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      Trump to defend trade war in major address to Congress tonight, top adviser says – live

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      Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Speaking to the former Trump advisor Larry Kudlow on Fox Business this hour, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said that talks with Canada and Mexico are ongoing, and an announcement on a middle ground solution on tariffs could be announced on Wednesday.“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better”, Lutnick said, “and the president is listening because you know he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s gonna work something out with them. It’s not gonna be a pause, none of that pause stuff. But I think he’s gonna figure out, ‘You do more, and I’ll meet you in the middle some way’. And we’re going to probably be announcing that tomorrow. So, somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome. The president moving with the Canadians and Mexicans, but not all the way.”The Fox Business host Kudlow was the director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration.In addition to the mass firings of federal workers, the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal government apparently includes a real estate fire sale.On its website, the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties, said it has identified 443 properties, totaling more than 80 million square feet that “are not core to government operations” now “designated for disposal.”The list of buildings to be put up for sale includes some of the most iconic properties in Washington, including the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Labor Department.Reuters reports that the agency said sales could potentially save more than $430 million in annual operating costs. The move could, however, put federal agencies at risk of exploitation by private landlords.The list also includes the Washington headquarters for the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the American Red Cross building and the Office of Personnel Management. GSA’s own headquarters were also on the list.It also includes major office buildings in Atlanta, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Chicago, including the landmark Chicago Loop Post Office designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.The largest union of federal workers says that fired probationary employees must be reinstated, after the office of personnel management (OPM) amended a memo that had ordered their termination.“OPM’s revision of its Jan. 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings,” the American Federation of Government Employees president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement.“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”Here’s more about the Trump administration’s about-face:Democrats have seized on reports that congressman Richard Hudson, who leads the House GOP’s campaign operation, has asked lawmakers to stop holding in-person town halls after several incidences where constituents aired grievances over Donald Trump’s haphazard cuts to the federal government.Politico reports that Hudson made the request in a private meeting today, though lawmakers don’t have to follow it. In response, top Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to hide while supporting unpopular policies. Here’s minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      House Republicans have just been ordered to stop holding town hall meetings. They can run from their extreme agenda. We will never let them hide.
      And Katarina Flicker, press secretary for the House Majority Pac, which supports Democratic candidates:
      If you’re going to have the audacity to raise prices and rip away health care from millions of Americans, you should at least have the courage to face your constituents. House Republicans are cowards.
      The nation’s largest union of auto workers said it supported Donald Trump’s tariffs on major US trading partners and was working with its administration “to end the free trade disaster”.The statement from the United Auto Workers comes after it endorsed Joe Biden’s re-election bid and its president, Shawn Fain, campaigned for Democrats last year. The political winds have since shifted, and the UAW says it is in favor of Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada as a way to undo the damage of free trade agreements that it claims undermined American manufacturing. From its statement:
      Tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals. We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.
      There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs “disrupting” the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision. The working class suffered all the pain of NAFTA, and we won’t suffer all the pain of undoing NAFTA. We want to see corporate America, from the auto industry and beyond, recommit to the working class that makes the products and generates the profits that keep this country running.
      The UAW is in active negotiations with the Trump Administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster. We look forward to working with the White House to shape the auto tariffs in April to benefit the working class. We want to see serious action that will incentivize companies to change their behavior, reinvest in America, and stop cheating the American worker, the American consumer, and the American taxpayer.
      Earlier in the day, the Detroit automakers’ trade association pleaded for exemptions from the tariffs and warned they would undermine US car manufacturers.Add Republican former senator Pat Toomey to those who don’t think much of Donald Trump’s levying of tariffs on Mexico and Canada.On X, Toomey, who represented Pennsylvania until 2023, said:
      With his multiple rounds of tariffs, and the inevitable retaliations, President Trump has wiped out all of the S & P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gains since his election. Next come higher prices and job losses.
      Democratic lawmakers are split over whether to attend Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress this evening, and the degree to which they should express their dislike of what he will say.Many lawmakers plan to be there, but bring along guests with personal stories that can speak to the risks and failures of Trump’s ideology. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she invited Elena Hung, an advocate for Medicaid, the insurance program for poor and disabled Americans that Trump wants to cut:
      Elena Hung’s courageous daughter, Xiomara, was born with a number of serious medical conditions and is thriving today as a result of access to quality health care – including Medicaid …
      At a time when Medicaid is under assault by those who seek to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, I am honored that Xiomara’s story will be told through Elena’s attendance as my guest to this year’s address to a joint session of Congress.
      Some Democrats want to stage protests during the speech, not unlike the heckling Joe Biden got last year when he gave what turned out to be his final State of the Union address. Axios has more about their plans, which are not popular with minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      Some members have told colleagues they may walk out of the chamber when Trump says specific lines they find objectionable, lawmakers told Axios. Criticism of transgender kids was brought up as a line in the sand that could trigger members to storm out, according to a House Democrat.
      A wide array of props – including noisemakers – has also been floated: Signs with anti-Trump or anti-DOGE messages – just as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) held up a sign during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last year that said “war criminal.” Eggs or empty egg cartons to highlight how inflation is driving up the price of eggs.
      Finally, some lawmakers are boycotting the address. Among them is progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said on Bluesky she’d be “live posting and chatting with you all here instead. Then going on [Instagram] Live after.”The magnitude and scale of President Trump’s decision to go ahead with 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico has had economists recalling the Tariff Act (1930) signed by President Herbert Hoover.It saw average tariffs jump by 20% for thousands of different imported goods, as the US tried to protect its depressed agricultural sector from foreign competition.Proposed by senator Reed Smoot and representative Willis C Hawley, the bill, reported in the Manchester Guardian (below) was opposed by more than onethousand economists, who warned Hoover of a dramatic downturn in US trade with other countries, especially from those that retaliated.Nonetheless Hoover signed it into law, with some Congress members, realising the vote was quite close, engaging in logrolling to get something for their constituency in return for their support.The impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was, as predicted, highly damaging to the United States, with estimates of imported goods, many of which were needed by US industry and commerce, plummeting by nearly half.The tariffs also caused shock waves to global trade as other nations deployed protectionist policies, resulting in an estimated half of the 25% decline in world trade.Elon Musk will brief House republicans tonight about criticism of Doge cuts, Bloomberg News and the Hill report. Tonight at 7pm, Musk, who leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – which has been slashing the federal workforce and the budgets of federal agencies – will meet in the House basement with Republican lawmakers about complaints from their constituents about the mass firings.Mass firings have taken place at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Defense Department, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, National Parks, and more.In a message to employees on Monday, the newly confirmed secretary of education, Linda McMahon, a billionaire ex-wrestling executive, laid out the “final mission” for the department as Donald Trump threatens to dismantle the agency.“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” wrote McMahon, a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the professional wrestling organisation. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”The message comes as Trump is reportedly finalizing plans to issue an executive order to eliminate the 45-year-old US Department of Education and eliminate or reorganize the department’s functions and programs.Workers at the Department of Education called the email a “power grab” focused on privatization at the expense of children with disabilities and from low-income families.“It’s heartbreaking to read such a disingenuous, manipulative letter from the head of the agency,” said one employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “I don’t read the letter to be an end to the department. It reads as a transformation into something sinister, a tool for the president to use to ensure his ideology is implemented by states and local governments at the risk of losing funding. It’s the exact overreach it’s purporting to stop.”You can read more on this story here:Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to respond to Canada’s announcement of retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan: “Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!”Trump flippantly referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor” in his post underscores the president’s previous comments that he wants to annex Canada and make it the 51st US state.When asked what he would tell his constituents who have federal government jobs and are worried about the so-called department of government efficiency’s cuts to the federal workforce, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville told ABC News: “We’re going to have to suck it up.” He echoed Trump’s calls to “stop the bleeding” and spend less, even though this means it will hurt Americans. Federal employees make up 7.6% of the workforce Huntsville, Alabama. Many of these employees work at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center.In response to the tariffs that went in effect today, which experts say will raise the price of goods, Tuberville said “there’s going to be pain” but that it was the best way forward for the country.Donald Trump has upended the United States’ relationship with three of its top trading partners by following through on his campaign promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs were “a very dumb thing to do” and announced Canada would impose retaliatory levies, while in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce her nation’s response on Sunday. Trump defended the decision as necessary to restore domestic manufacturing, though his commerce secretary acknowledged they could drive prices higher in the short term. The president is expected to elaborate on the decision this evening, when he addresses the first joint session of Congress of his new term.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The CEOs of two large US retailers, Target and Best Buy, said they expected prices to go up as a result of Trump’s trade war.

      Ontario’s premier Doug Ford told the Wall Street Journal that he was imposing a 25% export tax on electricity sent to three US states, and might cut it off altogether if the tariffs linger.

      Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to sign the minerals deal Trump was demanding, and acknowledged his White House meeting last week “did not go the way it was supposed to”.
      The Trump administration has backed down from its demand for federal agencies to fire employees on probation, even after many have already been let go.The decision comes as a federal judge temporarily halted the administration’s move, which was part of a larger effort to thin out the federal workforce and targeted at workers who were newly hired or promoted.In a revised memo, the office of personnel management instead instructed agency human resource chiefs to send them lists of workers on probation and determine whether those employees should be retained, without specifying that they be terminated. It’s unclear what this will mean for workers who have already been fired.The development was first reported by the Washington Post.Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Back in the US, more business leaders are warning consumers to expect higher prices as a result of Donald Trump’s trade war. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones and Leyland Cecco:Americans have been warned to brace for higher prices within days after Donald Trump pulled the trigger on Monday and imposed US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, and hiked tariffs on China.Global stock markets came under pressure again on Tuesday, with leading indices falling sharply – and the benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains – as Canada, Mexico and China vowed to retaliate, and investors balked at the prospect of an acrimonious trade war.US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on shelves almost immediately after a 25% duty came into effect on exports from Mexico to the US.Most Canadian exports to the US also now face a 25% duty, with a 10% rate for energy products. The Trump administration imposed a 10% levy on all Chinese exports to the US last month, which has now been doubled to 20%.Trump, who won back the White House after pledging repeatedly to bring prices down, has acknowledged that his controversial trade strategy could lead them to rise. Consumers could face “some short-term disturbance”, the president conceded last month.With US retailers relying heavily on imports from Mexico and Canada to stock their shelves, top executives claimed they would have no choice but to increase prices.Justin Trudeau went on to accuse Donald Trump of seeking to destroy the Canadian economy to make the country easier to annex – something he insisted was “never going to happen”.“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that will make it easier to annex us, is the second half of his thought. Now, first of all, that’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state, but yeah, he can do damage to the Canadian economy, and he started this morning,” Trudeau said.The prime minister warned that Americans will suffer in the trade war as well:
      As American families are going to find out, that’s going to hurt people on both sides of the border. Americans will lose jobs, Americans will be paying more for groceries, for gas, for cars, for homes, because we have always done best when we work together. So we are, of course, open to starting negotiations on the customer review, but let us not fool ourselves about what he seems to be wanting.
      Justin Trudeau also said that he did not believe Donald Trump’s insistence that tariffs were imposed in retaliation for Canada’s failure to combat fentanyl trafficking.“We have laid out extensive plans, actions, cooperations, including as recently as the past days in Washington, and they have always been very well received, and the numbers bear that out,” the prime minister said.“I think in what President Trump said yesterday, that there is nothing Canada or Mexico can do to avoid these tariffs, underlines very clearly what I think a lot of us have suspected for a long time, that these tariffs are not specifically about fentanyl, even though that is the legal justification he must use to actually move forward with these tariffs.” More

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      Stephen Colbert on Trump-Zelenskyy meeting: ‘Embarrassing, chilling and confusing’

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      Late-night hosts recap Donald Trump’s shocking rebuke of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during a disastrous White House press conference.Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert braced himself on Monday to recap Friday’s chaotic White House meeting between Trump, JD Vance and Zelenskyy that devolved into a shouting match between the two world leaders, with Trump as the aggressor, blaming Zelenskyy for continuing Russia’s war in his country.“In just 10 minutes, Donald Trump reversed 80 years of postwar US foreign policy,” the Late Show host explained. “A mere six weeks ago, America defended democracy against autocrats and promoted free and open societies all over the world. Now, we’re on the same pickleball team with Russia. And you don’t want to know who’s pickled balls we’re playing with.“So our friends are now our enemies, our enemy is now our friend, we’re breaking up with Europe, we’re friends with Russia,” he continued. “You could argue that’s a good thing, you could argue that’s a bad thing. But what you can’t argue with is that’s the thing.”The talks, nominally to sign a deal in which Ukraine promised the US 50% of its profits from rare earth minerals, collapsed within 10 minutes. “So things were looking promising, but then everything exploded and collapsed. It’s a phenomenon political scientists refer to as the Emilia Pérez Oscar campaign,” Colbert quipped.“Zelenskyy kept reminding these numbnuts that Putin breaks every single deal he ever signs,” he added. When a reporter then asked Trump what would happen if Putin broke any deal, the president responded: “What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now.“Yeah, that’s how Putin’s going to break the ceasefire,” Colbert responded. “This meeting was embarrassing, chilling and confusing.”Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers also tore into Vance and Trump for their handling of the Zelenskyy meeting, starting with Vance’s insistence that Zelenskyy thank Trump personally for US aid. “JD Vance sounds like a boyfriend who just got caught cheating for the third time – ‘You keep asking where I was last night, but have you said thank you once for the bracelet I got you!’” said Meyers.“For the record, Zelenskyy has said thank you many times, directly to the American people, in English, a language he speaks more fluently than Donald Trump,” he added.Meyers went on to note: “Diplomacy is good, we should try to achieve a ceasefire to stop the killing and bring peace, but it is possible – in fact, it’s necessary – to do that while also remaining clear-eyed about who the aggressor is. Who violated sovereignty and international law and human rights by starting the war in the first place.“But Trump doesn’t give a shit about any of that,” he continued. “All he cares about is self-enrichment and raw power and territorial conquest. That’s why he’s doing a solid for Russian oligarchs by letting them keep their superyachts.”Meyers also blasted Democrats for their feckless response, referring to comments from Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, that “we’ll need to see some mature leadership from the Trump administration.”“What is wrong with all of you?” Meyers fumed. “You want to see some mature leadership from the Trump administration? Well, I want to see all the gold in Fort Knox. And guess what? Neither of us is getting what we fucking want!“Seriously, Democrats, show some spine,” he added. “Do you want to get primaried? Why do you guys keep acting like this is your first day on the job?”Jon StewartAnd on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart mulled an offer by Elon Musk to appear for an interview on the show, as long as it was unedited. “After thinking about his offer, I thought, you know, hey, that’s actually how the in-studio interviews normally are. It’s unedited,’” Stewart said. “So sure, we’d be delighted.”Stewart added that he would “sweeten the pot” and keep the cameras rolling for as long as Musk wanted their conversation to last. “The interview can be 15 minutes. It can be an hour. It can be two hours, whatever,” he said.Musk later appeared to renege on his offer, posting on X that “Jon Stewart is much more a propagandist than it would seem” and not “bipartisan”.“The guy who custom-made his own dark Maga hat that he wears to opine in the Oval Office with the president who he spent $270m to elect thinks I’m just too partisan,” Stewart laughed. “I’m really not sure what he thinks bipartisan means, but it’s generally not ‘I support Donald Trump and also Germany’s AFD party.’ That’s not bipartisan, that’s just the same shit.“Look, Elon, I do have some criticisms about Doge,” he continued. “I support, in general, the idea of efficiency and delivering better services to the American public in cheaper and more efficient ways. And if you want to come on and talk about it on the show, great. If you don’t want to, sure.“But can we just drop the pretense that you won’t do it because I don’t measure up to the standards of neutral discourse that you demand and display at all times? Because quite frankly, that’s bullshit.” More

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      Yes, Trump is a hypocrite. But is pointing that out an effective attack? | Jan-Werner Mueller

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      Historians and psychologists will study when exactly the meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy started to descend into political disaster. A plausible contender for an answer is the – in itself trivial – moment when Brian Glenn, representative of the far-right outlet Real America’s Voice (newly admitted to the press pool) asked the Ukrainian president why he was not wearing a suit.That framing – the wartime president was somehow “disrespecting” America – was then picked up in the vile attack on Zelenskyy by JD Vance and repeated by a chorus of sycophants in the Republican party (including Glenn’s girlfriend Marjorie Taylor Greene). Critics immediately pointed out the hypocrisy: if Elon Musk can appear in a T-shirt and a baseball cap at a cabinet meeting, what is wrong with someone wearing fatigues? That gotcha might provide momentary psychological satisfaction – but it’s important to understand why the charges of hypocrisy achieve little with the Maga-world and why, as a matter of political psychology, something different is needed.According to a much-repeated maxim from a 17th-century French moralist, hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. According to this logic, hypocrisy actually contributes to moral standards being upheld, as no one wants to be seen flaunting them openly. Wearing a suit is obviously not an important “norm” – part of the problem with the whole debate about aspiring authoritarians breaking norms and crashing through guardrails has been that those diagnosing violations of norms have not always distinguished between different kinds of norms. They have also not made it clear why some norms matter for democracy much more than others (Trump was criticized for breaking the “norm” of having a pet in the White House).The larger issue, though, is that charges of hypocrisy do not land if the supposed hypocrite is not committed to any kind of consistency in the first place. They can simply assert that that the inconsistency happens to be justified: Musk de facto presiding over the cabinet meeting is OK because, hey, he’s a genius who can see more clearly than the rest of us why stopping cancer research and making hurricanes more deadly are actually making America greater in the long run. Zelenskyy, by contrast, is a Democrat in disguise who just does “propaganda”, according to Vance.An even better option for seeming hypocrites is to assert their superiority over those making the charge: Viktor Orbán is frequently accused of having betrayed his original liberal convictions; after all, he had been financed by George Soros to spend time at Oxford, his political party had a liberal, even outright anti-clerical, and pro-European program – before Orbán transformed himself into a cheerleader for the international far right. The response easily available to the authoritarian prime minister is that he has actually learnt something over the course of his career – to wit, that liberalism doesn’t work in his country – whereas the liberal critics, contrary to their self-image as sophisticated thinkers, cling to dogmas. Vance has kept pulling the same trick: he has learnt to stop worrying about Trump being Hitler and simply come to love the good felon, always emphasizing that he was able to see something in Trump that lesser mortals fail to get.A final reason why the accusation of hypocrisy is hardly a knock-down argument – and the one most applicable to Maga – is that those always ready to lie can hardly be caught out by claims about inconsistency. It is now clear that the Trump campaign was based on deceptions – starting with strident denials of any association with the Project 2025 Christian nationalists-cum-authoritarians. By the same token, Trump’s nominees were not exactly truthful in their confirmation hearings; and the entire Republican party is now evidently lying about their intended spending cuts.Pointing out the inconsistencies between what Maga Republicans – it’s not clear at this point whether there are any others – say one day and do the next will not be seen as a cause for moral introspection; rather, the inconsistency is proof of Maga’s power. What observers call performative lying is part of authoritarianism – think of Vladimir Putin lying to his interlocutor’s’ face, smiling, knowing that they know that he is lying, but cannot do anything about it.What about broader audiences? Do they not care about hypocrisy? True, some might; but, given the self-enclosed rightwing media ecosphere which has been created in the United States over decades – and the attention deficit of the public more broadly, to put it bluntly – it is unlikely that finer points about inconsistencies will get much of a hearing.The challenge is to devise rhetoric – and powerful gestures – that do not rely on complicated comparisons but stress how Trump and Musk are sabotaging the country. Democrats might simply boycott the Trump address to Congress next week and instead hold rallies and town halls establishing meaningful connections with citizens who Republicans are now refusing to listen to – and, yes, on those occasions, also slip in a point about hypocrisy: that the party that blathers about “giving power to the people” is afraid of any contact with the people.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a professor of politics at Princeton University and is a Guardian US columnist More

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      JD Vance says US economic interests in Ukraine the best way to guarantee its security

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      US vice-president JD Vance said that the best way to protect Ukraine from another Russian invasion is to guarantee the US has a financial interest in Ukraine’s future.“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said in the interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity which aired Monday night.“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” he said.The interview aired the same day the White House reportedly announced it was pausing military aid to Ukraine and days after US President Donald Trump clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.“What is the actual plan here? You can’t just fund the war forever. The American people won’t stand for that,” Vance said. This interview was recorded in advance, so it is unclear whether Vance was aware that the US would have paused aid by the time it aired.Vance and Hannity spoke about Friday’s contentious meeting, which Vance said he tried to diffuse. He said that the doors were still open for negotiations.“There was a lack of respect. There was a certain sense of entitlement,” Vance said about Zelenskyy. “They showed a clear unwillingness to discuss the peaceful settlement that President Trump has tried to bring to this situation.”Before Friday’s meeting, a minerals deal was meant to establish a joint fund between the US and Ukraine that would receive revenues from the mining of rare earth metals and other precious minerals in Ukraine, as well as some oil and gas revenues.Later in Monday’s interview, Vance doubled down on his criticism on European leaders over
free speech and democracy. The vice-president claimed that the Biden administration promoted censorship.“These ideas are going to destroy western civilization,” Vance said. “They’re going to destroy Europe, and they would destroy the United States of America if we allowed them to fester.”He went on to repeat anti-immigrant rhetoric, claiming mass migration poses a major threat to Europe. By the end of the interview, the conversation had turned to anti-trans topics, just days after Trump signed an executive order barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. More

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      What Trump did during week 6: Gaza AI video and Zelenskyy meeting meltdown

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      During his sixth week back in office, Donald Trump and the vice-president, JD Vance, hosted Ukrainian president for what devolved into a shocking and explosive meeting.Trump accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of “gambling with world war three” while Vance berated the Ukrainian president in a storm of accusations and falsehoods about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Elsewhere in the Trump administration, Elon Musk again demanded that federal workers send an email detailing their recent accomplishments.Here’s what else happened last week.2 March 2025Day 42The fallout continued from Trump and Zelenskyy’s disastrous Oval Office meeting, as the Ukrainian leader sought to recalibrate and insisted a minerals deal was ready to be signed during a diplomatic visit to London. While Europe rallies behind Ukraine, Trump’s Republican allies, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said Zelenskyy may have to resign, a suggestion Senator Bernie Sanders called “horrific”. The Democratic senator Chris Murphy said Trump’s White House had in effect become “an arm of the Kremlin”.Also on Sunday:

      The health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, urged Americans to get the MMR vaccine in response to a growing measles epidemic in Texas, days after Kennedy, who has long sowed skepticism with his endorsement of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, downplayed the situation as “not unusual”.
      1 March 2025Day 41A federal judge in Washington blocked Trump from ousting the leader of a federal watchdog agency, ruling that the effort to terminate the official without cause was “unlawful”. The decision by the US district judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington allows Hampton Dellinger to remain the head of the office of special counsel, which protects federal whistleblowers. In her ruling, Jackson wrote that upholding the president’s ability to fire Dellinger would give him “a constitutional license to bully officials in the executive branch into doing his will”. The case is likely to be decided by the supreme court. View image in fullscreenAlso on Saturday: 

      Musk renewed his demand that every federal employee send an email detailing their recent accomplishments, a week after the original demand sparked chaos and confusion across the government workforce.

      Trump signed an executive order establishing English as the official language of the US.

      Supporters of Ukraine protested against the Trump administration across the US, including a Vermont ski resort where Vance was vacationing with his family.
      28 February 2025Day 40In an explosive Oval Office meeting, Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, assailed and berated Zelenskyy in a storm of accusations and falsehoods about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The tense exchange ended with Zelenskyy leaving the White House early, without signing a controversial minerals deal that was seen as key to unlocking US security guarantees for European peacekeepers in Ukraine. During the exchange, which played out publicly on live TV, Trump said Zelenskyy was “gambling with world war three” and told the Ukrainian president to come back “when he is ready for peace”. Hours later, Zelenskyy sought to de-escalate the situation in an interview on Fox News, but Trump appeared unmoved as he departed Washington for his Mar-a-Lago resort. View image in fullscreenAlso on Friday: 

      European leaders and Democrats rallied around Zelenskyy, voicing continued support for Ukraine, while Trump’s Republican allies demand the Ukrainian leader apologize.

      The White House said that classified documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago in 2022 had been returned to Trump.

      The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that Trump had “asked Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to depart the White House” after their contentious exchange in the Oval Office. 

      The Democratic party sued Trump over a recent executive order it says violates federal election law by giving him too much power over the independent federal election commission.
      27 February 2025Day 39Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, arrived at the White House bearing a letter from King Charles as he quietly appealed to Trump not to abandon Ukraine as the US president searches for a speedy end to Russia’s brutal invasion of the country. In remarks, Starmer praised Trump for “changing the conversation” and making peace possible in Ukraine while Trump denied calling Zelenskyy a dictator, despite having done so, and suggested Vladimir Putin could be trusted. En route to Washington, Starmer pledged to raise the country’s defense spending, a commitment seen as a way to persuade Trump to provide a “backstop” for European security in Ukraine. And in a major relief for the British premier, Trump indicated that he would not slap harsh tariffs on the UK. View image in fullscreenAlso on Thursday: 

      A federal judge found that the mass firings of probationary employees as part of the Trump administration’s government downsizing effort were likely unlawful.

      The ruling came on the same day that the Trump administration moved to terminate hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency housed within the Department of Commerce.

      Senate Democrats publicly – and some Republicans privately – raised concerns over the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid and cuts to USAid. 
      26 February 2025Day 38Donald Trump used the first full cabinet meeting of his second term to heap praise on Elon Musk and his billionaire ally’s mission to dramatically reduce the size of the federal government. Though not a member of Trump’s cabinet, Musk attended and took center stage as the secretaries sat mostly silently for the hourlong meeting. The tech mogul defended Doge’s actions, which have stoked confusion and backlash, but conceded that the team would make mistakes, citing a decision to cancel an Ebola prevention effort that was “quickly” reinstated. During the summit, Trump also threatened to slap 25% tariffs on the European Union and announced that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would visit the White House to sign a minerals deal with the US.View image in fullscreenAlso on Wednesday: 

      A new White House memo instructed federal agencies to submit plans for “a significant reduction” in their staff by 13 March, potentially setting the stage to shrink the government workforce by tens of thousands more in the coming weeks. A top Senate Democrat warned that Trump may be pursuing a mineral rights deal with Vladimir Putin and Russia as well as Zelenskyy and Ukraine.

      A Pentagon memo filed in court on Wednesday said transgender service members would be separated from the US military unless they receive an exemption.

      The supreme court handed the president his first victory, granting the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court’s deadline for the government to resume nearly $2bn in foreign aid payments.
      25 February 2025Day 37In a dramatic vote, House Republicans unified behind a budget blueprint, taking a major step toward advancing Donald Trump’s “big BEAUTIFUL” tax cut and immigration agenda. But vulnerable Republicans face a brewing backlash over the plan, which would almost certainly require significant reductions to social safety net programs that serve the poor. House Democrats plan to hammer Republicans over their support for the measure and the potential cuts to Medicaid required to pay for it as they plot a return to power in next year’s midterms. But Trump’s fiscal plan is far from guaranteed: Republican negotiators from both the House and Senate must now reconcile their competing budget blueprints to move forward.Also on Tuesday: 

      The White House said it would pick which media outlets are allowed to participate in the presidential press pool, drawing sharp condemnation from the White House Correspondents’ Association, which warned: “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”

      The Trump administration announced that immigrants in the US without authorization could face fines and prison time if they fail to submit their personal data to a government registry while the president floated the creation of a “gold card” visa that would give wealthy foreigners a pathway to citizenship for a $5m fee.
      24 February 2025Day 36The US office of personnel management told agency officials that federal workers were not required to respond to billionaire Elon Musk’s demand that they defend their recent accomplishments or risk being fired, even as Donald Trump indicated support for the ultimatum. The email sparked widespread chaos and confusion amid ongoing turmoil Musk’s Doge has inflicted on the federal workforce. After government departments gave their employees differing instructions as to whether they should respond to the message, OPM, which manages the federal workforce, announced that compliance with the email was voluntary and that failing to do so by midnight would not be considered a resignation, as Musk had warned.Also on Monday: 

      France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, warned Donald Trump against a “surrender” of Ukraine during a visit to the White House, as the US president said Vladimir Putin would accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the conflict. (The Kremlin has pushed back on this.)

      Earlier in the day, the US joined Russia, Belarus and North Korea in voting against an EU-Ukrainian resolution condemning Russia on the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion, another sign of Trump’s sharp turn toward Putin.  
      The Guardian is tracking the presidency’s first 100 days. Find days 1-35 in our full guide. More

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      Starmer struggles to remain upright under the weight of his contradictions | Zoe Williams

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      If I were Volodymyr Zelenskyy, I’d be thinking, either Keir Starmer has a fiendishly intelligent and subtle mind, or he is bananas. Starmer channelled the giants of British history (everyone we’re not embarrassed of; basically, Winston Churchill) on Sunday. He said we were at a “crossroads in history”.He used the phrase “we are gathered here today”, which I suppose was literally true, as they were, but also had a strange church-y overtone, as if he were trying to borrow the actual authority of God, and he explicitly yoked together the peace and security of Ukraine with that of everyone – all of Europe, but also “us” – Justin Trudeau was there, so presumably Canada’s, too. Pictures of him hugging Zelenskyy ahead were almost tear-jerkingly sincere.He was then asked by journalists following Saturday afternoon’s statement – who came at the question from many directions – whether he considered the US to be inside or outside his plan for a durable peace, and he was trenchant.“Europe and the US have to stand together and that position must be strong”; “I do not accept that the US is an unreliable ally”. It was an absolute head-scratcher – because the US does not seek a sovereign Ukraine, safe in perpetuity from Russian aggression.Donald Trump and JD Vance showed the world what they think of this war on Friday, and they are in an opposite world, Zelenskyy is the one risking the lives of ordinary people, and the war is for him to end – while giving up his nation’s mineral rights to the US and thanking them for the privilege.That meeting in the White House was easily the most gruesome display of bullying and manipulation that televised geopolitics has ever put on. So in what world does the guy you just hugged get to walk away proud and sovereign, with US backing? In what conceivable world is Trump on the same team as these assembled leaders?Starmer was under considerable pressure in his short speech, which we have to hope was just because history had its eyes on him, and not because he’s overwhelmed by the weight of his own contradictions.Words were mangled into non-words, “step” became “stet”, “presume” got funked with “preserve”. And yet, his lawyerly clarity remained. He had five points, they were all different, they all made sense, he said them all in the right order.“We will keep the military aid flowing … to strengthen Ukraine now,” he said, adding that the £2.2bn loan to Zelenskyy would come from frozen Russian assets, and the £1.6bn of UK export finance would be channelled straight back into the UK economy via the air defence industry in Belfast.“Any lasting peace,” he continued, “must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security and Ukraine must be at the table”. It’s a simple and defensible point, but it also goes head to head against Trump, who has argued throughout that all it’ll take for a peace deal is him, Putin, a copy of The Art of the Deal and a box of cigars.Third, “in the event of a peace deal, we will keep boosting Ukraine’s own defensive capabilities”, Starmer said, which, again, sounds fair enough and yet at the same time runs directly counter to any of the noises coming out of Washington.Fourth, he will assemble “a coalition of the willing, to defend a deal in Ukraine. Not every nation will feel able to contribute but that can’t mean that we sit back.” Here’s the kicker: “this effort must have US backing”.Well, OK, but who on earth would assume that backing? And what would it cost? Do we have to watch Zelenskyy get beaten up live on air, for the US to fall in with the crowd but still feel like it won?Peter Mandelson had told ABC News earlier that “President Zelenskyy [must give] his unequivocal backing to the initiative that President Trump is taking to end the war and to bring a just and lasting peace to Ukraine,” and seriously, all we can do in the face of that counter-messaging is hope that Mandelson’s forgotten he’s the UK’s diplomat to the US and thinks he’s just a guy on a podcast.Starmer’s fifth point was a bit muddled: “Leaders must meet again very soon. We are at a crossroads in history today. This is not a moment for more talk.” What are they going to do at the meeting, if not talk more? Never mind. Don’t pick holes. We need to believe there’s a grand plan behind all this, because the alternative is just horrendous. More

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      Trump officials fume at Zelenskyy for disregarding advice before meeting

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      Inside the Trump White House, officials blamed the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the meltdown in the Oval Office on Friday, and expressed frustration that he pushed for security guarantees even though the US had made clear they wanted to negotiate that later, according to people familiar with the matter.The officials had told their Ukrainian counterparts in advance of the meeting that Trump wanted to sign an economic partnership this week at a ministerial level, as aides worked on the details about security guarantees.Trump saw the minerals deal as the first phase of a broader economic partnership and told aides it showed the US was effectively making a commitment on security guarantees, because the agreement deal would mean the US had a vested interest in Ukraine’s economic prosperity.The officials believed that had all been communicated to Ukraine, as was the advice that senators gave Zelenskyy on Friday morning to praise Trump and not litigate the issue of wanting stronger security guarantees to his face.To Trump’s aides, Zelenskyy did not heed that advice when he expressed skepticism at JD Vance’s view of making peace with Russia and, in their view, lectured the US vice-president on the history of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine that started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.That set off a downward spiral in the Oval Office as Vance took issue with being questioned about his description of diplomacy, and clapped back at Zelenskyy: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country.”Vance cut into Zelenskyy with opprobrium that would have been objectively harsh for an adversary, much less for a putative ally. He appeared to interpret Zelenskyy’s remarks to him as an insult to the US.But the fury with which Vance castigated Zelenskyy for being ungrateful appears to have been the moment when Vance and his team’s personal views about the Ukraine conflict came to the fore.On Thursday, when the prospect of completing the minerals deal was considered more of a probability, Trump had played down his comment calling Zelenskyy a dictator last week. “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question,” Trump told reporters.That brief moment of levity masked the reality that Trump had workshopped the “dictator” post on Truth Social with Vance before it was sent out last week, according to two people briefed on the matter.Vance had settled on the insult on the basis that Zelenskyy had suspended elections, the two people said, apparently ignoring the fact that Ukraine’s constitution decrees that elections cannot be held during a period of martial law, like the one Zelenskyy declared when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.While other US allies, such as the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, effusively praised Trump in the Oval Office this week, Zelenskyy took a different approach and perhaps unknowingly careened headfirst into Vance’s personal skepticism of him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump officials said privately on Saturday that Trump still wants to sign the minerals deal, but an immediate reset appeared unlikely with Trump scheduled to attend a fundraising dinner for the Maga Inc super political action committee in Palm Beach and Zelenskyy’s departure from the US for the UK.There had been one attempt by Ukraine to save the deal after the meeting blew up when Zelenskyy’s aides suggested that Trump meet with Zelenskyy one-on-one to calm tensions. But Trump officials declined the offer, according to two people familiar with the matter.Trump’s view immediately after the meeting was that it was unproductive to engage in further talks because, to him, Zelenskyy was unwilling to sign a peace agreement with Russia.In the end, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, informed the members of the Ukrainian delegation, who were waiting in the Roosevelt Room, that they needed to leave. Minutes later, Zelenskyy stepped into a black SUV that drove off the White House grounds.Appearing on Fox News that evening, Zelenskyy referred to Ronald Reagan’s dictum that “peace is more than just an absence of war” and suggested that because Putin had broken dozens of ceasefire agreements already, more work was needed to reach “a just and lasting peace”. Trump appeared unimpressed when he boarded Marine One en route to Palm Beach, telling reporters that Zelenskyy needed to say publicly that he wanted to make peace and stop saying “negative things” about Putin. More

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      Trump’s style of petty domination was in full display with Zelenskyy | Moira Donegan

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      The last time Donald Trump did this, it was in secret, and he got impeached over it. In 2019, Donald Trump, on a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, demanded that the Ukrainian president produce – or fabricate – evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, the son of Trump’s eventual opponent in the 2020 election, in exchange for continued US military aide.At the time, Russia had already seized control of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, and was funding violent insurgent groups in the country’s east; it was increasingly clear that a full-scale Russian invasion was coming, as it finally did in 2022. Since the end of second world war, it has been America that checks Russian expansionist ambitions in Europe – America that provided the backstop to the Nato alliance, America that secured the independence of eastern Europe. Trump wanted to condition that longstanding role on Zelenskyy doing him a personal political favor. The international order could be ended, he suggested, if those who depended on him didn’t do enough to indulge his vanity, self-interest and impulsive whims.Something similar was already afoot earlier this week, when Trump summoned Zelenskyy to Washington at the last minute to pressure him to sign a mineral rights deal. Trump wanted to make continued American support for Ukraine’s military effort contingent on American involvement in the country’s mineral industry. But the deal that was offered to Zelenskyy in fact contained no security guarantees: it offered something less like a bilateral agreement and more like a shakedown. Nevertheless Zelenskyy, who is leading a besieged people in danger of losing their country, seemed willing to take it – even after Trump called him a “dictator” last week.But things went downhill from there. Trump seemed determined to antagonize Zelenksyy, making a passive aggressive remark about what the Ukrainian president was wearing when he arrived at the White House. (Sources close to Trump leaked to Semafor that the administration was also displeased with Zelenskyy’s “body language”.) In a meeting in the Oval Office, with film crews and reporters present, the US vice-president, JD Vance, began berating Zelenskyy for what he alleged was the Ukrainian president’s disinterest in diplomacy, by which he seems to have meant a Ukrainian surrender on Russia’s terms.When Zelenskyy countered that Russia has not been a reliable partner, breaking promises to Ukraine repeatedly in past ceasefires, Vance began berating him that he was not grateful enough for US support. “I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media,” said Vance, who had initiated the confrontation with cameras in the room, in a practiced cadence. “Have you said thank you once?” Zelenskyy has in fact said “thank you” to the United States many times, including at the outset of the meeting. Both Trump and Vance began raising their voices, ignoring Zelenskyy’s attempts to speak and impugning both his leadership and his personal character. Zelenskyy was soon kicked out, and left the White House without signing the minerals agreement that Trump had nominally summoned him from Ukraine to conclude.It is clear that the post-second world war international order is over. It is clear that Europe will have to look elsewhere, and not to the United States, for its security, and that America will increasingly be isolated among nations, without allies to advance its interests abroad and without friends to share the benefits of science, culture and commerce. Few world leaders, after all, are willing to make deals with such a mercurial partner; fewer still are willing to try, if the attempt will be met with public humiliation in such brutish and bullying style.It is clear that other great powers, including those who do not share what were once America’s stated principles of justice, democracy and human dignity, will fill this vacuum, to America’s detriment. It is clear that Donald Trump does not intend to check Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions – that he will force a deal in the Ukraine war on Russia’s terms, that Zelenskyy himself will likely be exiled or killed in the aftermath, and that other countries in Europe are in danger.In the hours after the meeting, many world leaders publicly voiced their support for Zelenskyy, including the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. Like him, they stand on the edge of an uncertain future. Russia is on the march, indifferent to borders, laws and freedoms, and the United States will no longer stop them. As an American, I was embarrassed by the display. I am also, now, very scared.Because what Trump did to Zelenskyy on Friday is not a departure from his style: it is entirely typical of his domineering approach to politics – one in which violence or harm is threatened to extort his preferred outcomes, and in which good faith negotiation or even basic dignity is shrugged off in favor of petty displays of domination and cruelty.Trump and Vance, I now think, never really intended to have a conversation with Zelenskky: they intended, instead, to try to make themselves look tough on TV by humiliating him. Jake Paul, a boxer, influencer and alleged crypto scammer who has been a booster of Donald Trump, said of the televised shouting match against a head of state, “This isn’t attacking. This is called being a MAN.”Manliness seems to be all that Trump aspires to: and he defines it, almost exclusively as cruelty. Both on the international stage and on the domestic one, Trump and the crowd of racist, misogynist and endlessly immature idiots who surround him will stop at nothing to prove what men they are – no matter how much America suffers, or how many people die, in the process. At the meeting, when Zelenskky tried to persuade Trump to feel differently about the prospect of Russian expansion, Trump cut him off. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,” he said. “We’re going to feel very good. We’re going to feel very good and very strong.” Maybe he does.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More