Trump finds time to pursue social media feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene
Before Donald Trump stepped into his assembly with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and as the ceasefire with Iran appeared to be falling aside on its first day, the president discovered time to proceed a social-media feud together with his former shut ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump, whose pre-presidential profession was animated by similar social-media spats with celebrities, gloated on his personal platform over the success of his hand-picked candidate to switch Greene in Congress.
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly,” Trump wrote after Fuller gained a particular election to retain Greene’s seat for the Republicans in a conservative district of Georgia. “Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president added.
Trump additionally famous that he had gained the closely Republican district by nearly 37 factors within the 2024 presidential election, however that solely served to underscore the dimensions of the swing to the Democrats, whose candidate in Tuesday’s particular election, got here inside 12 factors of the Trump-endorsed Republican, Clay Fuller.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, Greene had replied to Trump’s menace to erase Iranian civilization by calling on the cupboard and Congress to take away the president by way of the twenty fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” the lately resigned congresswoman wrote on X.
Greene’s alternative, Fuller, is a former choose advocate basic within the US air drive, who joins Congress within the wake of the president’s menace to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which is a transparent struggle crime based on a lot of his former colleagues.
Minutes after Trump’s put up on Wednesday, Greene responded by mentioning that, regardless of Trump’s boast concerning the worth of his endorsement of Fuller, her former district “was never in danger of flipping” to the Democrats, and famous that whereas she had defeated the Democratic candidate Shawn Harris by practically 29 factors in 2024, Fuller solely beat Harris on Tuesday by lower than 12 factors.
“Trump flipping MAGA from America First to America Last, covering up for the Epstein files, and betraying key campaign promises of no more foreign wars has been the best help for the Democrats,” Greene wrote. “Sad!”
Key occasions
Closing abstract
This concludes our stay protection of the second Trump administration for the day, however the Guardian’s round the clock protection of the disaster within the Middle East continues. Here are the most recent developments in US politics:
After a personal assembly on the White House with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary basic, Donald Trump appeared to resume his threats towards the defensive army alliance for not serving to struggle the US-Israeli struggle on Iran, and hinted he might once more attempt to seize Greenland from Nato member Denmark.
Before Trump stepped into his assembly with the Nato secretary-general, and as the ceasefire with Iran appeared to be falling aside on its first day, the president discovered time to proceed a social-media feud together with his former ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Speaking to reporters in Hungary, the US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed to not acknowledge the identify of the Vatican ambassador to the US when he was requested about stories {that a} Pentagon official had reprimanded that Catholic diplomat, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, over the American-born pope’s opposition to US militarism.
At a Pentagon press convention, Pete Hegseth stated that Iran “begged for this ceasefire”, and claimed that Operation Epic Fury “decimated” Iran’s army.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority chief, stated Democrats would drive a vote on a struggle powers decision to restrict the administration’s army marketing campaign in Iran when Congress returns from recess subsequent week.
The US justice division announced that the FBI arrested Courtney Williams, a army veteran who later labored in help of Delta Force, a covert commando unit, after she was indicted for “alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist”.
Trump, who announced with some fanfare last year a doubling of tariffs on imported metal, plans to make use of tens of tens of millions of {dollars} price of donated overseas metal to construct his $400m White House ballroom, the New York Times reported.
Japanese tv compelled to elucidate to viewers that Taco jokes about Trump don’t have anything to do with octopus
Donald Trump’s last-minute resolution this week to place off his threatened strikes on Iranian infrastructure led to a raft of jokes on social media based mostly on what the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong calls his “Taco theory”, the precept that the president’s sample of bluster and retreat on a bunch of points from tariffs to struggle can normally be described this fashion: “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
But as the clock ticked ever nearer to Trump’s Tuesday evening deadline for what he insisted can be an finish to Iranian civilization, that Taco acronym triggered loads of confusion in Japan, as a result of the time period sounds precisely just like the Japanese phrase for octopus, tako.
To clear up that confusion, Japan’s Fuji News Network devoted an entire segment to serving to viewers perceive the origins of the time period, and how it is likely to be used to foretell the unstable president’s habits.
A federal choose in Boston has blocked an effort by the Trump administration to take away authorized protections from over 5,000 Ethiopians which have allowed them to stay and work within the United States.
The ruling on Wednesday by US district choose Brian Murphy marked the most recent authorized setback for the US Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to terminate the Temporary Protected Status designation for residents of 13 international locations in search of security within the United States to additional of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
Democratic senator says Israel ‘should cease’ lethal assaults on Lebanon
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator who sits on the Senate overseas relations committee, known as on Israel to cease the extraordinary and lethal bombing of Lebanon, which intensified on Wednesday, in obvious violation of a Pakistani-brokered ceasefire.
“Israel must stop these attacks,” Murphy wrote on X in response to video of the Israeli bombing of Beirut. “No matter how incompetently negotiated this ceasefire was, we should all want it hold. But that means all parties to this regional war – the U.S., Iran, Israel, and Iran’s proxies – must stand down.”
Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, announced on the identical social media platform early on Wednesday: “I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”
Trump plans to make use of imported metal for his White House ballroom – report
Donald Trump, who announced with some fanfare last year that he was doubling tariffs on imported metal to 50% throughout a rally at a US Steel plant outdoors Pittsburgh, plans to make use of tens of tens of millions of {dollars} price of donated overseas metal to construct his $400m White House ballroom, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based steel-maker, is offering metal for the construction, two unnamed sources informed the Times. The sources stated the metal was produced in Europe.
The White House has not disclosed particulars of the donation, however Trump stated final October that he had been provided a donation of metal for the ballroom valued at $37m.
Trump renews threats towards Nato and Greenland after assembly Nato secretary-general
After an uncommon personal assembly on the White House on Wednesday with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary basic, Donald Trump appeared to resume his threats towards the defensive army alliance for not serving to struggle the US-Israeli struggle on Iran, and hinted he might once more attempt to seize Greenland from Nato member Denmark.
Trump, who usually revels in conducting public conferences with visiting dignitaries on tv, initially made no assertion on what was mentioned with Rutte, however after the former Dutch prime minister who leads the army alliance went on CNN to solid the speak as a “frank and open” dialogue “between friends”, the president issued a blistering, all-caps social media put up geared toward additional unsettling Nato.
“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” the president wrote in a way that did little to dispel issues that he may attempt to withdraw from the army alliance.
Rutte, who has drawn criticism in Europe for seeming to endorse Trump’s resolution to launch a struggle of alternative towards Iran with out consulting Nato allies, and then scolding them for not serving to to take care of its penalties, informed CNN that “some” Nato members had failed of their response to Trump’s offended demand that they participate within the struggle on Iran by forcing open the strait of Hormuz.
After no Nato nation responded to Trump’s demand for assist, he introduced that the US didn’t need or want any such assist.
“I really admire his leadership,” Rutte additionally stated of Trump, whereas refusing to say whether or not he left the assembly reassured that the US would stay in Nato, or alarmed that Trump may attempt to withdraw from it.
Asked if he believed Nato international locations have been examined and failed, Rutte stated: “Some of them yes, but a large majority of European countries, and that’s what we discussed today, have done what they promised before in a case like this.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, informed reporters that withdrawing from Nato is one thing the president “has discussed” and would probably increase with the secretary basic.
Before his assembly with Trump, a jovial Rutte posed with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on the state division.
While Trump has spoken as if he has the facility to tug the US out of Nato, a 2023 law, co-sponsored by then-senator Rubio, requires Senate approval, or an act of Congress earlier than a president can droop, terminate or withdraw US membership in Nato.
At the time, Rubio said the regulation would “ensure that current and future US presidents cannot leave Nato without rigorous debate and consideration by the US Congress with the input of the American people”.
Reporter assaults ‘low-quality lawyering from Trump’s DOJ’ in criticism towards whistleblower
Seth Harp, a journalist who based mostly components of his ebook, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder within the Special Forces, on interviews with Courtney Williams, a military veteran who labored with US particular forces, condemned the Trump administration’s arrest of Williams on Wednesday on social media.
“The FBI is incapable of solving real crimes, like all the murders on Fort Bragg involving elite soldiers trafficking drugs, so they settle for retaliating against courageous whistleblowers like Courtney Williams, whose only ‘crime’ was telling the truth about Delta Force,” Harp just wrote in response to an X put up from Kash Patel, the FBI director, concerning the arrest.
“Typical low-quality lawyering from Trump’s DOJ,” Harp wrote in another post, which confirmed a web page from the felony criticism towards Williams filed on Wednesday in federal court docket in North Carolina which referenced him arranging for his supply to mail him a pc drive.
“The jump drive ‘likely contained classified NDI’?” the journalist wrote in reference to the belief by prosecutors that the drive had secret nationwide protection info on it. “That’s the standard for indicting someone?”
“News flash,” he added, “the drive contained an incredibly boring and tedious 100% public EEOC complaint THAT WAS TOO BIG TO SEND VIA EMAIL”.
FBI arrests former particular forces worker for allegedly leaking categorized info to a journalist
The US justice division announced on Wednesday that the FBI has arrested Courtney Williams, a army veteran who later labored in help of Delta Force, a covert US commando unit, after she was indicted for her “alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist”.
The criminal complaint towards Williams, filed in federal court docket in North Carolina, particulars communication between Williams and a journalist who isn’t named, however, as the authorized journalist Chris Geidner notes, the reporter Seth Harp wrote about Williams in his ebook, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder within the Special Forces, and in an excerpt from the ebook printed by Politico final yr.
According to criticism, investigators discovered that somebody utilizing Williams’s cellphone had spoken with a journalist for practically 5 hours, and “exchanged approximately 180 text messages with the Journalist between 2022 and 2025”.
Harp supplied the next assertion on the charging of Williams to WRAL, a North Carolina news station:
“Courtney Williams is a brave whistleblower and truth-teller. Former Delta Force operators disclose ‘national defense information’ on podcasts and YouTube shows every day, but the government is going after Courtney for the sole reason that she exposed sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the unit. This is a vindictive act of retaliation, plain and simple.”
The arrest was celebrated on social media by the FBI director, Kash Patel.
“Let this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests,” Patel wrote. “This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”
Vance claims to not know Vatican ambassador reportedly reprimanded by Pentagon
Speaking to reporters in Hungary on Wednesday, the US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed to not acknowledge the identify of the Vatican ambassador to the United States when he was requested about stories {that a} Pentagon official had reprimanded the Catholic diplomat, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, over the American-born pope’s opposition to US militarism.
Vance, whose new ebook is about his conversion to Catholicism, then acknowledged that he had met the cardinal, who has represented the church in Washington DC since 2016, and hosted a prayer breakfast that Vance spoke ultimately yr, however the vice-president steered that he had no thought if the reporting, {that a} senior Pentagon official, Elbridge Colby, had certainly summoned the cardinal in January.
According to reporting from the conservative Free Press, confirmed on Wednesday by the e-newsletter Letters From Leo, Colby and his aides have been enraged by Pope Leo’s January declaration that “a diplomacy that promotes dialogue and seeks consensus among all parties is being replaced by a diplomacy based on force.”
“America,” Colby and his colleagues reportedly informed the cardinal, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
According to Letters From Leo, “some Vatican officials were so alarmed by the Pentagon’s tactics that they shelved plans for Pope Leo XIV to visit the United States later this year.”
As shut observers of Vance’s profession have identified, it was laborious to imagine that he had not heard concerning the reported assembly earlier than being requested about it, given the central position Catholicism performs in his public persona, and the truth that he personally introduced his friend Colby on the Pentagon official’s Senate affirmation listening to final yr.
Colby, additionally a Catholic, is the grandson of William Colby, a religious Catholic who served as CIA director for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. William Colby’s daughters celebrated their first communions at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome whereas he was posted there for the CIA throughout the Fifties.
The journalist Seymour Hersh stated in a 2011 documentary by Carl Colby, one of many CIA director’s sons, that the late CIA director had been a supply for Hersh’s reporting within the Seventies that exposed unlawful home spying by the CIA.
Trump finds time to pursue social media feud with Marjorie Taylor Greene
Before Donald Trump stepped into his assembly with Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and as the ceasefire with Iran appeared to be falling aside on its first day, the president discovered time to proceed a social-media feud together with his former shut ally Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump, whose pre-presidential profession was animated by similar social-media spats with celebrities, gloated on his personal platform over the success of his hand-picked candidate to switch Greene in Congress.
“Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown’s (GREEN TURNS TO BROWN UNDER STRESS!) seat in Congress has been taken over by a wonderful and talented man, Clay Fuller, who won convincingly,” Trump wrote after Fuller gained a particular election to retain Greene’s seat for the Republicans in a conservative district of Georgia. “Congratulations to Clay Fuller, a very large improvement over his deranged predecessor!” the president added.
Trump additionally famous that he had gained the closely Republican district by nearly 37 factors within the 2024 presidential election, however that solely served to underscore the dimensions of the swing to the Democrats, whose candidate in Tuesday’s particular election, got here inside 12 factors of the Trump-endorsed Republican, Clay Fuller.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, Greene had replied to Trump’s menace to erase Iranian civilization by calling on the cupboard and Congress to take away the president by way of the twenty fifth Amendment to the US Constitution. “25TH AMENDMENT!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness,” the lately resigned congresswoman wrote on X.
Greene’s alternative, Fuller, is a former choose advocate basic within the US air drive, who joins Congress within the wake of the president’s menace to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which is a transparent struggle crime based on a lot of his former colleagues.
Minutes after Trump’s put up on Wednesday, Greene responded by mentioning that, regardless of Trump’s boast concerning the worth of his endorsement of Fuller, her former district “was never in danger of flipping” to the Democrats, and famous that whereas she had defeated the Democratic candidate Shawn Harris by practically 29 factors in 2024, Fuller solely beat Harris on Tuesday by lower than 12 factors.
“Trump flipping MAGA from America First to America Last, covering up for the Epstein files, and betraying key campaign promises of no more foreign wars has been the best help for the Democrats,” Greene wrote. “Sad!”
Here’s a recap of the day up to now
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority chief, stated Democrats within the higher chamber would drive a vote on a struggle powers decision to restrict the administration’s army marketing campaign in Iran when Congress returns from recess subsequent week. “This war has made us worse off today than before it started,” Schumer stated at a press convention in New York, noting the price of the struggle and the impact on fuel costs. “This is one of the very worst military and foreign policy actions that the United States has ever taken.”
During a White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt chided the press for allegedly “misreporting” that Donald Trump is working from the unique 10-point plan put ahead by Tehran. She provided a muddled clarification about which proposal the administration agreed to, however stated that Iran truly put ahead a “more reasonable and entirely different and condensed plan to the president”. Leavitt additionally confirmed that the ceasefire take care of Iran does not include Lebanon, famous that JD Vance would lead negotiating talks with the Iranian regime in Islamabad over the weekend, defended the president’s social media threats to eradicate a “whole civilization”, and warned that any additional disruption to the strait of Hormuz is “completely unacceptable”.
The House oversight committee has signaled it will proceed to hunt testimony from former legal professional basic Pam Bondi after she was ousted from her position final week. A committee spokesperson stated the justice division knowledgeable the panel Bondi would now not seem for a 14 April deposition, since she was subpoenaed as in her capability as legal professional basic. The prime oversight Democrat, Robert Garcia, stated in a statement on Wednesday that Bondi was “trying to get out of her legal obligation to testify”. If Bondi defies the subpoena, Garcia added, “we will begin contempt charges in Congress”.
At a Pentagon press convention, Pete Hegseth stated that Iran “begged for this ceasefire”, and claimed that Operation Epic Fury “decimated” Iran’s army. He went on to extol that the two-week ceasefire alerts a decisive victory, and listed a number of Iranian officers who’ve been killed because the struggle started on the finish of February. “The new Iranian regime was out of options and out of time, so they cut a deal,” Hegseth stated.
Despite the continuing congressional recess, House Democrats will ask unanimous consent to go a struggle powers decision throughout tomorrow’s professional forma session, based on a supply acquainted.
Representative Glenn Ivey, of Maryland, will lead the trouble, and invite all members who’re in Washington tomorrow to affix.
The movement is unlikely to succeed, since a single objection would block unanimous consent and require Democrats to pursue a proper vote on the decision.
In a short time, Donald Trump will maintain a gathering with Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary basic.
Rutte has arrived on the White House, however as of now sit-down remains to be closed to the press.
Earlier, Karoline Leavitt informed reporter that withdrawing from Nato is one thing the president “has discussed” and will probably talk about additional with the secretary basic. This comes after Trump has routinely criticized the alliance for the reluctance of member international locations to supply help for the US army marketing campaign in Iran.
During her press briefing in the present day, the press secretary confirmed that the ceasefire take care of Iran doesn’t embrace Lebanon, the place Israel continues to launch strikes, and that has “been relayed to all parties”.
In a concurrent deal with, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, echoed the news from Washington, as his nation continues its assaults towards Hezbollah. According to Lebanon’s civil defence, Israeli assaults have killed at the very least 254 folks throughout the nation in the present day.
Leavitt additionally famous that Trump is dispatching his negotiating workforce, led by JD Vance, and particular envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Islamabad for talks this weekend.
“The first round of those talks will take place on Saturday morning local time, and we know we look forward to those in-person meetings,” she stated.
White House defends Trump’s feedback threatening to wipe out a ‘entire civilization’
During in the present day’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt defended the president’s feedback on Truth Social {that a} “whole civilization” would die if a take care of Iran was not reached.
“[Trump’s] very tough rhetoric and his tough negotiating style is what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today,” Leavitt stated. “It was the Iranians who backed down, not President Trump.”
The press secretary went on to say that Trump “absolutely has the moral high ground over the Iranian terrorist regime”.
