Live updates: Trump presidency news, tariff confusion, El Salvador’s Bukele visits White House | CNN Politics (2025)

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Rep. Laura Friedman speaks during a Town Hall in Los Angeles, California.

California Rep. Laura Friedman faced tough questions at a town hall on Monday as audience members expressed frustration over how Democrats are responding to the political climate.

One of the questions the congresswoman received was, “What is the plan to resist?”

Someone in the crowd could be heard yelling:“They don’t care about the courts, they care about money. That’s all they care about.

Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree was also confronted with similar questions about the Democratic Party at a different town hall on Monday.

One audience member told the congresswoman that for years, “the Democrats have had a real messaging problem,” and asked what the party’s vision is.

“I’m not seeing any Democratic planning for the future, so my question is what is the vision, what’s the mission, where’s our Project 2027 or 2029?”

CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed reporting

Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, speaks during a "Fighting Oligarchy" event at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho, on Monday.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown “anti-American.”

“You know it’s bone chilling every day, there’s something new, and today, we just saw President Trump express openness to taking US citizens and sending them off without due process to foreign prisons,” the Democratic congresswoman said at a rally in Idaho with Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, Trump suggested he was open to deporting US citizens who are considered violent criminals.

Immigration wasn’t the only tense topic during the latest stop on the West Coast portion of the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with the Vermont Independent senator. During the rally, pro-Palestinian supporters displayed a flag with the words “Free Palestine” after Sanders criticized US foreign policy toward Israel. Reactions from the crowd stalled town hall activity for several minutes.

A federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration could not categorically end later this month existing deportation protections for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants under a humanitarian relief program.

It is the latest legal setback in President Donald Trump’s efforts to quickly make sweeping changes to the immigration system.

US District Judge Indira Talwani said the administration had not acted within the regulatory guardrails laid out in the Administrative Procedure Act when it sought to drastically truncate an existing two-year timeline for the program to wind down.

Talwani set aside Trump’s move to terminate on April 24 the immigration benefits granted for humanitarian reasons to those migrants, under the Biden-era program known as CHNV parole. Those protections must generally stay in place through their “natural expiration,” Talwani said – an expiration that was set in motion with an October 2024 decision by the Biden administration that the federal government would no longer re-parole migrants under the program once the two-year term of the benefits, which include work authorization, ran out. The judge specified that her order applies to any move to end early the protections en masse and without a case-by-case review.

The lawsuit was filed by immigrants with parole and their US-based sponsors, who argued that the abrupt halt of the program would cause serious harm to thousands of parolees. The administration defended the pause as a temporary, lawful use of executive authority for added security vetting and insisted parole is a discretionary measure.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to request for comment on the ruling.

Attorney General Pam Bondi holds her first press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, DC, on February 12.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said tonight that the Supreme Court’s ruling ordering the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was “a win.”

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said that a lower court judge had properly instructed the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return but said the earlier directive was unclear and needed clarification. The clarification, the high court said, needed to be made with “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

Bondi added that “but for an extra step in paperwork,” Abrego Garcia would “go right back” to El Salvador, his “home country.”

“And President (Nayib) Bukele does not want to give him back to the United States, nor do we want him back,” she continued.

Some background: During his meeting today with President Donald Trump at the White House, Bukele ruled out returning Abrego Garcia to the United States.

“I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

Stocks in the Asia Pacific region opened slightly higher on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump said he was considering a short-term tariff exemption for automakers.

Japan and South Korea have major carmakers that have been hit hard by Trump’s 25% tariff on vehicles that went into effect on April 3. Levies on auto parts are slated to go into effect no later than May 3.

Japan’s Nikkei 225, composed of more than 200 of the country’s most valuable companies, opened more than 1% higher. Toyota, the world’s top carmaker, gained 5% in early trade, while rivals Honda and Nissan were 5% and 3.5% higher respectively. South Korea’s Kospi was about 0.5% higher. Top carmaker Hyundai opened more than 4% higher, while affiliate Kia was up 3%.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s S&P ASX 200 was trading flat. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index will open at 9:30 a.m. local time.

This undated photo provided by CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization, shows Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.

The Trump administration and El Salvador’s president are making it clear that they will not return the Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador last month back to the US.

When asked about returning Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the US, President Nayib Bukele told reporters in the Oval Office today he’s “not going to do it.”

It all comes after the Supreme Court endorsed a federal judge’s directive that US officials must “facilitate” bringing Abrego Garcia back stateside. Last night, Justice Department attorneys insisted that the government is not required to work with officials in El Salvador to secure the man’s return.

The Trump administration claims Abrego Garcia is a ranking member of the MS-13 gang, but his lawyers and family have rejected those claims.

Here’s what happened today:

This post has been updated with what the Trump administration told US District Judge Paula Xinis.

Watch a moment from the Oval Office meeting in the video below:

President Donald Trump plans to begin actively searching for Jerome Powell’s successor later this year as the Federal Reserve chair’s term is up in May 2026, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The administration will start interviewing candidates “sometime in the fall,” Bessent told Bloomberg today.

Trump, who appointed Powell to the position during his first presidential term, has frequently criticized Powell for monetary policy decisions he disagrees with, and has long said he doesn’t plan to keep him as the central bank’s leader.

New York Attorney General Letitia James speaks during a press conference at Manhattan Federal Courthouse in New York on February 14.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is looking into potential insider trading by Trump administration officials and associates around last week’s 90-day tariff pause, James’ office confirmed to CNN on Monday.

The review is in its earliest stages and is not yet a full investigation. It’s unclear if it will ultimately uncover evidence of wrongdoing.

Remember: Last week, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that it was a “GREAT TIME TO BUY.” Hours after that post, US markets skyrocketed as Trump announced a 90-day pause to most of his tariffs. The tariff U-turn sparked one of the best days in Wall Street history.

Some lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential for insider trading around Trump’s tariff announcement. However, no smoking gun has been revealed signaling wrongdoing. CNN reached out to the White House for comment.

Under the 1921 Martin Act, the NY AG has broad power to investigate and crack down on securities fraud. The Martin Act, one of the most powerful tools any state authority has, allows the NY AG to launch investigations, subpoena witnesses and prosecute financial fraud.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” last weekend that she wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the Trump tariff announcement.

Some small businesses in the US are feeling the impacts of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China. The mother-daughter co-founders of GaBBY Bows said the uncertainty is putting the future of the business in doubt.

Rozalynn Goodwin said GaBBY Bows received an opportunity to work with a “dream retailer” last fall. But when they were preparing to place an order with their manufacturer in China to fulfill the deal, Trump’s new policies meant they were now going to have to pay thousands of dollars more tariffs, she said.

The Trump administration last week imposed a minimum tariff rate of 145% on Chinese goods imported to the United States.

GaBBY Bows sells “double-face double-snap barrettes,” according to its website.

Gabby Goodwin, the other founder, said they have been trying to get their products manufactured in the US for about eight years. “But it’s been so much hassle trying to get that. A lot of people — once we’re negotiating, start telling us that we need to continue to do it overseas.”

Rozalynn Goodwin said another challenge with making the barrettes in the US is they would have to increase the cost to consumers. She said that’s not a viable option when their competitors are selling at a much lower price point.

Looking ahead, Rozalynn Goodwin said the said the high tariffs now leaves “a lot of uncertainty for any future purchase orders with this dream retailer.”

After President Donald Trump confirmed today that US and Iranian negotiators will sit down for the second time in a week on Saturday, a person familiar with the planning told CNN that the meeting will likely be in Rome, but it’s not fully nailed down.

Remember: Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman on Saturday. The two men spoke directly with each other after two and half hours of indirect talks with Omani officials shuttling between the two sides.

They “got very close” to reaching a framework for negotiations, Aragchi said, and emphasized that both sides are seeking an agreement as quickly as possible.

Not only is it unclear how the deal Trump is envisioning would be different than the one brokered by the Obama administration that Trump pulled out of, but experts and officials emphasize how extraordinarily complex a deal needs to be.

CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 14.

President Donald Trump and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, both made clear during an Oval Office meeting today that the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador won’t be returned to the United States.

Despite a Supreme Court ruling that the US must “facilitate” Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s return, White House officials have argued it’s up to El Salvador whether to do so. Asked directly by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins whether he plans to return Abrego Garcia, Bukele argued the notion of doing so would be “preposterous.”

As CNN reported, the high court’s unsigned and brief decision left US District Judge Paula Xinis’ order requiring Abrego Garcia’s return in place but drew a distinction between “facilitating” his return and “effectuating” it. The lower court properly required the government to “facilitate” his return, the justices made clear. Senior White House officials have objected to the Xinis’ ruling in recent days and argued that a court cannot intervene in the foreign policy decision-making of the United States.

Trump himself has shifted his stance in recent days after initially saying he would abide by the Supreme Court’s decision.

“If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court,” Trump told reporters last week.

Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019, after reviewing evidence, withheld his removal. That meant that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”

President Donald Trump said Monday that he is open to deporting US citizens who are considered violent criminals.

El Salvador agreed to house violent US criminals and receive deportees of any nationality, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in February, in an unprecedented — and legally problematic deal — that has alarmed critics and rights groups.

Any effort by the Trump administration to deport incarcerated US nationals to another country would likely face significant legal pushback and legal experts have noted the US is barred from such a move.

“The US is absolutely prohibited from deporting US citizens, whether they are incarcerated or not,” Leti Volpp, a law professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in immigration law and citizenship theory, told CNN in February after Rubio announced the deal with El Salvador.

Trump told reporters Monday that “if they’re criminals and if they hit people with baseball bats over their head that happen to be 90-years-old and if-if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island — Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah that includes them. Why do you think there’s special category of person? They’re as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too.”

Trump said he’s “all for it” because, he claimed, with the current partnership with Bukele the US can do things “for less money and have great security.”

He praised Bukele’s handling of a large number of prisoners, saying he does “a great job with it.”

Trump added that the US is also negotiating with “others.”

“And I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people. Really bad people. Every bit as bad as the ones coming in,” the president added.

This post has been updated with comments from a legal expert. CNN’s Stefano Pozzebon, Jessie Yeung, Marlon Sorto and Lex Harvey contributed reporting to this post.

President Donald Trump said he thinks Iran is “tapping us along” in negotiations on nuclear weapons after the first round of discussions wrapped up this weekend in Oman.

“We had a meeting with them on Saturday. We have another meeting scheduled next Saturday. I said, ‘That’s a long time.’ You know, that’s a long time. So I think they might be tapping us along,” Trump said in the Oval Office alongside President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.

He said Iran “has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state media after the Saturday meeting that the two sides “got very close” to reaching a framework for negotiations. Trump has threatened military strikes as a consequence of failure, and Tehran has warned any attack on it would drag the US into a broader Middle Eastern conflict.

“I think they’re tapping us along because they were so used to dealing with stupid people in this country,” Trump said of Iran’s proposed timeline for talks.

He reiterated that negotiations have “got to go fast” because Iran is “fairly close to having” a nuclear weapon. “And if we have to do something very harsh, we’ll do it,” the president said.

President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on all cars shipped to the United States are expected to lift the cost of buying a car by thousands of dollars. But Trump said on Monday that he is considering a short-term tariff exemption for auto companies.

“I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies where they’re switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico and other places and they need a little bit more time,” Trump said. “They’re going to make them here, but they need a little bit more time.”

There is currently no such thing as an all-American-made car. While some cars are assembled in the US, with parts from Canada and Mexico, there is no car with 100% of its car parts made in the US.

Shares of the traditional Big Three Americans automakers – Ford (F), General Motors (GM) and Stellantis (STLA) – surged after Trump’s comments. Ford and Stellantis were trading about 3% higher on Monday afternoon, while General Motors was up 4%.

On Friday, US Customs and Border Protection said that electronics imported to the United States, like smartphone and computers, were exempt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, including the minimum 145% tariff on Chinese imports.

“I’m a very flexible person,” Trump said today. “I speak to (Apple CEO) Tim Cook, I help Tim Cook… I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

President Donald Trump speaks as he meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House on April 14 in Washington, DC.

President Donald Trump said he will deport as many “dangerous” undocumented immigrants as possible to El Salvador, urging President Nayib Bukele to build more mega-prisons.

“I just asked the president — you know it’s this massive complex that he built, jail complex. I said, ‘Can you build some more of them please?’ As many as we can get out of our country that we allowed in here by incompetent Joe Biden, through open borders,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with Bukele.

Trump distinguished between just “people” and those who are violent and have committed crimes in the United States.

“We have millions of people that should not be in this country that are dangerous — not just people, ‘cause we have people — but we have millions of people that are murderers, drug dealers,” Trump said.

Some context: Hundreds of men have been deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador, accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua or MS-13 gangs. They are being housed in the country’s notorious mega-prison, known as CECOT.

Pam Bondi, US Attorney General, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio sit nearby as President Donald Trump meets with President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador in the Oval Office of the White House April 14 in Washington, DC.

If El Salvador decided to return the Maryland father mistakenly deported to the country’s mega-prison, the US would “provide a plane” due to a Supreme Court ruling, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday.

The Trump administration has said Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador in March due to an “administrative error.” The administration claims he is a ranking member of the MS-13 gang, but his lawyers and family have rejected those claims.

Bondi did not respond when asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins: “So will you return him?”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller also pointed out that Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, suggesting it was “very arrogant” for American media to “tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens.”

The question was then put to Bukele, who said he “did not have the power” to return Abrego Garcia to the US. “I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country,” he said.

Trump didn’t respond when Collins asked him about his previous comments suggesting he would abide by a ruling from the Supreme Court to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

This photo released by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shows damage to the Pennsylvania Governor's Residence in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after a fire on Sunday, April 13, 2025.

President Donald Trump condemned the arson attack that happened at the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home yesterday.

Trump said the suspect in the case, who has been arrested, is “probably a whack job. And certainly, a thing like this cannot be allowed to happen.”

Trump added that he is not aware if the FBI investigation into the case has revealed a motive.

More on the arson case: Pennsylvania authorities have arrested a Harrisburg man they say broke into Shapiro’s residence early Sunday and started a fire while Shapiro and his family were sleeping.

Shapiro, his wife Lori, their four children, two dogs and another family were forced to evacuate the state-owned, Harrisburg residence, which was significantly damaged by the fire. No injuries were reported.

Cody Balmer, 38, turned himself in to police and was being held on charges of attempted murder, aggravated arson, terrorism and other charges in connection with the fire, which occurred hours after Shapiro and his family hosted a Passover dinner, authorities said.

CNN’s Lex Harvey, Zoe Sottile and Ali Main contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 14.

President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war against Ukraine, but he also continued to cast blame on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former President Joe Biden.

“That’s a war that should have never been allowed to start. Biden could have stopped it, and Zelensky should have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody’s to blame,” Trump said in the Oval Office sitting next to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

“This was Biden’s war, and I’m trying to stop it,” Trump said.

After his earlier comment about Putin starting the war, Trump went on to suggest Zelensky did when asked about his offer to purchase more patriot missile systems.

“Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know that you can win the war, right? You don’t start a war with someone who’s 20 times your size and then hope people give you some missiles,” Trump said.

President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador meets with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House April 14, in Washington, DC.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said he doesn’t “have the power” to return to the United States a man mistakenly deported to his country.

“How can I return him to the United States? Like, I smuggle him into the United States?” he said when asked repeatedly whether he would return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who the Trump administration conceded was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s mega-prison “because of an administrative error.”

Asked by reporters at the Oval Office on Monday whether he has the power to release Abrego Garcia inside El Salvador, Bukele said he does, but that his administration isn’t “very fond of releasing terrorists” in his country.

“You want us to us to go back to releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen,” he said.

The Trump administration has claimed Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, is a member of the MS-13 gang. His lawyers have denied the claim.

Bukele went on to say his country is “very eager” to help the United States tackle what he called its crime and terrorism problem.

“We’re very eager to help. We know that you have a crime problem, a terrorism problem that you need help with. And we’re a small country, but if we can help, we will do it.”