April 4, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has moved here.

An awning with the Department of Veterans Affairs' seal marks the entrance to the department's headquarters a block from the White House on March 06.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is again giving their employees the option to resign with pay through the end of September, according to an email sent to employees and reviewed by CNN.

The employees don’t have long to decide either: The opt-in period is between April 7 to April 30.

In the email, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said the ultimate goal is to reduce the agency’s workforce by 15%. Collins included a list of which employees qualify and said for those who don’t take this offer, “VA cannot provide assurance regarding the certainty of your position moving forward.”

Collins said last month that the department is looking at laying off roughly 80,000 employees. “That is our goal, our target,” he told Fox News.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the latest federal agency to make this offer again to their employees.

CNN has reached out to the department for comment.

The original program was offered to about 2 million federal employees, who had to accept by mid-February. Roughly 75,000 participants signed up. Workers were notified about the initial offer in a mass email from the Office of Personnel Management with the subject line of “Fork in the Road,” the same subject line billionaire Elon Musk used when culling employees at Twitter after he purchased it.

The Trump administration is shutting down the Internal Revenue Service’s civil rights office, according to an internal email sent to employees today and obtained by CNN.

The closure of the Office of Civil Rights and Compliance comes amid the larger efforts to layoff thousands of IRS employees and government workers across the sprawling federal bureaucracy.

The internal IRS email obtained by CNN says 75% of the employees in the IRS civil rights office will be eliminated, and 5% have already quit as part of the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program. The remaining workers will be absorbed into another division within the IRS, the email said.

The Washington Post first reported the IRS was firing about 130 employees from its civil rights office. CNN has reached out to the IRS for comment.

The IRS civil rights office protects taxpayers’ rights and “ does not tolerate discrimination by its employees against anyone because of age, sex, color, disability, race, religion, and national origin (including limited English proficiency),” according to its website.

The agency has already fired thousands of workers and auditors and set out to shutter more than 110 taxpayer assistance offices across the country. Widespread layoffs are in the works, with plans to cut nearly 20% of all IRS employees by May 15.

Members on the Senate floor on Friday, April 4.

The Senate has begun its marathon vote series, known as a “vote-a-rama,” tonight after senators voted last night along party lines to begin debate on the GOP’s budget blueprint.

This voting exercise occurs when both sides of the aisle introduce a slew of politically difficult amendments for hours and hours until both sides relent.

Democrats are expected to force Republicans to take politically tough amendment votes throughout the series, which will likely go into the early hours of tomorrow morning.

At the end of the vote-a-rama, the Senate is expected to adopt its budget blueprint. It then heads to the House, where some conservative Republicans have already criticized the resolution.

Both chambers must adopt an identical budget blueprint before advancing legislation to implement Trump’s agenda, which includes new money for immigration enforcement, a sweeping overhaul of the tax code, steep spending cuts and more energy drilling. The details of the legislation still need to be determined.

Rep. Don Bacon leaves the Capitol Hill Club after a meeting of the House Republican Conference on March 25.

GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska plans to introduce a bill in the House Monday that will aim to reassert Congress’ power over tariffs, he confirmed to CNN.

It’ll be a companion measure to bipartisan legislation from Sens. Chuck Grassley and Maria Cantwell introduced in the Senate this week.

The bill from Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, would require presidents to justify new tariffs to Congress. Lawmakers would have to approve them within 60 days or they would expire.

The Senate bill has a number of cosponsors, including Republicans Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Democrats Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Mark Warner of Virginia, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Peter Welch of Vermont are also cosponsoring the bill.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that early next week, Ukraine will pick a law firm to represent its interests in negotiations with the United States and will be ready to present a new draft of the minerals deal.

After that, Zelensky said, “a technical team will be ready for a trip to the United States of America and for a dialogue with our American partners.” Zelensky clarified that he will not take part in this trip.

The Ukrainian president also said “America is ready” to apply pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire, and the two countries have “talked about increasing sanctions pressure on Russians because they don’t want to end the war.”

“And of course the first step toward ending (the war) is a ceasefire. We are waiting on these steps, we have been waiting on them for a long time,” he said.

CNN has reached out to the US State Department for comment.

You can catch up on the latest back and forth about the potential minerals deal and President Donald Trump’s recent comments here.

This post has been updated with Zelensky’s comments about a ceasefire.

National Security Agency Director Gen. Tim Haugh speaks during a Senate Committee on Intelligence hearing on March 25 in Washington, DC.

The general that the Trump administration abruptly fired as head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command told his colleagues to support President Donald Trump’s national security priorities in an emotional farewell note that touted the agency and command’s successes in countering threats from China and elsewhere.

Haugh and NSA deputy director Wendy Noble were fired yesterday, a day after far-right activist Laura Loomer met with Trump and advocated for their dismissal, as well as that of multiple other officials at the National Security Council, CNN reported. At least three NSC officials were also fired.

Loomer, who has spread the false conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job, claimed without providing evidence in a social media post early this morning that Haugh and Noble had been “disloyal” to Trump.

Haugh did not mention Loomer or the reason for his firing in his farewell note. He instead encouraged NSA and Cyber Command employees to double-down on their work to collect intelligence on state and non-state actors.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell issued a statement on Haugh’s departure this afternoon: “The Defense Department thanks General Timothy Haugh for his decades of service to our nation, culminating as U.S. Cyber Command Commander and National Security Agency Director. We wish him and his family well.”

President Donald Trump is in touch with representatives from Vietnam, India and Israel to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries in advance of a deadline next week, a source with knowledge of the president’s discussions told CNN.

The outreach between Trump and those countries — a small fraction of the targets of his steep, sweeping levies — is seen as a first wave of negotiations as countries strategize how to respond to Trump. Some, like China and Canada, have already announced plans to retaliate. The reciprocal tariffs will go into effect April 9 at 12:01 am ET, according to a senior White House official.

Despite adamance by senior trade hand Peter Navarro and Vice President JD Vance that the new tariffs represent a permanent reset in global trade, others in Trump’s orbit have acknowledged the president’s natural inclination to strike deals.

“I wouldn’t want to be the last country to try to negotiate with @realdonaldtrump,” the president’s son, Eric Trump, posted on X. “The first to negotiate will win — the last will absolutely lose. I have seen this movie my entire life.”

Trump said yesterday he was open to negotiation on trade.

The Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump to temporarily freeze millions of dollars in grants to states for addressing teacher shortages, the administration’s first win at the high court since reclaiming power in January.

The decision was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberals dissenting.

Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ruling a “significant victory.”

“This Supreme Court ruling vindicates what the Department of Justice has been arguing for months: local district judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of taxpayer dollars, force the government to pay out billions, or unilaterally halt President Trump’s policy agenda,” Bondi wrote in a statement this evening.

This post has been updated with the statement from Bondi.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller attends a press briefing at the White House on February 20, in Washington, DC.

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, in a post on X called the Maryland judge who ordered the US government to return a man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the end of Monday a “Marxist judge” who “now thinks she’s president of El Salvador.”

Judge Paula Xinis of the US District Court in Maryland directed the federal government to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, to the US no later than 11:59 p.m. on April 7.

The Trump administration conceded in a court filing Monday it mistakenly deported the Maryland father of three “because of an administrative error,” but said it could not bring him back because he is in Salvadoran custody.

It appeared to mark the first time the administration has admitted an error related to its recent deportation flights to El Salvador, which are now at the center of a fraught legal battle.

CNN has reached out to the White House for any additional reaction or comment to the judge’s ruling.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez and Emily R. Condon contributed reporting.

On Friday, President Donald Trump shared a video on social media that falsely claimed legendary investor Warren Buffett supported the administration’s tariff plan, which has battered the US stock market and ignited fears of a recession.

“Trump is crashing the stock market by 20% this month, but he’s doing it on purpose,” said the narrator in a video Trump shared on his social media platform, Truth Social. “And this is why Warren Buffett just said that Trump is making the best economic moves he’s seen in over 50 years.”

Buffett’s multinational conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, swiftly rejected that claim.

“There are reports currently circulating on social media (including Twitter, Facebook and TikTok) regarding comments allegedly made by Warren E. Buffett. All such reports are false,” the company said in a statement shared with CNBC on Friday.

CNN has reached out to Berkshire Hathaway for comment.

On Wednesday, Trump announced tariffs of at least 10% across nearly all countries, with significantly higher rates on some of the United States’ largest trading partners. The announcement sent shockwaves through global markets, and stocks around the world plunged. In light of Trump’s tariff announcement, JPMorgan raised the risk of recession in 2025 to 60%.

On Friday, China, the United States’ third-largest trading partner, announced retaliatory tariffs of 34% on all US goods starting April 10, further spooking markets as the risk of multiple tit-for-tat trade wars grows.

Buffett has been critical of Trump’s tariff plans, calling them “an act of war, to some degree” in an interview CBS last month.

“Over time, they’re a tax on goods,” Buffett said of tariffs.

US stocks were battered by a steep sell-off today after China retaliated against the United States for President Donald Trump’s tariffs in a tit-for-tat that escalates a global trade war.

The Dow plunged by 2,231 points, or 5.5%. The broader S&P 500 was 5.97% lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 5.82% lower.

The Nasdaq closed in a bear market for the first time since 2022, down more than 20% from its record high in December.

The Dow closed in correction, down more than 10% from its record high in December. It is the first time the Dow has closed in correction since March 7, 2022, according to Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research. The Dow posted its biggest back-to-back losses since March 2020, during the onset of the pandemic.

A federal judge just reinstated the head of the Inter-American Foundation, Sara Aviel, ruling that her dismissal earlier this year was unlawful.

The preliminary injunction today from US District Judge Loren AliKhan also voids any decisions made by Peter Marocco, a Trump administration official, since President Donald Trump appointed him to oversee the agency in Aviel’s place.

The foundation was created in 1969 to support economic development in Latin America and throughout the Carribean.

The decision by AliKhan, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, preserves the agency, which Marocco had sought to reduce to the minimum statutory requirements, including by firing the vast majority of its workforce and canceling all but one of its grants.

Abrego Garcia

Federal Judge Paula Xinis ruled today that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month, should be returned to the United States.

Xinis, of the US District Court in Maryland, directed the federal government to return him to the US no later than 11:59 p.m. on April 7.

The Trump administration conceded in a court filing Monday it mistakenly deported the Maryland father of three “because of an administrative error,” but said it could not bring him back because he is in Salvadoran custody. It appeared to mark the first time the administration has admitted an error related to its recent deportation flights to El Salvador, which are now at the center of a fraught legal battle.

The Trump administration has appealed the ruling, according to a court filing. This means it will now go to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Over the course of the hearing, Xinis had repeatedly raised issue with Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador, given that an immigration judge had previously granted him withholding of removal, meaning he could suffer persecution if removed from the US to El Salvador. He was still considered removable; it just couldn’t be to El Salvador. Xinis cited that status in her ruling, saying Abrego Garcia was apprehended last month “without legal basis” and deported “without justification of legal basis.”

During the hearing, Xinis also appeared skeptical about Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to the MS-13 gang, which Trump officials have maintained, saying that she had not seen sufficient evidence to that effect.

Read more about the case and its impacts on the Salvadoran community in Maryland.

This post has been updated with more from the hearing, and to reflect the Trump administration’s appeal.

US stocks have been rocked for the second day in a row, with the Dow plunging by 2,100 points this afternoon, or 5.33%.

The broader S&P 500 was 5.9% lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was 5.8% lower and on track to close in a bear market — down more than 20% from its record high in December.

This comes after China said it will impose reciprocal 34% tariffs on all imports from the US starting April 10, in retaliation to Trump’s tariffs against Beijing, ratcheting up the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

This post has been updated with the latest from the stock market.

Ed Martin speaks at an event at the Capitol in Washington, June 13, 2023.

The acting US attorney in Washington, DC, said today in a memo obtained by CNN that his office is investigating “leaks that took place during the January 6th prosecutions” as part of his ongoing probe into the massive effort the office oversaw during the Biden administration.

The announcement from Ed Martin comes months after he launched an investigation into prosecutors who brought obstruction charges under US Code 1512(c) against some rioters. The charges were ultimately tossed because of a Supreme Court decision last year.

That effort, he told his colleagues in today’s internal memo, “is expanded in scope.”

The US attorney’s email doesn’t say who asked him to look at the leaks, nor does it point to any specific leaks, only saying it “was bad all around.”

Martin’s office did not return a request for comment.

In his initial announcement of the investigation in January, Martin said lawyers who worked on the cases where the obstruction charge was used should hand over related documents and correspondence to two of the office’s long-term prosecutors.

President Donald Trump has picked Martin to lead the office on a permanent basis, but Senate Democrats have vowed to block his confirmation.

A coalition of unions representing nearly 1 million federal workers filed a lawsuit in US District Court in San Francisco late Thursday seeking to stop the Trump administration from ending the collective bargaining rights for many federal employees.

President Donald Trump last week signed an unprecedented executive order that seeks to abolish multiple agencies’ union contracts in the name of national security. The order is aimed at stopping federal unions who have “declared war on President Trump’s agenda,” according to a White House fact sheet. It claimed the American Federation of Government Employees has filed many grievances to “block Trump policies.”

The administration is also suing multiple AFGE locals in federal court in Texas, seeking to release several agencies from their collective bargaining agreements.

The unions’ lawsuit, which is led by AFGE, argues Trump’s actions are retaliation and violate the right to engage in constitutionally protected speech. Also, the suit alleges the administration is attempting to apply the national security exemption to eliminate the rights of workers whose primary duties are not related to national security.

And the unions want the government to continue employees’ payroll deductions for union dues.

Relatedly, the National Treasury Employees Union asked a federal judge today to halt the administration from moving ahead with the executive order while a lawsuit it filed in US District Court in the District of Columbia earlier in the week plays out in court.

TikTok is seen in the app store of a Google Pixel on January 8.

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will again delay enforcement of the TikTok sale-or-ban law for 75 days, as his staff continues to work on a deal to preserve access to the app in the United States.

“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

The announcement comes just one day before the ban was set to go into effect, after Trump delayed it by an initial 75 days it when he took office in January.

Remember: Former President Joe Biden signed a law last year that required TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest the app or face a US ban, over national security concerns. The law was set to go into effect in January, but Trump said he would delay its enforcement in hopes of reaching a deal to keep the app “alive.”

Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance — who was tapped with leading the TikTok dealmaking effort — repeatedly said in recent days that they expected there would be a deal by the April 5 deadline. Sources familiar with the White House’s discussions told CNN earlier this week that Trump staffers were considering a deal that would involve selling most of TikTok’s US assets to tech company Oracle and other American investors, leaving ByteDance with a minority stake in the app.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies and emphasized that Democrats are “united” in combatting the president’s policies, despite criticism the party is not doing enough.

He warned Trump’s tariffs and global trade war will drive costs up for Americans — a message Democrats have been repeating. Schumer also told CNN the uncertainty around tariffs and the economy “makes everybody just worry about spending money.”

“Why’s he doing this? To give tax breaks to his billionaire friends; they are all in that billionaire bubble. They just talk to themselves and they don’t know how badly they’re hurting average American families,” Schumer added.

The minority leader said Democrats are “focused on the future” and “focused on showing how awful this administration is.” He said lawmakers will introduce a series of amendments to a GOP budget blueprint today to highlight to Americans how Trump’s policies will affect them. Schumer also praised Sen. Cory Booker’s more than 25-hour speech protesting the administration’s actions.

“We are all united and moving forward in that regard,” he said.

Additionally, Schumer called a bipartisan bill that would require congressional approval for new tariffs a “very good bill.” The measure was introduced by GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.

Earlier today, President Donald Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he had a “productive” call with Vietnam’s General Secretary Tô Lâm.

He said Lâm told him, “Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S. I thanked him on behalf of our Country, and said I look forward to a meeting in the near future.”

Following the meeting, Vietnam published a report on a government site stating the country “proposed that the US apply similar tax rates to goods imported from Vietnam.”

Lâm and Trump agreed to “soon sign a bilateral agreement between the two countries to concretize the above commitments,” the report continued, adding that Trump accepted an invitation to visit the country “soon.”

The White House did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiry seeking to confirm the report from the Vietnamese government.

Vietnam is among the nations set to see the highest “reciprocal” tariff rates of 46% come April 9, according to the new tariff regime the Trump administration unveiled Wednesday. Vietnam was the United States’ sixth-largest source of imports last year, according to US Commerce Department data. The tariffs Trump is set to impose could raise the price for a slew of goods for which the US relies heavily on Vietnam. That includes electronics, apparel and footwear.

The US has come to rely on goods from Vietnam even more over the past decade after Trump, during his first term, levied higher tariffs on China, which the Biden administration kept in place and tacked on many of its own.

In 2016, Vietnam shipped $42 billion worth of goods to the US. Last year, the US imported $137 billion in goods from them.