Trump says Musk was at Pentagon for DOGE and reveals Boeing will build F-47 jets for Air Force: Live updates
President attacks New York Times over reporting as backlash over billonaire’s role in administration grows
Donald Trump has awarded the sixth-generation F-47 fighter jet program contract to Boeing, a much-needed win for the troubled aviation giant.
In an Oval Office announcement alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the president also again denied claims in a report that Elon Musk was to receive a briefing about the U.S. military’s top-secret plans for combating aggression from China, saying he was at the Pentagon on Friday morning for DOGE.
Earlier on Truth Social, he raged: “The Fake News is at it again, this time the Failing New York Times. They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China,’” he said, adding: “How ridiculous?”
On Thursday, the president signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “begin eliminating” the Department of Education in favor of leaving decision-making up to individual states.
Trump said on Friday that special needs and nutrition programs will now come under the health department and student loans will become the remit of the Small Business Administration.
Gen Z women quit social media in droves over online misogyny linked to Trump
Trump story about ‘surrounded’ Ukraine troops contradicted by his own intelligence, report reveals
Zelensky defies Trump, warning: Hands off my nuclear power stations
Trump administration is seeking to deport Indian academic at Georgetown as part of State Department crackdown
Trump's border czar wants Supreme Court to ‘finally’ answer birthright citizenship question
During an event in Florida yesterday, Trump’s tough guy border czar Tom Homan called birthright citizenship a “magnet” for unauthorized immigration and claimed the Supreme Court still needs to decide the matter – something it has already done multiple times in decisions dating back to 1898.
Josh Marcus reports.
Border csar wants Supreme Court to rule on already-settled birthright citizenship law
Judge blocks Musk’s DOGE team from fraud ‘fishing expedition’ at Social Security
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from their “fishing expedition” in search of a “fraud epidemic” based on “little more than suspicion” inside the Social Security Administration.
A temporary restraining order from District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander prevents the world’s wealthiest man and his team of 10 at Social Security – which Musk has baselessly labeled a “Ponzi scheme” and accused of handing out tens of billions of dollars in retirement benefits to dead people – from “unfettered” access to personal information for millions of Americans.
U.S. DOGE Service employees at the nation’s retirement and disability agency currently have access to Social Security data or “personally identifiable information,” government lawyers said this month.
Their level of access “provides no avenues” to change beneficiary data or payments, but gives them the ability to “review records needed to detect fraud,” lawyers wrote in court filings March 12.
Alex Woodward reports.
Judge blocks Elon Musk’s DOGE team from fraud ‘fishing expedition’ at Social Security
Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ Department of Education
President Donald Trump signed an order purporting to shut down the Department of Education yesterday, delivering a long-anticipated political win for conservatives who’ve long pushed for an end to public education in favor of private and religious schools.
Flanked by schoolchildren at desks, Trump signed the order during an East Room ceremony attended by multiple Republican governors and activists who celebrated the move, including Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who the president pointedly said he hopes is the last person to hold the position.
Trump claimed President Jimmy Carter’s decision to sign legislation creating the department had faced widespread opposition and insisted poor test scores among American schoolchildren proved critics “right.”
“Students in our public elementary and middle schools score worse in reading today than when the department opened, by a lot,” he said, adding that the department’s budget has nonetheless “exploded by 600 percent” to include “bureaucrats in buildings all over Washington.”
Among those reacting angrily to yesterday’s news was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, who joked: “It’s so obscene that he would put a mock classroom – we all know he's never been in one.”
Andrew Feinberg and Ariana Baio have this report.
Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ the DOE — even though he’d need Congress to do it
Federal judges worried for their safety as Trump ramps up attacks
Pipe bomb threats. Creepy unwanted pizza deliveries. Threatening messages.
These are some of the threats federal judges have been facing in recent weeks, adding to an already tense atmosphere in which Donald Trump and his allies continue to lash out at officials who have ruled against parts of the president’s agenda.
Josh Marcus reports from San Francisco.
‘Not hyperbole’: Judges worried for their safety as Trump ups attacks on judiciary
Truth Social: Trump rages about judges, pressures Fed over inflation, threatens Tesla arsonists with jail
Elsewhere on the president’s social media platform overnight, he has continued to rage about “radical left judges” ruling against his executive orders, again singling out District Judge James Boasberg, this time going so far as to accuse him of “doing everything in his power to usurp the power of the presidency.”
He has also been pressuring the Federal Reserve over the cost of living and threatening Tesla vandals with jail.
Trump denies Musk set for secret briefing on U.S. war plans for China
Donald Trump has denied claims in a New York Times report that Elon Musk is scheduled to receive a Pentagon briefing Friday about the U.S. military’s top-secret war plans for China – after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the tech billionaire’s visit.
In a post on Truth Social late on Thursday, Trump said: “China will not even be mentioned or discussed” during the Pentagon meeting.
“The Fake News is at it again, this time the Failing New York Times. They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China,’” he said.
“’How ridiculous?’ China will not even be mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!”
Musk in turn has replied to Trump’s post by calling The NYT “pure propaganda”.
Here’s more.
Trump says Musk won’t be briefed on secret China war plan
Jesse Watters has five 'rules for men' — the internet responded
Jesse Watters has been widely ridiculed after listing his five “rules for men” — a list that includes no milkshakes and no soup.
The Fox News host was responding to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s claim on Gavin Newsom’s podcast that MAGA focused on his masculinity “obsessively” during the 2024 presidential election.
“I have rules for men,” Watters began on Wednesday’sThe Five.
Rhian Lubin has the story.
Jesse Watters ridiculed after listing his five ‘rules for men’
Trump is itching for a major battle with the courts — but it’s a dangerous game
By invoking a wartime law linked to one of America’s most shameful legacies, Donald Trump found himself poised for a historic battle with the judiciary.
John Bowden reports from Washington, D.C.
Trump is itching for a major battle with the courts — but it’s a dangerous game
Zelensky defies Trump, warning: Hands off my nuclear power stations
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted that “all nuclear power plants belong to the people of Ukraine” after reports that his US counterpart Donald Trump said an American takeover of the country’s nuclear power would offer the “best protection” for it.
In their first conversation since Mr Trump verbally attacked Mr Zelensky in the White House and had him thrown out, the US president reportedly suggested Washington take ownership of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
But Kyiv says the discussions referred only to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian occupation.
Jane Dalton reports.
Zelensky defies Trump, warning: Hands off my nuclear power stations
Europe has ‘raped and pillaged’ the US, Trump bizarrely claims
In his latest affront to the nation’s allies, President Donald Trump claimed the European Union has “raped and pillaged” the U.S.
Trump spoke to Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday about the economy and the potential for a recession this year.
Trump didn’t directly answer when asked if he would rule out the possibility of a recession, claiming instead that the country’s problems were fueled by their allies.
Kelly Rissman has the story.
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