May 6, 2025 – Donald Trump presidency news

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

Peter Navarro departs the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 2.

Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, said Tuesday that upcoming talks between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart in Switzerland will mark the highest-level trade talks between the two nations since Trump announced 145% tariffs on the nation — but declined to offer specifics on what deliverables the US hopes to see from the meeting.

Navarro pledged that Americans should expect imminent trade deals following Trump’s tariffs announcement last month, telling Collins,” I think that if we look at the progress, certainly there’s certain things ripe,” including potential deals with the UK or India.

Bessent said earlier Tuesday not to expect a US-China trade deal to come out of the talks, saying, “My sense is that this will be about de-escalation.”

Navarro dismissed concerns over the economic cost Americans may face due to the tariffs in the meantime, saying Republicans’ anticipated tax legislation would offset any tariffs pain.

On the still-to-come proposal, he insisted Democrats would bear responsibility if the bill does not pass Congress, despite Republicans in control of the House, the Senate and the White House.

And pressed on comparisons to Trump’s tariffs policy — costs from which experts have said will be passed on to American consumers — and a tax hike, Navarro rebuffed the comparison.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins engaged in contentious exchanges with Democratic senators Tuesday during his public testimony in the Senate as he defended what he described as a goal of laying off 15% of the agency’s workforce.

Collins was repeatedly pressed by Democrats on his previous statements that the VA was looking to terminate 80,000 or more employees, roughly 15% of its workforce.

But Collins moderated on the scale of the intended layoffs.

An especially heated moment came when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, pushed back at Collins when the secretary said just a tiny portion of VA employees had been terminated so far.

Blumenthal suggested that surgeons and physicians would be impacted by the cuts.

Collins also addressed Democratic senators’ concerns that some VA employees who helped administer the Veterans Crisis Line had been terminated. He said those employees were reinstated and stressed that veterans calling the line were not left unattended.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 10.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday not to expect a big trade deal when he and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer are expected to meet with Chinese officials later this week.

Bessent’s comments come as the US and China — the world’s two largest economies — have slapped escalating tariffs on each other as part of a larger global trade war sparked by US President Donald Trump.

Bessent said Trump was using “strategic uncertainty” to “get the best trade deals possible.”

The news of an upcoming conversation between the two superpowers could mark a thawing in what has so far been a chilly trade relationship during Trump’s second term. Bessent stressed on Tuesday that the US doesn’t want to “decouple” with China.

Federal authorities served notices to at least two Washington, DC, restaurants on Tuesday, requiring them to provide documentation that proved workers are legally allowed to work in the United States, employees at the restaurants told CNN.

Employees at two restaurants — Chef Geoff’s in northwest DC and Chang Chang in Dupont Circle — told CNN that federal officers entered their restaurants on Tuesday morning, saying they were there seeking I-9 documentation that proves employees have permission to work in the United States.

No one was detained at either restaurant, according to the employees, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of their company. An employee at Chang Chang told CNN that plain-clothes officers at the restaurant identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security after being asked.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters Tuesday that she is “disturbed” by the reports and stressed that local police is not involved, according to CNN affiliate WUSA9.

Some background: Immigration and Customs Enforcement can serve what are known as I-9 notices to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals. Shortly after being served with a notice, employers must deliver copies of the employees I-9s to ICE. That can later inform a worksite raid, according to former ICE officials.

The enforcement moves come against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. For months, Trump officials have been eying the DC area for immigration enforcement actions — putting advocacy organizations on high alert.

President Donald Trump oversaw the swearing-in ceremony of his top envoy and friend Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office Tuesday, complimenting Wikoff for doing a” great job.”

“He’s met with President Putin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, representatives, Iran and many other places. He is meeting with people that he never really thought he’d ever meet just a few months ago, and he’s figuring it out. It takes him about an hour to figure it out. After that, he’s brutal,” the president said. “He does a great job.”

Witkoff, a New York real-estate developer whose relationship with Trump stretches back decades, was sworn in to his role by Secretary of State Marco Rubio during an Oval Office ceremony.

As CNN has previously reported, Witkoff sees the president almost daily, texts with Trump’s family members, has walk-in privileges to the Oval Office, and enjoys a longer leash than nearly anyone else in the Trump administration, according to sources familiar.

Pamphlets about mental health and suicide are seen at the guidance counselors office at a middle school in Alabama, on April 12.

The Department of Education has stopped $1 billion in funding for school mental health, the department confirmed to CNN Tuesday, affecting thousands of health workers, counselors, psychologists and students receiving mental help in school.

The terminated grants were part of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a gun safety bill passed in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 students and 2 teachers. The measure allocated $1 billion in funding for a series of mental health programs.

Grantees began to be notified late last month that they would not see their funding continued.

The Department of Education says that they terminated the grants because the efforts they were funding were “not advancing administration priorities.”

Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, said in a statement to CNN that “grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help.”

The non-continuation of grants appears to be across the board, impacting all the grantees who received money under the bill, regardless of if they do not have programing that involves DEI, a congressional aide told CNN.

“The impacts are going to be tremendous,” Nancy Duchesneau, a researcher at the advocacy group EdTrust, told CNN, “This will especially harm the most vulnerable students within our country.”

President Donald Trump said today that three more hostages have died in Gaza, an update from the latest numbers Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has revealed.

Trump said there are now only 21 living hostages in Gaza. Netanyahu said last week that “up to 24” hostages held in Gaza are still alive, and his wife chimed in: “Fewer.” There are 59 total hostages still in Gaza.

Her comments reflected what Israeli officials told CNN are “grave concerns” about three of those hostages — the same language previously used to refer to hostages who were eventually confirmed dead.

“As of today, it’s 21. Three have died. So, this is a terrible situation. We’re trying to get the hostages out. We’ve gotten a lot of them out,” Trump said today.

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump again teased “earth-shattering” news that he plans to announce in the coming days, though he won’t specify the topic.

He did say in the Oval Office this evening that the announcement would not be about trade.

“It’s not about trade, it’s about something else, but it’s going to be a truly earth-shattering and positive development for this country and for the people of this country, and that will take place sometime within the next few days,” the president said.

Earlier Tuesday, the president teased there would be a “very, very big announcement” ahead of his planned travel to the Middle East, which is set for next week.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is not planning on stopping in Israel during his Middle East trip next week, where is expected to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

“We’re not planning on stopping in Israel, but we will be doing it at some point, but not for this trip,” the president said in the Oval Office this evening.

The Middle East swing, planned for May 13 to 16, will mark the second foreign trip of Trump’s second term, following his previous trip to Rome for the pope’s funeral.

A city view of Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, on May 7.

President Donald Trump called India’s confirmed military operation against Pakistan “a shame” and that he just learned of the news ahead of his Oval Office event this evening.

“It’s a shame. We just heard about it, just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval, just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past, they’ve been fighting for a long time, you know, they’ve been fighting for many, many decades and centuries,” the president said after overseeing the swearing-in ceremony for his special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

“I just hope it ends very quickly,” the president added.

India said early Wednesday it had launched a military operation against Pakistan, hitting “terrorist infrastructure” in both Pakistan and Pakistan administered-Kashmir, in a major escalation of tensions between the two countries.

India said a total of nine sites were targeted. Multiple loud explosions have been heard in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, CNN has reported.

President Donald Trump said he thinks Russia should still be a member of the G7 and blamed Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in part on its ouster from the group.

However, he said it is “not good timing” to allow Russia back into the group now.

The G7 is shorthand for Group of Seven, an organization of leaders from some of the world’s largest economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

Russia was indefinitely suspended from the group — which was at the time known as the G8 — in 2014 after the majority of member countries rallied against its annexation of Crimea. It was the first violation of a European country’s borders since World War II.

Trump said today, at a meeting about the FIFA World Cup coming to the US next year, that he thought that voting Russia out of the G7 was “a very foolish decision.”

Trump was referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine. He has been trying to broker a peace deal between the two countries.

“They threw them out (of the G7) and because of that, maybe, millions of people are dying,” Trump said. “If he was sitting around a table with other people, seven people, hammering him and saying: ‘Let’s not do this’ — I think you wouldn’t probably have had the problems that you’ve had,” he added.

President Donald Trump holds up a document creating the "White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026" as US Vice President JD Vance, left, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino look on in the East Room of the White house in Washington, DC, on May 6.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced new appointments to the task force that is coordinating preparations for the 2026 World Cup, including that Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a longtime Trump aide, will serve as the executive director.

Carlos Cordeiro, a former president of the United States Soccer Federation and currently a senior adviser at FIFA, will serve as Giuliani’s senior adviser on the Presidential Task Force on the 2026 World Cup.

Giuliani, who was a former gubernatorial candidate in New York, served in Trump’s first administration as a special assistant to the president and was associate director of the Office of Public Liaison. Trump noted that the former mayor helped coordinate the reentry of foreign professional athletes who ply their trade in the US during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.

During the first meeting of the task force on Tuesday, Trump praised Giuliani as a competitive person.

“He’s a highly competitive golfer, by which I mean really good,” Trump said. “And he’s also a highly competitive person, and he loves what we’re doing. So, I want to congratulate you and your family and your father, your great father, who’s the greatest mayor in the history of New York. So, I want to congratulate the family.”

He added, with a laugh: “It’s a big post, you better do well, Andrew.”

The task force is largely made up of members of Trump’s Cabinet and Vice President JD Vance is serving as vice chairman. Other members of the task force include GOP Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Todd Young, as well as Republican Reps. Darin LaHood and Bryan Steil.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he does not see any “tension” with Canada and Mexico, as the three countries prepare to jointly host the 2026 World Cup.

The president was asked by CNN’s Kyle Feldscher if he envisions any problems with the three countries’ partnership.

“No, I don’t see any tension either, we get along very well with both. They just got to pay a little more money, you know, they just, they’re getting away with things that they shouldn’t be. And they understand. We had a great meeting today, actually, with the new prime minister, who’s a terrific guy,” the president said of his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “We had a very great meeting and no tension.”

“We want to do what’s right for our respective peoples, and that’s what’s going to happen. And also, with Mexico, I think the relationship is really very good with the president of Mexico,” the president added.

The 48-team 2026 World Cup tournament, the largest in history, is set to kick off in Mexico City at the Estadio Azteca on June 11, 2026.

The schedule will consist of 104 matches across the US, Mexico and Canada. The tournament has been expanded to 48 national teams from 32.

CNN’s Kyle Feldscher contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday at the White House he’s unlikely to refer to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as “Governor Carney,” as he did with his predecessor, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“As far as calling him Governor Carney — no, I haven’t done that yet, and maybe I won’t. I did have a lot of fun with Trudeau, but I think this is a big step up,” Trump told reporters during a FIFA task force meeting ahead of the 2026 World Cup. “It’s a good step up for Canada.”

Trump’s persistent suggestion that he’d like to add Canada as the country’s 51st state has rankled the neighbor to the north. In a bilateral meeting with Carney earlier Tuesday, Carney told the president: “It’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale, ever.” Trump responded: “Never say never.”

And in a gaggle at the Canadian embassy following the meeting, the prime minister told reporters he’d asked Trump to stop referring to Canada as the 51^st state.

Trump told reporters that he’d followed Carney’s election “very closely,” adding the new prime minister “did really terrifically in the debates.

“I like him, you know — he’s a nice man, we get along very well,” Trump said. “We had a great meeting today, really good. I think the relationship is going to be very strong.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks to the media after a meeting with President Donald Trump at the Embassy of Canada to the United States in Washington, DC, on May 6.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters at the Canadian embassy that he asked US President Donald Trump to stop calling Canada the “51st state” at their White House meeting but would not say how the president responded.

“I don’t know,” Carney told reporters after being asked what the president said. “He’s the president. He’s his own person.”

“He understands that we’re having a negotiation between sovereign nations and that we will only pursue and accept a deal that’s in the best interest of Canada,” Carney said.

Nic Talbott — a transgender lieutenant in the Army — called the Supreme Court’s decision today to allow the Trump administration to immediately begin enforcing a ban on transgender service members in the military “another setback.”

Talbott is the lead plaintiff in “Talbott vs. Trump” — one of the lawsuits that could determine whether transgender individuals can be banned from serving in the military.

The Supreme Court said today that the Trump administration’s proposed ban can go into effect while cases like “Talbott vs. Trump” make their way through the lower courts.

In an interview with CNN last week, Talbott forcefully pushed back on the administration’s executive order, which says in part that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

“Statements like that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I look in the mirror every day now, and I go, ‘Yeah, this is the most Nick Talbott version we’ve ever had of Nick Talbott,’” he said. “It’s just absolutely ridiculous to insinuate that trans folks and trans service members are going home and trying to pretend to be something that we’re not.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that he will meet with US President Donald Trump in June at the G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alberta.

Trump has not yet confirmed his attendance at the summit. According to three US officials familiar with the matter, ahead of the Trump-Carney meeting, Trump and his aides had not made a final decision on attending the summit.

The Canadian prime minister said he feels better about some aspects of the US-Canada relationship after he and Trump met today, and said the “breadth of discussion” indicated both countries were looking for solutions.

“These are the discussions you have when you’re looking to find solutions, as opposed to laying down terms,” Carney said.

He also reiterated that Canada “is not for sale” after Trump earlier said that he still would like the US neighbor to the north to become a state.

“The president has made known his wish about that issue for some time,” Carney said. “I’ve been careful always to distinguish between wish and reality. I was clear there in the Oval Office, as I’ve been clear throughout on behalf of Canadians, that this is never going to happen. Canada is not for sale and never will be for sale.”

This post has been updated with additional comments from Carney.

Oman said that it has mediated a ceasefire between the United States and the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen.

Neither side will target the other including US vessels in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Albusaidi.

The Omani announcement comes after US President Donald Trump announced earlier on Tuesday that the US would “stop the bombings” against the Houthis after he said the rebels told the US that “they don’t want to fight anymore.”

President Donald Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House today following months of tensions between the neighboring countries over tariffs.

Trump repeated his desire for Canada to become a US state, while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, to which Carney swiftly declined and said, “It won’t be for sale, ever.” Carney went on to say that the opportunity is “in the partnership and what we can build together and we have done that in past.”

Trump agreed that Canada is stepping up their military participation, but then he circled back to the country becoming a US state and quipped: “Never say never.”

Here’s what else Trump and Carney spoke about:

Watch a moment from the meeting in the video below:

CNN’s Maureen Chowdhury, Elise Hammond, Alejandra Jaramillo, Isabelle D’Antonio, Elisabeth Buchwald and Jeremy Liebermann contributed to this post.