April 30, 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.

Kamala Harris delivered a series of attacks on the Trump administration in her speech this evening, ticking through a list of policy complaints that included a sharp focus on economic uncertainty resulting from tariffs, calling it “the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.”

“Look, some people are describing what’s been happening in recent months as absolute chaos. And, of course, I understand why. And it’s certainly true of those tariffs — tariffs that, as I predicted, are clearly inviting a recession,” Harris said.

Harris referred to the administration’s rapid policy rollouts as a “high velocity event” that she said represented the culmination of decades of conservative planning and strategizing.

As she lambasted the Trump administration for attempting to “divide and conquer,” Harris urged Democrats to stay together.

Harris also highlighted several lawmakers across the party’s ideological spectrum who she said have “in different ways have been speaking with moral clarity about this moment.” Harris named Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Kamala Harris’ speech tonight included sober warnings about the potential for a “constitutional crisis” as she suggested that checks and balances within the government had begun to “buckle.”

She continued: “The one check, the one balance, the one power that must not fail is the voice of the people.”

The former vice president said she’d taken inspiration from a viral video of the elephants at the San Diego Zoo huddling in a circle to protect their young during a recent earthquake.

“I am not here tonight to offer all the answers. But I am here to say this: You are not alone, and we are all in this together,” Harris said.

Kamala Harris speaks at the Emerge Gala in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has rebuked President Donald Trump and castigated his administration in her first major address since leaving office.

Harris spoke tonight at the Emerge Gala in San Francisco, benefitting an organization that supports women interested in entering politics. The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee marked the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, saying that “instead of an administration working to advance America’s highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals.”

The Senate tonight rejected a resolution that would have effectively blocked the president’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order President Donald Trump is using to enact them.

President Donald Trump said today that he has potential trade deals with three nations.

“I understand you have a deal with South Korea, Japan and India. You already got it. When are you making an announcement?” Bill O’Reilly asked on a NewsNation town hall with Trump, who spoke by phone.

“Well, we have potential deals with them, yeah,” Trump replied.

But, he added, “I’m in less of a hurry than you are” to announce deals, adding later: “It can wait two weeks.”

Trump has levied sweeping tariffs on US trading partners, including a slate of reciprocal tariffs (which aren’t technically reciprocal) that he has now paused, although other import taxes remain in place.

But the whiplash trade policy has confused investors and stoked economic anxiety among Americans, with the economy suffering as a result. The US GDP contracted at an annualized pace of 0.3%, according to data released Wednesday, the worst quarter since 2022.

Drag-line excavator mines rare earth materials on Ukrainian soil on February 25, in the Zhytomyr region of Ukraine.

President Donald Trump today made his first public comments about the minerals deal signed earlier today between Ukraine and the US, saying that the US signed it because he “wanted to be protected.”

When pressed on if the agreement could “inhibit” Russian President Vladimir Putin in any way, Trump was quick to respond, “well, it could be” before going on to explain his reasoning for the deal.

The president again claimed that that the US has spent $350 billion aiding Ukraine, compared to a much smaller sum from Europe. (Neither figure is correct, as CNN has previously fact checked.)

The agreement grants the US access to Ukrainian mineral resources in exchange for establishing an investment fund in Ukraine.

Trump said he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their weekend meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral that “it’s a very good thing” if he signed the deal because “Russia is much bigger and much stronger.”

President Donald Trump speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House, on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump tacitly acknowledged today that his administration’s tariff strategy has left American consumers with uncertainty — and that there’s risk to that — telling NewsNation in a telephone town hall that he is “flexible.”

When pressed on his declining poll numbers and whether his tariff policy has faced a “perception problem,” he conceded it did, before adding, but “I’m an honest guy, and I, we have to save the country.”

A 55% majority of Americans say that Trump’s actions on tariffs so far this term have been bad policy, according to a new CNN poll conducted by with SSRS, with 28% calling them good policy, and 17% saying they’ve been neither.

Trump repeatedly declined to provide a timeline for when the “transition” period would be over. Pressed on the political consequences for Republicans if things don’t stabilize by this time next fall — including the possibility Democrats could win the midterms — Trump acknowledged there is risk to his strategy.

“That’s true, it is true,” Trump said. “And I just think that I’ll be able to convince people how good this is — this is what other countries have done to us,” he added, acknowledging that he has to sell tariffs to the American people.

President Donald Trump said today that Harvard University’s federal funding “may very well stop.”

Earlier this month, the federal government’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism froze over $2 billion in federal funding to the Ivy League institution. Harvard sued the Trump administration over the freeze last week.

“They run a bad operation up there and we have to get to the bottom of it,” Trump said when calling into a NewsNation town hall, adding that the government is “looking into Harvard.”

“We give them billions of dollars a year and that may very well stop,” the president said.

Some background: The administration says its task force, created following a February executive order, is intended to crack down on antisemitism on campuses amid the Israel-Hamas war. But even prominent Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and Harvard’s chapter of the Hillel student organization, have publicly questioned the administration’s broad attacks on the university.

Recent steps by Harvard to rectify its apparent mishandling of antisemitism were characterized by the White House as “positive,” but an official today signaled that the university needs to do more to crack down on what it sees as anti-Israel bias on campus for the flow of federal funding to resume — and even suggested more money could be cut.

This post has been updated with more background on Harvard’s task force.

Vice President JD Vance listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, in Washington, on Wednesday.

Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote tonight to kill a bipartisan Senate effort to rebuke President Donald Trump’s tariffs, making the vote 50-49.

Earlier this evening, the Senate rejected a resolution that would have effectively blocked the president’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order President Donald Trump is using to enact them. Two senators who would have voted for the resolution, GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, were absent, which allowed the resolution to fail 49-49.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune then moved to ensure that tariff opponents were unable to bring their resolution back up for consideration at a later date, forcing Vance up to Capitol Hill to break the tie.

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who co-sponsored the resolution to block the tariffs, argued that Vance needing to come break the tie works in their favor.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ansers a question from CNN's Manu Raju on Wendesday.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she believes there is “plenty of law breaking” in the Trump presidency that needs examination, but when considering impeachment, the question to answer would be what articles apply.

The New York congresswoman was asked ​if Democrats should pursue impeachment if they win the House in the midterms. Ocasio-Cortez responded saying Democrats should “never take impeachment off the table.”

Meanwhile, Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff told a voter in Georgia last week that he “strongly” agrees that Trump needs to be impeached because his “conduct has already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment by the United States House of Representatives.”

The Senate voted 49-49 to reject the resolution that would have effectively blocked the president’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order Trump is using to enact them.

A bipartisan attempt to rebuke President Donald Trump over his trade policy fell short in the Senate today amid two key absences in the chamber.

The Senate voted 49-49 to reject the resolution that would have effectively blocked the president’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order Trump is using to enact them. GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has before criticized the president’s tariff policy, and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse were set to support the resolution but were not present to vote.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune moved to kill any effort to bring the resolution up again for a vote.

Even had it been adopted, the resolution was dead on arrival in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this year tucked a provision into a rule to prohibit consideration of the measure until September 30.

Read more here.

A man enters the building that houses the offices of the Institute of Museum and Library Services on March 20, in Washington, DC.

A federal judge in Washington, DC, said today he is likely to grant a temporary injunction to pause the Trump administration’s mass terminations of employees and grants at the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“Based on what I heard, I’m inclined to grant the (temporary restraining order),” District Judge Richard Leon told the courtroom, adding he plans to issue a written order by tomorrow at the latest.

The plaintiffs in the case, the American Libraries Association and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employment, rely on the institute for funding and data collection. According to their filings, it is the only federal entity dedicated to funding libraries.

The library associations argue that a March 14 executive order by President Donald Trump that states the institute “shall be eliminated” and a report that 85% of the staff will be laid of on Sunday point toward the dismantling of the agency and prevent it from upholding its statutorily mandated requirements by Congress.

A view of the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 15.

The White House characterized recent steps by Harvard University as “positive,” but signaled today that the university needs to do more to crack down on what it sees as antisemitism on campus for the flow of federal funding to resume — and even suggested more money could be cut.

The Trump administration is expected to formally communicate with Harvard again in the coming days.

Earlier this week, Harvard announced it is renaming its “Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging” to “Community and Campus Life.” The university also said it would no longer host or fund affinity group celebrations during commencement, according to The Harvard Crimson. And yesterday afternoon, the school released a pair of internal reports: one on how antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias are handled on campus, and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias.

The official suggested that the administration would be watching to see if there’s anything meaningful to the name change: “DEI by another name that’s still DEI — that’s not going to fly.”

But the administration believes the university is coming around to the idea that it needs to work with President Donald Trump.

A proposed vehicle tax will no longer be included in House Republicans’ reconciliation bill after it attracted the ire of conservatives.

The idea was floated by the House Transportation Committee and would put an annual $20 levy on vehicles — and more for electric and hybrid vehicles.

It was seen as a potential a way to reduce the current gas tax — a fee that some GOP lawmakers complain that electric vehicles have been able to evade. But it quickly faced backlash from some conservatives who argued gas vehicles shouldn’t be subject to the new cost.

The US and Ukraine signed an agreement for a joint reconstruction investment fund, the US Treasury Department announced today.

The Senate is voting now on a bipartisan attempt to rebuke President Donald Trump over his trade policy.

Its fate remains uncertain due to key absences.

More background: The bipartisan resolution would effectively block Trump’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order he is using to enact them. However, even if the resolution passes the Senate, it is dead on arrival in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this year tucked a provision into a rule to prohibit consideration of the measure until September 30.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew speaks to members of the media on Wednesday.

GOP lawmakers today highlighted the divide within the party over how to reach the desired $1.5 trillion in spending cuts in President Donald Trump’s agenda bill, with one member from a swing district warning that cutting Medicaid would be a “blueprint for disaster” in the midterms.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew told reporters that the economic fallout from Trump’s policies will “be a little bumpy in the beginning,” but predicted “a year from now, things are gonna look a lot different.”

Pressed by CNN’s Manu Raju on if an economic downturn will be politically problematic for Republicans in swing districts, Van Drew responded, “I’m more worried about and concerned about things like Medicaid affecting real people.”

The New Jersey Republican said he thinks Trump “really has people at the table” working through tariff issues, but he’s “more concerned” about not doing “the right thing” with Medicaid and other programs.

Hardliner GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Raju that while some are worried about “draconian cuts,” the GOP blueprint included a 25% increase in Medicaid spending under Obamacare expansion.

“We’ll keep working through the numbers but we got to deliver. As I said to you and many folks before, the math is still math, and we still got to make it work,” he said.

Documents for the minerals agreement between the United States and Ukraine have been signed, according to a source familiar.

CNN is reaching out to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington.

The fate of a bipartisan attempt to rebuke President Donald Trump over his trade policy remains in question shortly before a vote in the Senate.

While Sen. Rand Paul had projected earlier confidence that there was enough GOP support to adopt the measure, key absences in the chamber could result in its failure.

The resolution would effectively block Trump’s global tariffs by revoking the emergency order the president is using to enact them. The vote has not yet started.