Carney warns ‘Trump is trying to break us’ as president marks 100 days in office
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering US politics as Donald Trump prepares to mark the first 100 days of his second presidency and as his northern neighbour Mark Carney celebrates his election win in Canada with a warning that “Trump is trying to break us”.
My colleague David Smith offers this critique of the chaotic last 100 days:
In three months Trump has shoved the world’s oldest continuous democracy towards authoritarianism at a pace that tyrants overseas would envy. He has used executive power to take aim at Congress, the law, the media, culture and public health.
Still aggrieved by his 2020 election defeat and 2024 criminal conviction, his regime of retribution has targeted perceived enemies and proved that no grudge is too small.
You can read his excellent, full piece here:
Trump’s rule was key to Carney’s win amid the US president’s trade tariffs and even suggestions of annexing Canada. Accepting victory this morning, Carney warned:
“America wants our land, our resources, our water. These are not idle threats. Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never happen.”
In other news:
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Nearly 100 days in office and Donald Trump continued to steadily address his campaign promises to crack down on immigration and focus on law and order. The president issued three new executive orders on Monday, which included taking aims at so-called “sanctuary cities” and shoring up legal protections for police accused of misconduct.
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Prosecutors filed charges against Mario Bustamante Leiva for allegedly stealing Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s purse.
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Trump created a “Fema review council” to “fix a terribly broken system” of delivering aid to Americans struck by disasters, naming defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Noem to the council.
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House Republicans proposed paying tens of billions of dollars for Trump’s border wall construction.
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Trump threatened to veto the bipartisan Senate resolution focused on “liberation day” tariffs.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are seeking unaccompanied immigrant children, sparking fears of a “backdoor family separation”.
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As Canadians headed to the polls, Trump issued a statement threatening Canada’s independent sovereignty, describing the border between the two nations as an “artificially drawn line from many years ago”.
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Congressman Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, announced he will not run for re-election after being diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer.
Key events
Michael Sainato
Angry voters are holding empty chair town halls as Republican members of Congress are refusing to hold those meetings with constituents.
Weeks into Donald Trump’s second term as president, Republican members of Congress were advised by the National Republican Congressional Committee against holding in person town halls with constituents, as several cases of Republican members of Congress being berated by constituents over federal worker firings and cuts went viral.
Police used a stun gun and arrested three protesters at a town hall held by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene earlier this month. Attendees at a town hall held by Iowa Republican senator Chuck Grassley demanded answers from Grassley on the US president’s policies. New York Republican congressman Mike Lawler faced a chorus of boos from constituents at a town hall this past weekend.
On Sunday, Trump said disruptors at town halls should be “immediately ejected” and claimed without evidence that “radical left Democrats” are paying people to infiltrate town halls.
Trump to mark 100 days in office with Michigan rally
President Donald Trump will mark his 100th day in office with a speech in Macomb County, Michigan, this evening.
The president is expected to begin at 6pm local time, after a visit to the nearby Selfridge Air National Guard Base, where he will address the Michigan National Guard.
We will bring you all the latest news line from the speech later tonight.
Dara Kerr
The Peace Corps is offering staff a second “fork in the road” buyout, according to a source familiar with the matter. Allison Greene, the chief executive of Peace Corps, sent an email to staff on Monday with an update about the “department of government efficiency” (Doge) assessment of the agency.
Greene said to expect “significant restructuring efforts” at Peace Corps headquarters, according to the email seen by the Guardian. Starting on 28 April and going through 6 May, direct hire and expert staff are being offered a second deferred resignation program, what Elon Musk’s Doge has referred to as a “fork in the road” buyout. Greene referred to this offer as “DRP 2.0”.
Eligible staff will hear from human resources and “are strongly encouraged to consider this option”, Greene wrote. The offer applies to employees both domestically and overseas.
Peace Corps will “continue to recruit, place, and train volunteers”, Greene said, indicating that the cuts are specifically for agency staff and will not affect volunteers.
A Peace Corps spokesperson confirmed that Doge began the cuts on Monday.
“The agency will remain operational and continue to recruit, place, and train volunteers, while continuing to support their health, safety and security, and effective service,” the spokesperson said.
Law-abiding migrants sent to foreign prisons. Sweeping tariffs disrupting global markets. Students detained for protest. Violent insurrectionists pardoned. Tens of thousands of federal workers fired. The supreme court ignored.
The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term have shocked the United States and the world. On the eve of his inauguration, Trump promised the “most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history”, and what followed has been a whirlwind pace of extreme policies and actions that have reshaped the federal government and the US’s role in the world.
Let’s look at what he has achieved and destroyed.
Andrew Roth
For US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.
In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”.
The tariffs Trump has unleashed will, if effected, disrupt global trade and lead to supply chain shocks in the United States, with China’s Xi Jinping seeking to recruit US trade allies in the region.
The pace of the developments in the past 100 days makes them difficult to list. Operating mainly through executive action, the Trump administration has affected nearly all facets of US foreign policy: from military might to soft power, from trade to immigration, reimagining the US’s place in the world according to an isolationist America First program.
Trump administration withholding $437bn in approved spending, Democrats say
President Donald Trump’s administration has so far withheld at least $436.87bn of congressionally approved funding, the top Democrats on the U.S. Congress’ appropriation committees said on Tuesday.
The frozen allotments span the federal government, according to the first estimate of the potential impoundments in the project led by Senator Patty Murray from Washington and Representative Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, Reuters reported.
Almost $42bn was frozen or canceled for the state department, including the frozen support for USAID, along with another $62bn-plus in competitive grant funding for the Transportation Department, according to the estimate.
The Democrats also detailed $943m frozen for the Head Start early-education program and more than $10bn in frozen and canceled funding for the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“Just 100 days into office, president Trump and Elon Musk are continuing their unprecedented assault on our nation’s spending laws, and it is families, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country who are paying the price,” Murray and DeLauro said in a statement.
“No American president has ever so flagrantly ignored our nation’s spending laws or so brazenly denied the American people investments they are owed.”
US probes Harvard and its law review for ‘race-based discrimination’
President Donald Trump’s administration said on Monday it was probing whether Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review violated civil rights laws when the journal’s editors fast-tracked consideration of an article written by a member of a racial minority.
News of the new probe came hours after a federal judge agreed to expedite Harvard University’s lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration from freezing $2.3bn in federal funding that the Ivy League school has warned will threaten vital medical and scientific research, Reuters reported.
The announcement of the probe by the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services said Harvard Law Review editors may have engaged in “race-based discrimination” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
A Harvard University representative said the school is “committed to ensuring that the programs and activities it oversees are in compliance with all applicable laws and to investigating any credibly alleged violations.”
Donald Trump plans to cushion the impact of his tariffs on US carmakers by easing some duties on foreign vehicle parts, his administration has said.
“President Trump is building an important partnership with both the domestic automakers and our great American workers,” the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said in a statement provided by the White House.
“This deal is a major victory for the president’s trade policy by rewarding companies who manufacture domestically, while providing runway to manufacturers who have expressed their commitment to invest in America and expand their domestic manufacturing.”
The move means car companies paying tariffs would not be charged other levies, such as those on steel and aluminium,, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the development.
Carmakers would be able to secure a partial reimbursement for tariffs on imported auto parts, based on the value of their US car production, under the plans.
Cars made outside the US will still be subject to Trump’s tariffs but will be exempt from other levies. The plan is expected to be officially confirmed later on Tuesday.
Carney warns ‘Trump is trying to break us’ as president marks 100 days in office
Good morning and welcome to our blog covering US politics as Donald Trump prepares to mark the first 100 days of his second presidency and as his northern neighbour Mark Carney celebrates his election win in Canada with a warning that “Trump is trying to break us”.
My colleague David Smith offers this critique of the chaotic last 100 days:
In three months Trump has shoved the world’s oldest continuous democracy towards authoritarianism at a pace that tyrants overseas would envy. He has used executive power to take aim at Congress, the law, the media, culture and public health.
Still aggrieved by his 2020 election defeat and 2024 criminal conviction, his regime of retribution has targeted perceived enemies and proved that no grudge is too small.
You can read his excellent, full piece here:
Trump’s rule was key to Carney’s win amid the US president’s trade tariffs and even suggestions of annexing Canada. Accepting victory this morning, Carney warned:
“America wants our land, our resources, our water. These are not idle threats. Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never happen.”
In other news:
-
Nearly 100 days in office and Donald Trump continued to steadily address his campaign promises to crack down on immigration and focus on law and order. The president issued three new executive orders on Monday, which included taking aims at so-called “sanctuary cities” and shoring up legal protections for police accused of misconduct.
-
Prosecutors filed charges against Mario Bustamante Leiva for allegedly stealing Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem’s purse.
-
Trump created a “Fema review council” to “fix a terribly broken system” of delivering aid to Americans struck by disasters, naming defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Noem to the council.
-
House Republicans proposed paying tens of billions of dollars for Trump’s border wall construction.
-
Trump threatened to veto the bipartisan Senate resolution focused on “liberation day” tariffs.
-
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are seeking unaccompanied immigrant children, sparking fears of a “backdoor family separation”.
-
As Canadians headed to the polls, Trump issued a statement threatening Canada’s independent sovereignty, describing the border between the two nations as an “artificially drawn line from many years ago”.
-
Congressman Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, announced he will not run for re-election after being diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer.
