Closing summary
We are wrapping up our live coverage of the Trump administration for the day, but will return on Friday. Please join us then. In the meantime, here are a few of the day’s developments:
The United States announced a trade agreement with the United Kingdom in an Oval Office ceremony, although the two sides seemed to disagree about whether a UK tax of digital services is on the table or not.
Donald Trump named another Fox host to his administration, appointing Jeanine Pirro interim US attorney for DC, after he was forced to admit that his first pick, Ed Martin, did not have the votes to be confirmed.
The acting head of Fema was fired, one day after he said that he thought the emergency response agency should not be eliminated.
Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro said that he was certain that British consumers would love the taste of American chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef.
The state department said a solution to be able to deliver food aid to Gaza was “steps away” and an announcement was coming shortly, although it fell short of detailing what the plan would entail.
Trump congratulated Pope Leo XIV on his election to head the Catholic Church.
A test for UK ambassador Peter Mandelson: what to do with his face when Trump called Schumer 'a Palestinian'
During the Oval Office event to announce a new trade agreement between the US and the UK on Thursday morning, there was a visibly awkward moment for the British ambassador, Peter Mandelson.
Lord Mandelson, who had to apologize for having called Trump a “bully” in the past before taking up his diplomatic post, seemed generally eager to laugh at all of the president’s jokes as he stood behind him at the extended press event.
At one point, having stood next to the seated president for over 50 minutes, the diplomat began to chuckle as he heard Trump complain that Democrats would only oppose the deal because “they have Trump derangement syndrome”.
Things took a more uncomfortable turn seconds later, when Trump went into his insult comic mode and said, of the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, who is Jewish, “Senator Schumer’s become a Palestinian”.
After a brief grin, Lord Mandelson, whose father was Jewish, looked away as Trump added, to guffaws from his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, “I don’t know when they’re going to give him the ceremony, whatever the ceremony may be”.
