Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of another day in the life of the second Trump administration, with Donald Trump once again stepping before the cameras, but still hiding his bruised right hand beneath a layer of makeup. We will be back on Wednesday. Here are the latest developments:
The Republican-led House oversight committee released more than 33,000 pages of documents related to the federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender whose long friendship with Donald Trump has raised questions about what the president knew and when he knew it.
Democrats called the limited release a ruse by Republicans, given that 97% of the Epstein records posted online were already public, and renewed their calls for all of the Epstein files to be released.
In a post on his social network on Tuesday, Donald Trump wrote that the US military killed 11 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in a strike on a boat in international waters.
While the White house shared video of the US military strike on a small speedboat off the coast of Venezuela, the administration offered no evidence that the 11 passengers who were killed were smuggling drugs, and there were questions about what legal authority licensed the use of lethal force.
A US appeals court reinstated Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter on Tuesday, ruling that her attempted firing by Trump was unlikely to survive her legal challenge.
Trump announced that he is moving US Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama, and then offered false of misleading answers to questions from reporters on court rulings that his use of troops for law enforcement in Los Angeles was illegal, and so are most of his tariffs.
The president claimed that video of a garbage bag being tossed out a White House window must have been “AI-generated” even though his aides had already acknowledged that the video was genuine.
Trump miffed by China's massive military parade to mark 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender ending second world war
Watching from afar, Donald Trump channeled his bitterness at not being present for China’s huge military parade, to mark the surrender of Japan 80 years ago, ending the second world war, into a post on his social network.
As President Xi Jinping of China oversaw a celebration that downplayed the role of the United States in defeating imperial Japan, Trump posted: “The big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and ‘blood’ that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader.”
The US president added a somewhat confusing reference to the leaders of Russia and North Korea, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, who were greeted as honored guests.
“May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration”, Trump wrote. “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
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