Trump hits out at journalist in tense TV interview to mark 100 days in office – US politics live | US news

In the ABC interview last night, Donald Trump admitted that he “could” secure the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man his administration said in court was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, but won’t do so.

Asked what his administration was doing to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US, as instructed by the supreme court, Trump said that the lawyer – who has since been put on leave – who said the deportation was a mistake “should not have said that”.

The president then claimed again that Ábrego García is a member of the MS-13 gang and “is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland”. Ábrego García’s lawyers have said he’s not a member of MS-13 and he has not been charged with or convicted of a crime.

Pressed on the rule of law and the supreme court’s order, Moran told Trump, pointing to the phone on the Resolute Desk: “You could get him back. There’s a phone on this desk.” Trump replied: “I could.” “You could pick it up, and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back right now’,” said Moran. The president replied:

And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. I’m not the one making this decision … You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him right where he is.

Trump then blamed lawyers and “the law” for the situation.

His comments appeared to contradict previous remarks from Trump and his top aides who have repeatedly claimed that the US is powerless to return Ábrego García because he is in the custody of a foreign government, despite the supreme court’s ruling. The White House’s position in court has been that only El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, can release a Salvadoran man from a Salvadoran jail.

Judge Paula Xinis, who has set a deadline of 5pm ET today for the administration to provide more to details on his efforts to return Ábrego García to the US, last week accused the Trump administration of “bad faith” in the case, and I’m sure she will find Trump’s latest comments very interesting indeed.

Here’s a clip of the exchange:

In a pre-recorded interview that went out last night on ABC News to mark his 100th day in office, Donald Trump clashed with reporter Terry Moran over his tariff policies, deportations and the power of the presidency.

In an intense, fiery exchange over the knuckle tattoos of Kilmar Ábrego García – the man the US government deported to El Salvador by mistake – Trump got into a surreal back-and-forth with Moran over whether Ábrego García has the gang name “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles, apparently confusing a photoshopped image he once posted on social media with Ábrego García’s real hands.

It started with Moran pressing Trump on whether he acknowledges that under American law, every person is afforded due process. But Trump claimed that when people come to the country illegally “there’s a different standard”.

“But they get due process,” Moran said.

“Well, they get a process where we have to get ‘em out, yeah,” Trump said. “They get whatever my lawyers say.”

The Trump administration has indicated in court documents that Ábrego García was sent to El Salvador in an “administrative error” but White House officials have since disputed that and the lawyer who wrote that court document has been put on leave. Trump said in the interview that that lawyer “should not have said that”.

He then grew agitated when Moran suggested that the image had been photoshopped.

That was photoshop? Terry, you can’t do that. They’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because – frankly I never heard of you but that’s ok. But I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice.

Here is the clip of the exchange:

Former vice-president Kamala Harris plans to use a high-profile speech Wednesday to sharply criticize president Donald Trump amid speculation about whether she will mount another presidential campaign or opt to run for California governor.

Harris will address the 20th anniversary gala for Emerge America, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office that grew in part from Harris’ run for San Francisco district attorney in the early 2000s, AP reported.

Her speech comes the day after Trump reached 100 days in office. It is expected to be her most extensive public remarks since leaving office in January following her defeat to Trump, with planned critiques of the Republican president’s handling of the economy, US institutions and foreign policy.

Harris is ramping up her public presence as Democrats nationally search for a path forward after November’s election, in which Republicans also won control of Congress. While a slate of high-profile Democrats – from governors to businessmen – seek leadership roles within the party, the former vice-president retains unique influence and would reshape any future race she chooses to enter.

Oliver Laughland

The first few months of 2025 have been tumultuous for Sheriff Bill Rogers, the chief law officer of Columbus county in North Carolina.

In February, his department settled a lawsuit accusing Columbus jail deputies of neglecting the care of a county inmate who was almost beaten to death in 2023. Then in March, a group of Roger’s deputies were accused of assault during the arrest of a 57-year-old who claimed he was punched in the back of the head and left bloody after allegedly running a stop sign.

Those episodes follow years of scandal.

In 2023, Rogers’ predecessor in the top job was forced to resign – twice – after recordings emerged of him describing African American deputies on his force as “Black bastards”. The department was also under a recent federal investigation over allegations of sprawling embezzlement.

Despite this track record, the Columbus county sheriff’s office scored a recent win under the new administration of Donald Trump.

The US supreme court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.

Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the establishment of St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Reuters reported. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the US constitution’s first amendment limits on government involvement in religion.

Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government. The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state’s Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond but Republican governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican president Donald Trump’s administration.

St Isidore, planned as a joint effort by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would offer virtual learning from kindergarten through high school. Its plan to integrate religion into its curriculum would make it the first religious charter school in the United States. The proposed school has never been operational amid legal challenges to its establishment.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he thinks President Vladimir Putin wants to stop Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite recent attacks against the beleaguered nation.

Trump responded “I think he does” when asked whether he thinks Putin wants to make peace during an interview with ABC News’ Terry Moran.

“If it weren’t for me, I think he’d want to take over the whole country,” Trump said. “I will tell you, I was not happy when I saw Putin shooting missiles into a few towns and cities.”

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.

Let’s start with the president’s Michigan rally last night. Donald Trump has celebrated his 100th day in office with a campaign-style rally in Michigan and an attack on “communist radical left judges” for trying to seize his power, warning: “Nothing will stop me.”

The president also served up the chilling spectacle of a video of Venezuelan immigrants sent from the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador, accompanied by Hollywood-style music and roars of approval from the crowd.

Trump’s choice of Michigan was a recognition not only of how the battleground state helped propel him to victory over Vice-President Kamala Harris in last November’s election, but its status as a potential beneficiary of a tariffs policy which, he claims, will revive US manufacturing.

But the cavernous sports and expo centre in the city of Warren, near Detroit, was only half full for the rally, and a steady stream of people left before the end of his disjointed and meandering 89-minute address.

“We’re here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country!” Trump declared. “In 100 days, we have delivered the most profound change in Washington in nearly 100 years.”

The 45th and 47th president falsely accused the previous administration of engineering massive border invasion and allowing gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate communities. “Democrats have vowed mass invasion and mass migration,” he said. “We are delivering mass deportation.”

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: “Trump’s pathetic display tonight will do nothing to help the families he started screwing over 100 days ago.

“Michiganders and the rest of the country see right through Trump, and as a result, he has the lowest 100-day approval rating in generations. If he’s not already terrified of what the ballot box will bring between now and the midterm elections, he should be.”

Read our full report of the event here:

In other news:

• As Trump defended his broadly unpopular handling of the economy, he criticized Fed chair Jerome Powell, saying: “I have a Fed person who’s not really doing a good job, but I won’t say that.” The businessman president who used bankruptcy law to rescue his failed enterprises six times added: “I know much more about interest rates than he does”.

• Trump mistakenly attacked the Michigan representative John James, calling the Republican he had endorsed “a lunatic” for trying to impeach him. That was someone else.

• Trump supporters praised by the president at a rally included the former member of a violent cult who founded Blacks for Trump, and a retired autoworker who once told people to read David Duke’s “honest and fair” book about race.

• The US Department of Justice has begun the first criminal prosecutions of immigrants for entering a newly declared military buffer zone created along the border with Mexico, according to court filings.

• Trump called Amazon executive chair Jeff Bezos on Tuesday morning to complain about a report that the company planned to display prices that show the impact of tariffs. Trump told reporters later that Bezos “was very nice, he was terrific” during their call, and “he solved the problem very quickly”.