Trump threatens to ‘terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts’
Donald Trump is going on a tirade on Truth Social against Elon Musk, saying:
Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!
In a separate post, Trump added:
The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Key events
Elon Musk: ‘Donald Trump is in the Epstein files’
Elon Musk just claimed that Donald Trump is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying:
Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!
He went on to say:
“Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.
Trump threatens to ‘terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts’
Donald Trump is going on a tirade on Truth Social against Elon Musk, saying:
Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!
In a separate post, Trump added:
The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
Lauren Gambino
Kamala Harris did not address the graduating ceremony in Compton, where nearly 300 high school seniors earned their diplomas. But she did join them, accepting an honorary diploma as the daughter of what the school district board president called “Compton north” – a reference to her native Oakland.
Harris smiled and posed for selfies with the graduates as they crossed the stage.
It was Harris’s first public appearance since skipping the state party convention in Anaheim last weekend. The former vice-president has given herself a deadline of late summer to make a decision about whether to run for governor.
At the ceremony on Thursday, where Harris was surrounded by a crush of students, parents and educators jockeying for a photo as she made her way toward the exit, some made their view of the matter clear.
“Run again!” a man shouted from the bleachers as Harris was ushered into a waiting SUV. She did not appear to have heard the plea, but smiled and waved before the door closed.
Elon Musk has been given six more weeks by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to respond to its civil lawsuit accusing the former Doge head of waiting too long in 2022 to reveal his large stake in Twitter (the platform Musk later bought and renamed X), Reuters reports.
In a filing in federal court in Washington DC, the SEC and Musk agreed to push back the deadline for Musk’s response to 18 July from 6 June, calling it “reasonable and in the interest of conserving judicial resources”.
The SEC has said Musk’s 11-day delay in disclosing his initial 5% Twitter stake allowed him to buy more than $500m of the company’s shares at artificially low prices, at the expense of unsuspecting investors. The SEC’s lawsuit seeks to force Musk to pay a civil fine and give up profits it claims he didn’t deserve.
Musk calls Trump’s tax legislation the ‘Big Ugly Bill’
Elon Musk is continuing his criticism of president Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” on X by calling it the “Big Ugly Bill”, perhaps in reference to Trump’s dislike of taunting nicknames.
“The Big Ugly Bill will INCREASE the deficit to $2.5 trillion!” Musk wrote in a post.
“Keep the EV/solar incentives cuts in the bill, also cut all the crazy spending increases in the Big Ugly Bill so that America doesn’t go bankrupt!” he wrote in another post.
World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization, released a statement condemning Trump’s travel ban on 12 countries and imposing restrictions on seven others.
“This is the latest assault on legal immigration processes,” Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, said. “It’s always been difficult for most individuals in many of these countries to obtain visas, but this blunt order restricts the entry even of those who meet strict qualifications and undergo thorough vetting. We urge the administration to reconsider these restrictions and to pursue policies that scrutinize individuals in the interest of ensuring security without banning entire nationalities from lawfully visiting or emigrating to the United States.”
The statement added that the travel ban will “separate families, hinder international missions and development and tarnish our country’s reputation for justice and fairness”.
Trump says it may be better to allow Russia and Ukraine to ‘fight for a while’ before intervening.
“You see it in hockey, you see it in sports,” Trump said during today’s meeting with Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz. “Let them go for a couple of seconds.”
Calling the war a “bloodbath”, Trump made this suggestion while comparing the conflict to trying to pull apart fighting children.
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy,” the president said. “They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled. Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.”
Musk: ‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election’
In a series of replies on X, Elon Musk is ramping up his attacks against Donald Trump, saying:
Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
He went on to say:
Such ingratitude.
Musk’s comments come after Trump told reporters that he is “very disappointed” in the billionaire tech executive and that he had “helped Elon out a lot”.
The growing divide between the two men come after Musk’s public disapproval of Trump’s tax and spending bill, which Musk called a “disgusting abomination”.
On Thursday, Trump said that Musk knew the bill better than anyone else in his administration, a claim which Musk pushed back on, saying, “False,” and adding that he was never shown the bill.
Musk on Trump’s claim that he knew the ‘big beautiful’ bill better than anyone: ‘False’
In what appears to be a growing public divide between the two men, Elon Musk hit back on Donald Trump’s latest comments from the White House that the tech billionaire knew about Trump’s tax and spending bill better than anyone.
In a post on X, Musk wrote:
False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!
Musk’s response comes after Trump said he was “very disappointed” in Musk on Thursday in front of reporters after Musk called the bill a “disgusting abomination” earlier this week.
In response to whether he has any evidence that anything specific was signed without Joe Biden’s knowledge during Biden’s presidency, Donald Trump said:
I don’t think Biden would know whether or not he signed it.
Trump went on to reply “no” in response to a follow-up question on whether he himself uncovered any of that information, adding:
But I’ve uncovered the human mind. I was in a debate with the human mind, and I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing.
Earlier this week, Trump, as part of a Republican-led campaign to discredit Biden and overturn some of his executive actions, ordered an investigation into Biden’s actions as president, accusing top aides of covering up Biden’s “cognitive decline”.
In response, Biden issued a statement, saying:
Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.
Trump: ‘I’m very disappointed in Elon’
Donald Trump continued his criticisms of Elon Musk following the tech billionaire’s disapproval of his tax and spending bill, telling reporters:
Elon knew the inner workings of this bill, better than almost anybody sitting here … He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that’s billions and billions of dollars …
And I can understand that, but he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left. And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I’m sure you can get very easily, it’s very fresh on tape, he said the most beautiful things about me, and he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next, but I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot.
Trump on having good relationship with Musk: ‘I don’t know if we will any more’
In response to Elon Musk’s criticism of his “big, beautiful” bill, Donald Trump told reporters:
I’ve always liked Elon … You saw the words he had for me … He hasn’t said anything about me that’s bad. I’d rather have him criticise me than the bill because the bill is incredible. It’s the biggest cut in the history of our country.
He went on to say about one of his closest confidantes:
Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.
Earlier this week, Musk sharply criticized Trump’s tax and spending bill on X, saying:
I’m sorry but I just can’t stand it anymore … This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.
Trump on Chinese international students: ‘It’s our honor to have them’ despite visa revocation announcement
In response to a question about whether he is allowing Chinese students into the US, Donald Trump said:
Chinese students are coming. No problem, no problem. It’s our honor to have them. Frankly, we want to have foreign students, but we want them to be checked.
Trump’s response follows just days after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced that the US will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying at US universities.
Speaking to reporters, Donald Trump said that his travel ban “can’t come soon enough”.
In response to a reporter’s question on why Egypt was not on the list despite the Boulder, Colorado, attack suspect being Egyptian, Trump said:
Because Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control.
He said his travel ban applies to “the countries that don’t have things under control”.
Donald Trump has welcomed the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to the White House ahead of their bilateral meetings.
Chad’s president, Deby Itno, has instructed the Chadian government to suspend granting visas to US citizens, saying:
Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give but Chad has its dignity and pride.
Chad’s decision on Thursday comes in response to Donald Trump’s latest total travel ban against 12 countries including Chad, Afghanistan, Myanmar, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Adam Gabbatt
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) made a record high number of arrests on Tuesday, detaining more than 2,200 people as Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policy continues.
NBC News reported that the figure represents the most people ever arrested by Ice in a single day.
Hundreds of the people arrested were enrolled in Ice’s alternative to detention program, under which migrants who are awaiting legal status are given background checks to determine they are not a safety risk, then tracked by the government using ankle monitors or smartphone apps.
The record total comes after senior officials over the weekend instructed rank-and-file Ice officers to arrest more people, even without warrants. In May, the White House demanded that Ice arrest 3,000 people a day.
Some of the arrests “appear to be the result of a new Ice tactic”, NBC News reported, in which Ice officials arrest migrants who are enrolled in the alternative to detention program when they arrive at pre-scheduled check-in meetings at Ice offices.
For the full story, click here:
Trump: Chinese president Xi ‘graciously invited … me to visit China’
Donald Trump said that the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has invited him and the first lady to visit China, which he reciprocated.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that the phone call with the Chinese president was “very good” and that they discussed “some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal.”
He added:
The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries. There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products. Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined … During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated.
As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing. The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE.
He added that the two of them did not speak about Russia and Ukraine, or Iran.
