Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending now. In the meantime, you can find all of our live US politics coverage here. Here is a summary of the key developments from the last few hours:
Speaking at the Future Investiment Initiative, a global finance conference in Miami organized by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, today, Donald Trump said the United States is “back and open for business” and that the “dark days of high taxes, crushing regulations, rampant inflation, flagrant corruption, government weaponization…and total incompetence will be gone for ever.”
Trump escalated his attack on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he called “a dictator without elections” who had “done a terrible job”. Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy had said Trump was “living in a disinformation bubble”, in response to the president last night blaming Ukraine for Russia’s illegal invasion.
The White House has reshared a social media post from Trump, calling the president a king and picturing him in a crown.
Illinois governor JB Pritzker delivered a searing state-of-the-state address, likening Donald Trump’s stunning power grabs to the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany.
In a blistering statement after asking a federal judge to dismiss the corruption case against New York mayor Eric Adams, the acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove invited justice department officials and prosecutors who disagreed with the decision to quit.
The Internal Revenue Service will fire 6,700 people as early as Thursday, kicking off mass layoffs just as tax season begins. Further reductions in the size of the agency are expected.
The Trump administration has ordered the Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the US military to develop plans for cutting 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years.
Updated
Donald Trump was expected to sign at least one executive order on his flight back to Washington DC aboard Air Force One this evening, but no details are yet available about the content of those orders from the White House.
We’ll let you know when more information is available. Fox Business previously reported that at least one order would concern federal public benefits for undocumented immigrants.
