Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
The Pentagon announced, without explanation, that “Secretary of the Navy John C Phelan is departing the administration, effective immediately”. The head of the US navy, which is now enforcing a wartime blockade of Iranian ports, was replaced by a former Maga political candidate, Hung Cao, now acting secretary of the navy.
The surprise announcement brought renewed attention to Cao’s 2023 comments that that “witchcraft” had “taken over” Monterey, California.
Virginia’s attorney general, Jay Jones, promised to appeal an injunction issued by a circuit court judge that temporarily blocks the state from certifying the results of the Tuesday’s redistricting referendum.
As jet fuel prices spike amid the ongoing energy crisis sparked by Donald Trump’s war on Iran, two Republican senators, Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton, denounced a proposed US government bailout of budget carrier Spirit Airlines.
Representative David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia, has died at the age of 80. He is the fifth member of Congress to die in office within the last year.
New acting secretary of US navy embraced Maga culture war issues as a political candidate
When he was a political candidate, Hung Cao, the naval special operations veteran who was named acting secretary of the US Navy on Wednesday, embraced the same culture war issues as Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.
For instance, when he was the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Virginia in 2024, Cao was asked why he was opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
He replied: “When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we need. What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ‘em and ask for seconds.”
