Trump says he will be negotiating the ‘big, beautiful’ tax bill after Musk criticizes it – live | US news
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Trump says he will be negotiating the tax bill after Musk criticizes it
Trump is asked for his reaction to Elon Musk’s public criticisms of his “big, beautiful bill” – his signature tax and spending cuts bill which was narrowly approved by the House last week – saying Trump’s spending plan undermines Doge’s cost-cutting efforts to shrink the US budget deficit that Musk spearheaded.
Trump says the bill “needs to get a lot of support” in Congress, adding “we have to get a lot of votes”.
He says he will be negotiating the tax bill and is not happy with certain parts of it.
We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it.
Key events
Trump nominates former personal attorney Emil Bove to serve as 3rd circuit appeals court judge
Donald Trump has nominated Emil Bove, his former personal attorney who previously defended him in a criminal case stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star and now holds a senior position in the justice department, to serve as a federal appeals judge.
The New York Times (paywall) first reported last week that Trump was considering nominating Bove for a vacancy on the US court of appeals for the 3rd circuit based in New Jersey. If confirmed by the Senate, this would be a lifetime appointment.
Emil Bove in Manhattan criminal court during Trump’s sentencing in the hush money case on 10 January. Photograph: Jeenah Moon/AP
Earlier, we reported that Marco Rubio had announced that the US will refuse visas to foreign officials who block Americans’ social media posts, as Donald Trump’s administration wages a new battle over “free speech”.
The US secretary of state – who has rescinded visas for activists who criticize Israel and ramped up screening of foreign students’ social media – said he was acting against “flagrant censorship actions” overseas against US tech firms.
He did not publicly name any official who would be denied a visa under the new policy, but he did mention Europe and Latin America in his post on X:
Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country. Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over.
Also earlier, I wrote that the Trump administration has been scrutinizing European legislation to regulate digital services and increasing pressure on the EU to roll such efforts back as part of tariff negotiations, claiming it amounts to a kind of digital censorship. The administration has also sharply criticized Germany and Britain for restricting what their governments term hate and abusive speech.
Agence France-Presse has more on the Latin American dimension of Rubio’s announcement, reporting that last week he suggested to US lawmakers that he was planning sanctions against a Brazilian supreme court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who has battled X owner and Trump ally Elon Musk over alleged disinformation.
Social media regulation has become a rallying cry for many in the US on the right since Trump was suspended from Twitter, now X, and Facebook, on safety grounds after his supporters attacked the US Capitol following his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
In Brazil, where supporters of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro similarly stormed the presidential palace, congress and the supreme court in 2023 after Bolsonaro’s election loss, Moraes has said he is seeking to protect democracy through his judicial power.
Moraes temporarily blocked X across Brazil until it complied with his order to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation.
More recently, he ordered a suspension of Rumble, a video-sharing platform popular with conservative and far-right voices over its refusal to block the account of a user based in the United States who was wanted for spreading disinformation.
Germany – whose foreign minister met today with Rubio – restricts online hate speech and misinformation, saying it has learned a lesson from its Nazi past and will ostracize extremists.
JD Vance says US should use bitcoin to its advantage in rivalry with China
China’s wariness of bitcoin should encourage the US to embrace the world’s largest cryptocurrency and build on its strategic advantage in the digital asset, JD Vance said earlier today in comments reported by Reuters.
As the White House pushes for an overhaul of crypto policy, the vice-president said bitcoin will be a strategically important asset for the United States over the next decade.
Speaking at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas, Vance applauded Donald Trump’s executive order in March that created a strategic bitcoin reserve with tokens already owned by the government.
Crypto trading and mining has been banned in China since 2021. “The People’s Republic of China doesn’t like bitcoin. Well, we should be asking ourselves, why is that? Why is our biggest adversary such an opponent of bitcoin, and if the communist Republic of China is leaning away from bitcoin, then maybe the United States ought to be leaning into bitcoin,” he said.
Digital assets have enjoyed a resurgence under Trump, who courted cash from the crypto industry on the campaign trail by pledging to be a “crypto president”.
In his first week in office, Trump ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group to propose digital asset regulations. In March, he hosted a group of crypto executives at the White House.
Congress is considering legislation to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar. The crypto industry has lobbied lawmakers to pass legislation creating new rules for digital assets and spent more than $119m backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections.
JD Vance speaks at the Bitcoin Conference at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA
US agrees to end use of race and gender in awarding highway and transit contracts
The Trump administration said it has agreed to end the US transportation department’s consideration of race or gender when awarding billions of dollars in federal highway and transit project funding set aside for disadvantaged small businesses, Reuters reports.
A judge in September in Kentucky ruled that a federal program enacted in 1983 that treats businesses owned by racial minorities and women as presumptively disadvantaged and eligible for such funding violated the US constitution’s equal protection guarantees.
The transportation department said in a court filing that it agreed the “program’s use of race- and sex-based presumptions is unconstitutional”.
The department previously defended the policy as seeking to remedy past discrimination but said it has reevaluated its position in light of factors including the supreme court’s decision in 2023 in an affirmative action case.
US district judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in Frankfort, Kentucky, an appointee of Republican former president George W Bush, said the federal government cannot classify people in ways that violate the principles of equal protection in the US constitution.
He relied in part on a ruling last year by the US supreme court that effectively prohibited affirmative action policies long used in college admissions to raise the number of black, hispanic and other underrepresented minority students on American campuses.
The program was reauthorized in 2021 through then-president JoeBiden’s signature Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which set aside more than $37bn for that purpose.
Trump administration closes state department’s office of analytic outreach
Joseph Gedeon
A state department intelligence program that linked government analysts with outside experts has been quietly closed, part of the latest chapter of Donald Trump’s disengagement with the broader academic and research community.
The office of analytic outreach, part of the department’s bureau of intelligence and research, held its final event on 22 May before closing permanently, according to an internal email seen by the Guardian, as part of Marco Rubio’s sweeping reorganization that will cut 15% of domestic staff and shutter 132 of the department’s 734 offices and bureaus.
“I am devastated we are not allowed to continue,” program officer Greg Otey wrote in the email. “We have experienced staggering growth in demand over the last few years with events now regularly drawing audiences of over 200 analysts and policymakers from across the federal government.”
The closure comes as the Trump administration targets programs it claims do not align with presidential priorities or that “represent radical causes”.
The shutdown eliminates another mechanism to enlist external expertise into government analysis, with the program serving as the intelligence community’s lead for connecting government leaders with academic experts, thinktanks and research institutions on foreign policy. It organized briefings for newly confirmed ambassadors and arranged analytic exchanges designed to inform executive branch policymakers.
The shuttering of the program also reflects broader tensions within the Trump administration over the role of outside expertise in government decision-making. The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, threatened yesterday to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals, calling the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and Jama “corrupt” and pledging to create state-run alternatives instead.
The state department did not respond to a request for comment.
Gifted Qatar plane is in the US and is 'being refitted', says Trump, adding 'it's much too big'
Trump brings up his “beautiful, big, magnificent, free airplane for the United States air force”, adding “frankly, it’s much too big”.
Asked if it’s going to be Air Force One, Trump says it’s in the US and “is being refitted for military standard”. He admits he doesn’t know how much the refitting will cost but guesses “a hell of a lot less than building a new one”. He again blames Boeing delays to replacing the current one for him needing a new plane.
The United States formally accepted the Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner – worth an estimated $400m – last week as a gift from the Qatari government and tasked the air force with upgrading it to be used as Air Force One.
NPR reported last week that the air force is “currently preparing to award a contract to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft for an executive airlift”, according to an air force spokesperson who said said further details about the contract are classified.
The White House claimed the plane was a gift to the Department of Defense and not a personal gift to Trump, and would go through the legal protocols required when something is given to the government. Trump has said he would not use it after leaving office but it would leave the air force as he has said he would like to keep it in his presidential library.
Trump hesitant to impose new sanctions on Russia for fear of 'screwing up' a deal
Asked why he hasn’t imposed new sanctions on Russia, Trump says: “I think I’m close to getting a deal [to end the war], I don’t want to screw it up by doing that.”
“I’m a lot tougher than the people you’re talking about,” he adds. “But you have to know when to use that.”
Trump says he would sit down with both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin “if it’s necessary” to end the war.
At this point … we’re working on President Putin and we’ll see where we are … I don’t like what’s happening.
Trump says Harvard should have maybe a 15% cap on foreign students
Trump says Harvard University should have a 15% cap on the number of foreign students it admits and that the Ivy League school needs to show the administration their current list of students from other countries.
He adds:
Harvard has got to behave themselves. Harvard is treating our country with great disrespect and all they’re doing is getting in deeper and deeper.
Trump says he told Israel's Netanyahu not to act against Iran
Trump says he warned the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last week not to take actions that could disrupt nuclear talks with Iran.
I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we’re very close to a solution now. That could change at any moment.
Trump says he will be negotiating the tax bill after Musk criticizes it
Trump is asked for his reaction to Elon Musk’s public criticisms of his “big, beautiful bill” – his signature tax and spending cuts bill which was narrowly approved by the House last week – saying Trump’s spending plan undermines Doge’s cost-cutting efforts to shrink the US budget deficit that Musk spearheaded.
Trump says the bill “needs to get a lot of support” in Congress, adding “we have to get a lot of votes”.
He says he will be negotiating the tax bill and is not happy with certain parts of it.
We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it.
Trump says he thinks there will be a “sensible” outcome t0 US-Iran nuclear talks.
He alludes to forceful action once again if the outcome is unfavorable to US interests:
There are only two outcomes: a smart outcome and a violent outcome. I don’t think anyone wants to see the second.
He adds Iran “still has to agree to the final stages of a document”.
The US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, says they’re “on the precipice of sending out a new terms sheet” to hopefully be delivered today, and he has “some pretty good feelings” about getting to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza and a long-term peaceful resolution to the conflict. No further details, though.
Trump says: “We’re dealing with the whole situation in Gaza. We’re getting food to the people of Gaza. It’s been a very nasty situation.”
He doesn’t give any further details.
'We'll respond differently' to Putin if 'he's tapping us along' on ending Ukraine war, says Trump
Trump says Vladimir Putin may be intentionally delaying negotiations on a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine and expresses disappointment at Russian bombings.
Asked if he thinks Putin wants to end the war, Trump tells reporters: “I can’t tell you that.” He then adds:
We’re going to find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not, and if he is, we’ll respond a little differently.
He adds that he’s “very disappointed” at continued Russian bombing while ceasefire negotiations are taking place.
Donald Trump is currently taking questions in the Oval Office, following the swearing-in of former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as interim US attorney for the district of Washington.
Termination notices expected to go out to all remaining Voice of America employees this week – Politico
Termination notices are expected to go out to all remaining Voice of America employees this week, Politico reports, citing four VOA employees familiar with the situation.
Those terminations, expected to go out as soon as later today, would affect the 800 remaining workers at the embattled news network, after nearly 600 VOA contractors were dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this month. Employees have been advised by management to expect termination notices in the coming days.
According to Politico’s report, the notices will probably mean the shutting down of the international broadcasting network.
US 'assessing' future of military presence in Africa, says top general
Faisal Ali
Gen Michael Langley, the most senior American general overseeing the United States’ military presence in Africa, has said that the US is currently reviewing the future of its armed presence on the continent. He also called on African countries to urge their ambassadors in Washington to let Trump officials know if they wish the US presence to be maintained.
Langley was speaking at an annual gathering in Nairobi on Tuesday, attended by the most senior generals in Africa’s armies, where he said: “I’ve talked to a number of ministers of defence and a few presidents and told them we were assessing.” Langley added that if the US’s continued military role in Africa was important, African countries would need to “communicate that and we’ll see”.
The US is a key security partner for many African countries battling jihadist insurgencies across the continent, from Somalia to Nigeria. The announcement follows a report published late last year by risk analysts at Verisk Maplecroft, which identified a “conflict corridor” emerging from Mali to Somalia.
Donald Trump has been seeking ways to reduce the United States’ global military footprint since taking office earlier this year and, according to his vice-president, JD Vance, to focus solely on “core American interests” rather than open-ended conflicts or nation-building efforts.
During a Senate armed services committee evidence session last March, Langley was asked by Republican senator Rick Scott why Africa should be a concern for American policymakers. Langley told the committee that several African countries were on the “tipping point of actually being captured by the Russian Federation”. He added that north Africa formed Nato’s southern flank, and the US needed to maintain “access and influence” among those countries.
