSteve Bannon, a Trump ally and influential “alt-right” figure, told the Times on Thursday that Musk’s immigration status should be investigated.“They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status, because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” Bannon said of South Africa-born Musk, who is a US citizen.Use general presidential powers against MuskWhen Trump was elected, observers pointed to the myriad ways in which a Musk-friendly White House administration could benefit the financial interests of the world’s richest person. That benign environment, which includes awarding of government contracts and directing federal agencies giving Musk’s businesses an easier ride, could of course be turned hostile.Richard Pierce, a law professor at George Washington University and a specialist in government regulation, told the Guardian at the time: “All federal regulators and prosecutors work for the president. He can tell them to do something or not to do something with the understanding that he will fire them if they disobey.”Ostracise Musk from the Maga movementTrump, as the leader of the “Make America great again” vanguard, can close doors on Musk. The Republican congressman Troy Nehls excoriated the billionaire on Thursday, telling him: ““You’ve lost your damn mind.” He added: “Enough is enough.”Musk can handle such opprobrium and, given his considerable wealth, he is an important source of funding for Republican politicians.What Musk could do to TrumpTurn X against the White HouseMusk used his X platform, and his more than 220 million followers on it, to rally support for Trump’s victory in the 2024. It also provided a platform for rightwing views that helped publicise the Maga agenda.Theoretically, Musk could at least use his own X account to criticise Trump with as much regularity as he pumped the president’s policies (the Tesla chief executive is a prolific user of his own platform).However, this also depends on Musk’s influence with the US electorate. Five out of 10 US adults say they have an unfavourable view of Musk, according to the Pew Research Center. But it should be noted that seven out of 10 Republicans or Republican-leaning adults hold a favourable view – he’s not going to sway many Democrats who dislike Trump anyway.Form a new political movementMusk, who is worth more than $300bn (£220bn), could divert his considerable financial resources away from the Republican party and start a new political entity. Musk spent $250m on getting Trump elected in 2024, signalling his willingness to invest heavily in politics.On Thursday he posted a poll on X and asked: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?” More than 80% of the 4.8 million respondents voted “yes”.Create geopolitical problems with his businessesThe Starlink satellite broadband platform, owned by Musk’s SpaceX, is playing a key rule in Ukraine’s fight against a Russian invasion, while China is an important manufacturing and consumer base for Tesla. Through his businesses, Musk also has political contacts around the world and is regularly photographed in the company of global leaders. However, any damage Musk causes to Trump’s international standing or interests will have to be balanced with any knock-on effect on his own businesses.Create problems for NasaNasa has a close relationship with Musk’s SpaceX, with the company’s Dragon spacecraft being used to transport the agency’s astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Musk immediately pledged to decommission Dragon in the wake of the Trump spat on Thursday – before quickly signalling an about-face. Nonetheless, SpaceX is a crucial part of Nasa’s ISS operations.Tell-all on TrumpMusk has been a fixture of Trump’s inner circle for a considerable period of time and, as the contents of his X account show, he is capable of taking multiple damaging swipes at people. However, members of Trump’s inner circle will have had the same access to Musk, whose personal life is becoming a media staple. More