Closing summary
We have reached the end of another day of live coverage of Donald Trump’s second term in office. It’s time to wrap up! But before we leave, here are some of the day’s main developments:
The Pentagon is halting gender-affirming healthcare for transgender troops as it moves to kick them out of the US military, according to a memo seen by Reuters. “I am directing you to take the necessary steps to immediately implement this guidance,” Stephen Ferrara, the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in the memo.
A coalition of entertainment unions, including the Motion Picture Association, called on Trump to endorse tax deductions that benefit the entertainment sector. The letter was sent in response to Trump’s announcement of a 100% tariff on films produced outside the United States. The letter was also signed by leading writers’ and actors’ guilds, and actors Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, two of Trump’s selected Hollywood advisers.
House Republicans are pushing a plan to allocate up to $5bn annually for scholarships that would allow families to send their children to private and religious schools. This move marks an unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education. The proposal would advance Trump’s agenda of establishing “universal school choice” by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school.
Trump hailed a “total reset” in relations between China and the US after the countries agreed a 90-day pause to the deepening trade war that has threatened to upend the global economy, with tariffs to be lowered by 115 percentage points. “They’ve agreed to open up China,” he claimed at a press conference at the White House this morning, adding that he and Xi Jinping may speak towards the end of the week. Wall Street’s three major indexes closed sharply higher following the news.
The first white South Africans granted refugee status in the US arrived at Dulles international airport as Trump claimed baselessly that they faced “genocide”. Trump has blocked mostly non-white refugee admissions from the rest of the world – even those fleeing war – but in February offered to resettle Afrikaners saying they faced discrimination. The Episcopal church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation”.
Top Democrats in the Senate are pushing for a vote on the floor of the chamber censuring Trump’s reported plan to accept a $400m luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in Trump’s personal presidential library. News of a possible gift of the luxury jet prompted immediate scathing criticism from senior Democrats and concerns from Republicans. Though the Qatari government has stressed that no final decision has yet been made, Trump appeared to confirm it on Monday when he doubled down, saying he would be “stupid” to turn down the “great gesture” of a free plane.
House Republicans presentedthe cost-saving centerpiece of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”, at least $880bn in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of $4.5tn in tax breaks. Influential senator – and staunch Trump loyalist – Josh Hawley warned that his party is suffering from an “identity crisis” over whether it stands for working Americans or rich corporate executives, signaling a worsening split among Trump’s congressional troops over the plans.
Trump revealed an aggressive drug pricing strategy targeting pharmaceutical companies, promising to dramatically cut prescription drug costs for US consumers. Trump condemned the current pricing system as a “redistribution” that has allowed drugmakers to exploit US patients and signed an executive order that he says will lead to matching lower drug prices abroad. The president said the plan would reduce prescription drug and pharmaceutical prices in the US “almost immediately” by “30% to 80 or 90%”.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, welcomed the possibility of Trump’s participation in talks with Russia in Turkey on Thursday, calling it “the right idea”. Trump – now off on a trip to the Middle East – had earlier said: “I was thinking about actually flying over there. There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen, but we’ve got to get it done.”
The Trump administration spent at least $21m transporting people to Guantánamo Bay on military aircrafts between between January and April, with the average flight cost totally more than $26,000, NBC reported. The naval base there currently holds 32 migrants, according to a defense official, a tiny fraction of the 30,000 that Trump promised.
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DNC panel recommends invalidating David Hogg’s election over gender rule violation
A Democratic National Committee panel on Monday recommended that the organization invalidate an internal vice-chair vote that elevated activist David Hogg to the position, determining that the contest had not followed the party’s gender-parity rules.
The decision by the DNC’s credentials committee, which forwards the resolution to the full body of the Democratic National Committee for approval, came after nearly three hours of what appeared to be tortured internal debate. If adopted, it could force Hogg, an activist who has infuriated DNC officials with his pledge to fund primary challenges against “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats, and Malcolm Kenyatta, a Pennsylvania state legislator, to run again for their positions.
The committee’s ruling is ostensibly unrelated to Hogg’s activism – the credential challenge was brought by Kalyn Free, one of the candidates who lost the vice chair race to Hogg. Free argued that the party had not followed parliamentary procedure, putting female candidates at a disadvantage.
But in a statement responding to the ruling, Hogg said it was “impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote”.
“I ran to be DNC Vice Chair to help make the Democratic Party better, not to defend an indefensible status quo that has caused voters in almost every demographic group to move away from us,” Hogg said. “The DNC has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort.”
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