March 26, 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.

New Toyota vehicles are stored at an imports processing facility at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, on Wednesday.

It didn’t take long after President Donald Trump signed an executive action authorizing 25% tariffs on cars imported to the US for leaders from foreign countries to express their deep dismay.

Here’s what foreign leaders and officials have been saying:

Canada: Prime Minister Mark Carney said the tariff was a “direct attack” in violation of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and that Ottawa would examine its options for a response — including possible retaliatory tariffs.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Trump’s tariffs would ultimately hurt American consumers and workers.

Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, warned that the tariffs would imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Japan: Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Tokyo would consider “all options” in response to the tariffs.

“We are strongly requesting that this 25% not be applied to Japan,” Ishiba said.

European Commission: President Ursula von der Leyen also said tariffs would hurt Americans, though she didn’t promise any retaliation. The EU had announced retaliatory tariffs in response to steel and aluminum tariffs Trump levied this month but postponed them in hopes of a negotiated agreement.

This post has been updated with comments from Japan’s leader.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem takes questions from the press before boarding her plane at Comalapa International Airport in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Wednesday.

El Salvador has agreed to accept more alleged Venezuelan gang members deported from the US, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.

After touring a Salvadoran megaprison where the Trump administration has sent scores of migrants alleged to be members of the gang Tren de Aragua, Noem met with President Nayib Bukele.

Noem did not answer directly when asked by a reporter if the deported migrants from the US would remain indefinitely in the notorious prison — The Center for Terrorism Confinement, or Cecot — or return to Venezuela.

Noem also did not answer when asked whether there was any mechanism to bring back those who were deported if a judge rules so, as legal challenges against the deportations continue. “We’re going to let the courts play out,” she said.

Earlier this month, the administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which has previously been used in wartime, to deport hundreds of mostly Venezuelan alleged gang members.

El Salvador has received 52 flights from the US with migrants this year, according to Noem, as the Trump administration continues to crack down on immigration.

Former UN ambassador Susan Rice appears on CNN on Wednesday.

Susan Rice, a former United Nations ambassador, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday that it’s “puzzling” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of United States Central Command were seemingly not included in the Signal group chat where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared highly sensitive Yemen strike plans.

Acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Christopher Grady and CENTCOM Commander Michael Kurilla were not in the group chat, according to a screen grab of the member list published by The Atlantic.

Rice, who was former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser during his second term, noted that she “immediately” observed that those two officials were not included when she scanned through the messages, which The Atlantic released in full earlier Wednesday.

President Donald Trump dismissed the previous Joint Chiefs Chair Charles Q. Brown in a stunning purge of the military’s senior leadership last month. Trump announced plans to replace Brown with Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine, who has not yet been confirmed.

State and local public health departments are bracing themselves as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulls back about $11 billion in grants that were allocated to state and community health departments during the Covid-19 pandemic response.

In Colorado, Mesa County Public Health said it will lose almost $350,000, which may affect the salaries of up to 10 employees, or 12% of its workforce.

The money covers Covid-19 vaccines in a public health clinic, funds testing for respiratory disease prevention and “allows us to work with industries like schools and childcare providers to make sure they have the training and procedures in place to handle infectious disease prevention,” the agency said in a statement.

Sen. Brandon Beach speaks in the Senate chambers at the Georgia State Capitol on March 6, 2023, in Atlanta.

President Donald Trump selected Georgia state Sen. Brandon Beach to serve as the next treasurer of the United States.

“Brandon helped us secure a Massive and Historic Victory for our Movement in the Great State of Georgia, and has been doing an incredible job in the Georgia State Senate since 2012,” Trump announced tonight on Truth Social.

The US treasurer oversees the US Mint, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and Fort Knox.

The Republican state senator represents District 21 in Georgia and is Chairman of the Economic Development and Tourism Committee, as well as a member of the Appropriations and Finance committees.

According to a biography page from the Georgia State Senate, Beach has also served as president and CEO of the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce.

The entrance and logo of a Social Security Office in Pasadena, California on March 14, 2017.

The Social Security Administration announced today that it is pushing back the rollout of a controversial anti-fraud measure by two weeks and reducing the number of applicants affected by the new policy.

The planned policy, which was set to take effect Sunday, would have required all those filing benefit applications who cannot verify their identities through their online “my Social Security” account to visit a field office to complete the claim in person. Currently, they can also apply over the phone.

But now the change will only apply to those filing for retirement, survivors or family benefits, and will take effect on April 14.

People applying for disability benefits, Supplemental Security Income and Medicare will continue to have the option of filing their claims over the phone.

Advocates had raised concerns that the change would prove onerous for senior citizens and people with disabilities who are not able to go online or travel to agency offices.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker declined to say if the committee is conducting a full investigation into the Signal chat controversy, but at the same time told CNN he plans to send a letter related to document preservation as the panel engages in a bipartisan effort to look into the incident.

The Republican senator announced earlier today that he and ranking Democrat Sen. Jack Reed had agreed to send a letter to the Trump administration seeking an inspector general investigation and a classified briefing by a senior defense official on the matter.

“We have agreed to a process, and we are pursuing it,” he said. “Beyond that, I haven’t been investigating all day.”

Wicker’s comments come as Senate Republicans are working to strike a careful balance over the issue – as some have indicated they believe mistakes were made, but have also been cautious not to be too heavy-handed in their criticism or confrontational toward the administration.

He also praised the information gathered at a pair of House and Senate intelligence committee hearings where a number of the Signal chat participants testified: “We are a lot better educated after yesterday than we were before.”

President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

Additional text messages published today by The Atlantic from the Signal group chat of top Trump officials underscored the massive breach in operational security as specific sensitive information about the attack on Houthi targets was shared before it was carried out.

In the wake of the new reporting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top national security officials claimed nothing classified was shared in the chat. However, a US defense official familiar with the operation and another source who was briefed on it afterward, said the information was highly classified at the time he wrote it.

Meantime, President Donald Trump and his administration continued to downplay the incident. The president called the reporting and the reaction “a witch hunt” during remarks in the Oval Office.

Here’s what to know:

The United Auto Workers union President Shawn Fain said he supports the 25% tariffs on non-US-manufactured automobiles in a statement Wednesday.

“We applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades. Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today’s actions,” the statement said.

But the UAW said the union and working class also need “a strong National Labor Relations Board, a decent retirement with Social Security benefits protected, healthcare for all workers including through Medicare and Medicaid, and dignity on and off the job.”

“The UAW has been clear: we will work with any politician, regardless of party, who is willing to reverse decades of working-class people going backwards in the most profitable times in our nation’s history,” the statement said.

In 2023, Fain led the United Auto Workers union in its strike against all three unionized American automakers.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks in response to tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada on Wednesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said US President Donald Trump’s latest 25% tariff on non-US-manufactured automobiles is a “direct attack” in violation of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and that Canada will examine its options for a response — including possible retaliatory tariffs.

Carney noted that Canada had slapped retaliatory tariffs on US goods before in response to Trump’s repeated taxes on Canadian exports, but said Canada has “other options” available, as well.

He said he “will convene a meeting of the Canada-US cabinet tomorrow to discuss our trade options.”

“We have put in place the mechanisms, so that if it is appropriate, for retaliatory tariffs. And there’s many considerations to be taken in those regards,” Carney said.

Carney later said it “would be appropriate that the president and I speak given the action that he’s taken. I’m sure that will happen soon.”

The prime minister has previously said he would meet with Trump only if the president — who has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada — would accept Canada’s sovereignty as a precondition for any discussion.

Shares of the “Big Three” US automakers – Stellantis, Ford and General Motors – fell in after-hours trading after President Trump signed an executive action authorizing 25% tariffs on autos imported from foreign countries.

General Motors’ stock (GM) plunged more than 7% after hours, while Ford (F) and Stellantis (STLA), which produces Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge cars, both fell by more than 4%.

The cost of new cars, even those produced by American companies, are expected to rise by thousands of dollars after tariffs are implemented.

President Donald Trump said he would ask Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to review whether information pertaining to flight times and sequencing of US attacks should be classified, as Hegseth claims the details in the Signal messages he sent — including the exact times of strikes in Yemen — were not classified.

“Sure, I’ll ask him to do,” Trump said when responding to a reporter’s question about whether he’d ask his defense secretary to review that information.

“Sure, I would if it would be, um, you can view that two ways, frankly. There’s a lot of ways to answer that question, but I’d certainly ask him to take a look at it.”

In a hearing earlier Wednesday with the House Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Hegseth was ultimately responsible for deciding what in that conversation should or should not have been classified.

While Hegseth insists the information he shared was not classified, sources have told CNN that it was.

President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff today that is set to take effect on April 2 on all cars shipped to the United States. It’s a significant escalation in a global trade war.

Here’s a breakdown of what the tariff does and does not apply to, according to a post on X from Harrison Fields, Trump’s special assistant and White House principal deputy press secretary:

CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald, Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich contributed reporting.

President Donald Trump’s latest 25% tariff on non-US manufactured autos could imperil hundreds of thousands of jobs, the president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association warned today.

Moments before Trump announced the latest tariffs in the Oval Office, Volpe warned on X that the new auto tariffs would put “the jobs of hundreds of thousands of auto workers … in peril.”

“China could only dream of damaging the American auto industry so quickly and so decisively as what Trump is threatening to do here again,” Volpe wrote in a separate post.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump told a reporter today that he has spoken to the “Big Three” automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — about the new auto tariffs that he says will go into effect next week.

“If they have factories here, they’re thrilled,” Trump said. “If you don’t have factories here, you’re going to have to get going and build them because otherwise they have to pay tariffs, very simple.”

Trump announced a new 25% tariff he said will be applied to “all cars that are not made in the United States.” The tariffs will go into effect April 2, he said.

The president said most of the Big Three companies do have factories in the United States already and also intend to move their parts-making divisions back to the US.

Ford, General Motors and Stellantis previously successfully lobbied for exemptions to 25% tariffs on all goods coming to the US from Canada and Mexico, however that’s set to expire on April 2.

CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald, Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump said his national security adviser Mike Waltz had taken responsibility for creating a Signal group that inadvertently included a journalist, but seemed unaware of the role his defense secretary played in including detailed information about airstrikes in the chat.

“It was Mike, I guess, I don’t know,” Trump said when questioned about which of his team was behind the chat. Earlier, the White House said a team of officials from the National Security Council and White House counsel’s office were looking into the matter, assisted by billionaire Elon Musk.

Yet while Trump said Waltz had assumed responsibility for the error, he shrugged off any culpability on the part of Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who sent a timeline of the planned attack before it was underway.

“How do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do with it,” Trump said, sounding surprised a reporter would raise the issue. Earlier, the White House said Trump had looked at Hegseth’s messages that were included in the text chain published by The Atlantic.

“It’s all a witch hunt,” Trump said.

President Donald Trump said today the US will have “a form of a deal” to preserve access to TikTok in the country.

If not, the president said he would delay a ban on the popular short-form video app.

He went on to say that “there are numerous ways you can buy TikTok and we will find the one that’s best for the country.”

The president also said China will have to “play a role” in coming to a deal on the app, but added he would consider reducing tariffs there if Beijing could settle the TikTok issue.

Remember: Earlier this year, the president signed an executive action directing the US Justice Department not to enforce the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and was signed in April by former President Joe Biden. The law required that starting January 19, the Chinese-owned company be banned in the United States unless it sells to a buyer from America or one of its allies.

This post was updated with more remarks from Trump as well as background on the TikTok ban.

President Donald Trump looks on after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the reciprocal tariffs his administration plans to put into effect on April 2 will be surprisingly lenient.

Trump, who has called April 2 “Liberation Day” for America, has promised to match foreign countries’ tariffs dollar-for-dollar. But he said in the Oval Office in an executive order signing ceremony that he may enact tariffs that are far less than what other countries charge for imports of American goods.

He also said that the tariffs would be put on “all countries,” countering reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that suggested reciprocal tariffs would be put on a handful of countries that have the largest trade imbalances with the United States.

“We’re going to make it all countries, and we’re going to make it very lenient,” Trump said. “We think people will be very surprised. In many cases it will be less than the tariff they’ve been charging us for decades. We think they’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

President Donald Trump distanced himself from the Signal chat scandal when asked if he still believes that the information shared was not classified.

When a reporter asked Trump if his administration would agree to an inspector general report — which Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker said earlier Wednesday he and the top Democrat on the committee are formally asking for — Trump said, “It doesn’t bother me,” before going on to question the app.

“I want to find if there’s any mistake or if Signal doesn’t work. It could be that Signal is not very good company,” he said.

“I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you,” Trump later added. “We use Signal, and everybody uses Signal, but it could be a defective platform, and we’re gonna have to find that out.”