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President talks Russia, China, the Panama canal and windmills in second instalment of Oval Office interview with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity
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Donald Trump blamed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia’s invasion of his homeland during the second part of his interview with Sean Hannity, which aired on Fox News last night.
The president said Zelensky was “no angel” and had allowed the war to rumble on but added he would be prepared to impose massive tariffs on Moscow if Vladimir Putin refuses to enter talks on ending the conflict.
Trump also said he “would rather not” place tarrifs on China but insisted it was a “tremendous power” at his disposal in dealing with Beijing and discussed renewable energy, the Panama canal and former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith over the course of the wide-ranging discussion.
Also on Thursday, the president declassified top secret files on the 1960s assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King Jr and saw his bid to end birthright citizenship challenged in court as “blatantly unconstitutional”.
On Friday, Trump will visit Los Angeles to survey the damage from the recent raging wildfires, having been highly critical of California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials’ response to the disaster.
John F Kennedy’s grandson has hit out at Donald Trump’s decision to release highly-classified JFK assassination files that have kept from the public for over half a century.
Jack Schlossberg took to X on Thursday in response to Trump’s executive order to declassify records on his grandfather’s murder in 1963, plus those of Senator Robert F Kennedy in 1968 and Dr Martin Luther King Jr the same year – three deaths that have sparked countless conspiracy theories.
“The truth is a lot sadder than the myth – a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” he wrote.
“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back.
“There’s nothing heroic about it.”
Madeline Sherratt reports.
“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back. There’s nothing heroic about it”, Jack Schlossberg said
Those binders full of executive orders that Trump has been signing with a flourish and a wide-tipped Sharpie all week don’t just magically appear before him.
White House staff secretary Will Scharf has been a prominent part of the tableau, standing at Trump’s side and teeing up the leather-bound folders, one by one, for the president to scrawl his John Hancock across.
With the cameras rolling, Scharf provides running narration on what Trump is signing, at times leaning into a nearby microphone at the president’s direction for effect.
So who is he?
White House staff secretary Will Scharf has been a prominent part of the tableau, standing at Trump’s side
Georgia’s MAGA Represenative has lashed out at a reporter who asked about Trump’s sweeping pardons for January 6 criminals, telling Punchbowl News’s Melanie Zanon: “I’m not doing this.”
Infuriated by the line of questioning, Greene continued: “All of y’all’s obsession with January 6 is absurd. Everybody outside of here is sick and f***ing tired of it.”
The exchange took place in the halls of the Capitol building, the site of the riot four years ago.
Kelly Rissman has the story.
‘Everybody up here has their panties in a wad’ over the January 6 pardons, the Georgia firebrand said of the press in Washington, D.C.
The progressive Democrat has been sharing her thoughts with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart on the new Trump administration in its earliest days, notably characterizing the president’s inauguration earlier this week “a billionaire feeding frenzy”.
Kelly Rissman has more.
Some were ‘scared’ to be associated with the Republican president the first time around, but during his second term, ‘they’re all all-in,’ the New York Democrat said
The president’s aides and staffers have been strongly advised not to socialize with lawmakers in Washington, according to a report.
Staffers within the White House legislative affairs office, particularly in external-facing roles, have been “strongly discouraged” from consuming alcohol with members of Congress, according to Politico’s West Wing Playbook.
“We strongly urged everyone in the legislative affairs office and everyone who’s externally facing to be thoughtful about their alcohol use in public, and specifically with members,” a source told the outlet.
“We strongly discouraged drinking with members.”
“It’s a free country, but we represent the White House and the president and that’s best done sober,” a second source added.
Here’s more from Rhian Lubin.
The nation’s capital is notoriously hard-drinking, but leadership reportedly expects staffers to socialize sober
The president is reportedly set to appoint a prominent healthcare industry lobbyist to his new administration in a move that could potentially tee up a power struggle with Robert F Kennedy Jr, his controversial nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to The Financial Times, the new president has Don Dempsey in mind to be his top health official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Dempsey is the current head of policy and research at Better Medicare Alliance, a lobby group that advocates for an alternative to the federal Medicare program and that is funded by insurance companies, including UnitedHealth and Humana.
Should he be offered the position of the OMB’s health program associate director and accept it, Dempsey would hold sway over the US’s $1.8trn healthcare budget and have responsibility for 13 separate divisions and agencies, a prospect seemingly at odds with Trump’s promise to Kennedy that he would be free to run “wild” across government with his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Don Dempsey reportedly in frame to serve as Office of Management and Budget’s leading health offical, a role that would hand him sweeping powers to rein in Kennedy’s ambitions
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has responded to the president’s Truth Social challenge to his Russian counterpart on Wednesday and his remarks yesterday to the World Economic Forum and to Sean Hannity regarding the Ukraine war by saying “Putin is ready” to discuss its endgame with the new American administration.
Russia is simply “waiting for signals” from the Trump administration, Peskov added, according to AFP, but declined to offer a timeline on talks, saying it was “hard to read coffee the grounds” [i.e. predict the future].
The spokesman also rejected Trump’s claim to the Davos crowd that the war in Ukraine was tied to high oil prices (the president said he would ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to lower oil prices because “if the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately”).
Peskov insisted the “conflict does not depend on oil prices” and was rather about “threats to Russia’s national security”, “threats to Russians” living in Ukraine and “the lack of desire and complete refusal of Americans and Europeans to listen to Russia’s concerns”.
The conservative morning show hosts say government staff unhappy at being ordered to come into the office after Trump ended remote working should model themselves on the new president and his “work ethic”, as opposed to Joe Biden, whom, they claimed, was “in bed by 4pm”.
Graig Graziosi reports.
New president issued an executive order ending remote work for all federal workers shortly after his inauguration
Government employers have been warned they may face “consequences” if they fail to identify colleagues who have been hired through diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
Emails sent to government employees and first obtained by NBC News accuse staffers of hiding information about those on the schemes by using “coded or imprecise language”.
As of Wednesday, employees had been given 10 days to report colleagues on DEI schemes that had gone unnoticed by government supervisors.
“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” the emails said.
Employees were directed to notify the Office of Personnel Management if they are “aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEI or similar ideologies”.
Mike Bedigan has more.
As of Wednesday, employees had been given 10 days to report colleagues on DEIA schemes that had gone unnoticed by government supervisors, according to NBC
The president has often expressed concern over how low showerhead flow affected his “perfect” hair.
Now back in the White House, he’s again taking aim at some high-efficiency household items – and that may mean higher water and electricity bills in American homes.
The president promises to ‘unleash American energy’
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