Trump administration to restore some foreign students’ legal status, for now – live | US politics

David Smith

Axios interviewer Mike Allen noted that the most definitive photo of last year’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump was taken by an Associated Press (AP) photographer. Yet the White House has now curtailed the AP’s access to the president. “Do you worry about history being lost with these new restrictions?” he asked.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded:

I don’t view them as restrictions. We view them as opening access to more outlets, more voices, more news journalists and outlets. We shouldn’t have a few outlets who have a monopoly over the briefing room or over that 13-person press pool that covers the president.

Trump made more than 30,000 false and misleading statements during his first term in office, according to a Washington Post count, and many would argue he is on course to beat that total second time around. But Leavitt said of Trump:

Look, he is hostile with the media. There’s no doubt about it. He calls them out, rightfully so, when he believes their stories are fake when they are fake. I also promised in my first briefing we would hold the media accountable when they get things wrong.

But we also do recognise and respect that they are legacy media speaking to millions of Americans across the country and we want them to get it right, which is why we engage with them so frequently every single day.

David Smith

Fitting for a city of secrets, I am on the roof of the International Spy Museum in Washington for an event hosted by the Axios news website and featuring White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Interviewer Mike Allen kicked off by asking if her boss, Donald Trump, has lived up to his promise to be the most transparent and accessible president in US history. Unsurprisingly, Leavitt said yes.

We have never seen this level of transparency and accessibility and the press who cover the White House beat every day – they will tell you maybe not on the record, but they’ll tell you off the record that we allow them in, we welcome them in our offices, we talk to them on a daily basis.

Later, and no less predictably, Leavitt took a swipe at Trump’s predecessor.

You had a previous president in Joe Biden who hid from the press, who didn’t do press engagement, hardly did sit-down interviews. I think this is back to what the American people want.

President Trump has revolutionised the way a president communicates. Not only does he engage directly with reporters, but he speaks directly to the public. Truth Social: there’s probably been one since I’ve been sitting on this stage. He put statements out directly. He writes them himself. He dictates them to us as staff. And I think that level of transparency is quite refreshing and I think it’s a big reason he was re-elected again.

Axios has the full FBI complaint against Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan, who was arrested for allegedly trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest, you can read it here.

According to the complaint, when Dugan learned Ice agents were present at the courthouse to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz with an administrative warrant, she told them to speak to the chief judge first. Dugan meanwhile, allegedly took Flores-Ruiz out of the court room through a juror door, per witnesses cited by the FBI. Agents later arrested him outside the courthouse.

Earlier we reported that the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, citing sources it did not identify, said Dugan steered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to a private hallway and into a public area but did not hide the pair in a jury deliberation room as she has been accused of doing.

Wisconsin’s governor Tony Evers released the following statement regarding the arrest of Milwaukee county judge Hannah Dugan:

In this country, people who are suspected of criminal wrongdoing are innocent until their guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt and they are found guilty by a jury of their peers—this is the fundamental demand of justice in America.

Unfortunately, we have seen in recent months the president and the Trump Administration repeatedly use dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level, including flat-out disobeying the highest court in the land and threatening to impeach and remove judges who do not rule in their favor.

I have deep respect for the rule of law, our nation’s judiciary, the importance of judges making decisions impartially without fear or favor, and the efforts of law enforcement to hold people accountable if they commit a crime. I will continue to put my faith in our justice system as this situation plays out in the court of law.

Donald Trump said on Friday that Ukraine has not yet signed a deal on rare earth minerals and he hopes it will be signed immediately. The US president added that “work on the overall peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is going smoothly”.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote:

Ukraine, headed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not signed the final papers on the very important Rare Earths Deal with the United States. It is at least three weeks late. Hopefully, it will be signed IMMEDIATELY. Work on the overall Peace Deal between Russia and Ukraine is going smoothly.

The Ukrainian president has not yet commented on Trump’s stance in his Time magazine interview that “Crimea will stay with Russia” as part of a potential peace deal nor his claim that Zelenskyy was apparently on board. But as recently as yesterday Zelenskyy ruled out recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a red line for his country.

Andrew Roth

Analysis: Pope’s funeral a diplomatic minefield as Trump sets fire to US alliances

A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Donald Trump flying to the Vatican this weekend and publicly feuding with international leaders in front of St Peter’s Basilica in the midst of the sombre rituals and rites that will mark the funeral of Pope Francis.

The US leader’s first international trip of his second term comes at one of the most politically fractious and fraught moments in recent memory, as his “America first” project sets fire to US alliances and trade relationships around the world. Between international tariffs, the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza, the Trump team’s open antipathy toward Europe and its hard line on immigration from Central and South America, the papal funeral could prove to be a minefield of international diplomacy.

Assuming Volodymyr Zelenskyy attends – on Friday he said “military meetings” might preclude him from making the trip – the funeral will be the first time the Ukrainian leader has been in the same place as Trump since the US president and the vice-president, JD Vance, berated him in the White House in February. Trump cut short that meeting, saying Zelenskyy was “gambling with world war three” and being “very disrespectful”. He has now floated the prospect of the US recognising Russian control of Crimea and accused Zelenskyy of delaying a peace deal, testing the Ukrainian president’s patience and raising the danger of a new meltdown in bilateral relations.

Then there are the EU leaders, members of a bloc that Trump has said was “formed to screw the United States”. At their head is the EU commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Despite imposing (and then pausing) a 20% tariff on all goods from the EU, Trump and von der Leyen have not spoken directly or arranged an EU-US summit over the brewing trade war, meaning a meeting on the sidelines of the funeral could be well-timed. Von der Leyen had tacitly criticised the US in print, saying that Europe has “no bros and no oligarchs” and that “the west as we knew it no longer exists.”

The US president has never been known for his tact. And as world leaders gather in the Vatican this weekend and millions tune in to follow the funeral, it is Washington that will be sending the elephant in the room.

Joe Kasper, the controversial chief of staff to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was central to a dramatic power struggle at the Pentagon, has left his post, in an unexpected departure.

Despite Hegseth’s assurances just days ago in a TV appearance on the Fox & Friends show that Kasper would merely transition to “a slightly different role” within the department, Kasper confirmed to Politico in a Thursday interview he will instead return to government relations and consulting, maintaining only limited Pentagon ties as a special government employee.

A senior defense official at the Pentagon confirmed the dramatic title change to the Guardian on Friday, saying Kasper would be “handling special projects at the Department of Defense”.

“Secretary Hegseth is thankful for [Kasper’s] continued leadership and work to advance the America First agenda,” the official said in a statement, referring to Donald Trump’s protectionist policy push.

The quick exit comes after Kasper was implicated as the orchestrator of a power grab that led to the dismissal of three senior Pentagon officials – Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll – allegedly as part of a leak investigation.

The administration’s first hundred days created a troubled tenure for Kasper, with anonymous sources claiming he was frequently late to meetings, failed to follow through on critical tasks, and displayed inappropriate behavior, including berating officials and making crude comments allegedly about his bowel movements during high-level meetings.

“He lacked the focus and organizational skills needed to get things done,” one anonymous insider told Politico.

Here is the full story on the FBI’s arrest of Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan from my colleagues Marina Dunbar and Maya Yang.

The White House wants to defund a bipartisan board that advises the president and Congress on social security policy, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the Trump administration moves to cut costs and eliminate independent voices in government.

The White House’s office of management and budget has notified staff at the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) that it plans to cut the board’s annual budget from around $3m to zero, according to the sources.

Congress established the SSAB in the 1990s as an independent federal agency to provide objective analysis on how to improve social security, the popular program that annually pays out $1.4tn in benefits to 73 million Americans. While it does not have decision-making power, the board’s research has helped shape how the SSA runs itself and facilitated legislation.

Bob Joondeph, the board’s chair, told Reuters he had yet to be formally notified of the funding decision. “Its strength is its bipartisanship. It’s one of the few places you can go in government and get something that a bunch of people from different parties can reach consensus on,” Joondeph said. “The fact that it would be eliminated, to me is symbolic of sort of the larger trends in Washington.”

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s so called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) has targeted the Social Security Administration for significant cuts, triggering complaints about longer wait times from union officials and advocacy groups. The agency has announced plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs, roughly 12% of its workforce.

The SSA and the OMB did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

The Trump administration said on Friday that it is restoring the student visa registrations of potentially thousands of foreign students in the United States whose legal status had recently been abruptly terminated, Reuters reports.

The decision was announced during a court hearing before a federal judge in Boston who was hearing a challenge by one of the many international students nationally suing over the administration’s actions.

Those students’ status had been revoked as a result of their records being terminated from a database of the approximately 1.1 million foreign student visa holders, putting them at risk of deportation.

Since Trump took office on 20 January, records for more than 4,700 students have been removed from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)-maintained database known as Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (Sevis), according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The database monitors compliance with visa terms and records foreign students’ addresses, progress toward graduation and other information. To remain in the database, student visa holders have to obey conditions like limits on employment and avoiding illegal activity.

Shortly before Friday hearing in Boston University student Carrie Zheng’s case, US district judge F Deniss Saylor said he had received an email from a lawyer from the government alerting him to a change in position by Ice.

According to that email, Ice was now “developing a policy that will provide a framework for Sevis record terminations”. Until that policy is issued, the Sevis records for Zheng and similarly situated plaintiffs will remain active or will be restored, the email said.

Reuters reports that according to the US justice department’s criminal complaint, judge Hannah Dugan became “visibly angry” and commented that the situation was “absurd” when she discovered that immigration officials were there to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.

Dugan ordered the immigration officials to go and speak with the chief judge and then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his attorney through a door which led to a non-public area of the courthouse, the complaint said.

Carl Ashley, chief judge of the Milwaukee court, declined to comment.

But the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, citing sources it did not identify, said Dugan steered Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to a private hallway and into a public area but did not hide the pair in a jury deliberation room as some have accused her of doing.

The Associated Press reports that following her arrest this morning, judge Hannah Dugan appeared briefly in federal court in Milwaukee later this morning before being released from custody. Her next court appearance is 15 May.

“Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety,” her attorney, Craig Mastantuono, said during the hearing. He declined to comment to an Associated Press reporter following her court appearance.

Dugan is accused of escorting a man, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, and his lawyer out of the courtroom through the jury door on 18 April as a way to help avert his arrest, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.

The affidavit quotes the courtroom deputy as having heard Dugan say words to the effect of “Wait, come with me” before ushering them into a non-public area of the courthouse. The action was unusual, the affidavit says, because “only deputies, juries, court staff, and in-custody defendants being escorted by deputies used the back jury door. Defense attorneys and defendants who were not in custody never used the jury door.”

Court documents detailing the case against Dugan were not immediately available, and the justice department didn’t immediately have a comment for the Associated Press on Friday.

A person answering the phone on Friday at Dugan’s office said he could not comment, and the Associated Press left an email and a voicemail on Friday morning seeking comment from Milwaukee county courts chief judge Carl Ashley.

George Santos, the disgraced former representative, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Friday, bringing an end to an extraordinary controversy that began with a fraudulent congressional campaign.

Santos, 36, was sentenced early Friday morning in New York. He did not respond to shouted questions as he entered the courthouse in suburban Long Island.

Shortly before being elected to the US House of Representatives in New York’s third congressional district, Santos was first accused of deceiving voters by the North Shore Leader, a local newspaper in Long Island, who accused Santos of fabricating much of his resumé.

Santos later admitted that he lied to campaign donors and stole the identities of nearly a dozen people to fund his congressional campaign.

His sentencing was not without controversy. Before his Friday court appearance, Santos referred to himself as a “scapegoat” on social media, in reference to prosecutors accusing him of organizing the fraudulent conspiracy.

Santos also alleged that the justice department was a “cabal of pedophiles”, in posts made to X. Prosecutors highlighted Santos’s comments in a filing after Santos’s defense team requested a two-year prison sentence.

The former congressman later defended his remarks, saying he was “profoundly sorry” for his crimes but that a seven-year prison sentence was too harsh.

“Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible,” Santos wrote. “But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.”

During Trump’s first presidency, the justice department indicted a local Massachusetts judge on charges of obstructing federal immigration authorities, alleging that she helped a man who was living in the US illegally sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.

The prosecution of a sitting judge sparked outrage from many in the legal community, who slammed the case as politically motivated. The case against Newton district judge Shelley Joseph was dropped in 2022 under the Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.

The arrest of a judge is a remarkable escalation in the White House’s battle with the judiciary over Trump’s aggressive agenda to remove undocumented migrants from the US.

In a statement provided to NBC News, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said:

The days of actively aiding and abetting illegal aliens invading our country are over.

The Trump administration will never waver on putting Americans and America First with a no-nonsense approach to immigration enforcement. In this administration, anyone who commits crimes exposes themselves to criminal liability.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that judge Hannah Dugan, who was arrested earlier today by federal authorities, is being charged with two federal felony counts of obstruction and concealing an individual.

Citing two federal sources, the outlet reports that Dugan, 65, was scheduled to appear before US magistrate judge Stephen Dries at 10.30am local time on Friday on the second floor of the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee.

Brady McCarron, spokesman for US Marshals Service in Washington DC, confirmed Dugan was arrested at about 8am at the Milwaukee county courthouse and is in federal custody.

Here is the X post that Kash Patel swiftly deleted, via NPR’s Tom Dreisbach, announcing that the FBI arrested Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly trying to obstruct an immigration operation arrest last week.