Trump and Hegseth deny Musk to see China war plan during Pentagon visit
Donald Trump and his defense secretary Pete Hegseth have both denied reports that Elon Musk will be allowed to see the US military’s secret plan for a potential war with China when he visits the Pentagon today.
The president posted about the matter not once, but twice on Truth Social. Last night, he wrote:
How ridiculous?” China will not even be mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!
He issued a denial again this morning in which he attacked a reporter and two outlets that reported the story, while saying: “Elon is NOT BEING BRIEFED ON ANYTHING CHINA BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR!!!” The department of war has not existed since 1947.
Meanwhile, Hegseth acknowledged Musk’s visit on X but said the war plans would not be discussed:
We look forward to welcoming @elonmusk to the Pentagon tomorrow. But the fake news delivers again — this is NOT a meeting about “top secret China war plans.” It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!
Lauren Gambino
Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, delivered a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump and his billionaire ally, Elon Musk, accusing them of “screwing over” working and middle class Americans as they turn the country into an oligarchy.
Speaking to an overflow crowd of thousands as part of his Stop Oligarchy tour, Sanders warned the president: “We will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy. We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on this country.”
Ocasio-Cortez put it differently: “We’re going to throw these bums out and fight for the nation we deserve.”
Sanders trained some of his sharpest attacks on industry titans.
“You know who the biggest criminals are in this country? They are the CEOs of major corporations who are robbing us every single day,” he said. “They are the fossil fuel industry that has lied to us for years about what they’re doing to the planet. It is the drug companies who charge us the highest prices in the world and people die because they can’t afford those drugs. It’s the insurance companies who deny claim after claim. Those are major criminals.”
Earlier on Thursday, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez held another rally in Las Vegas. The tour continues on Friday, with events in Colorado, including a town hall in Denver featuring Alvaro Bedoya, an Federal Trade Commission member who was abruptly fired by Trump this week. On Saturday, the pair will return to Arizona for a rally in Tucson.
Trump denies report on Musk briefing on China
Donald Trump has denied a New York Times report that his close ally, billionaire Elon Musk, was due to be briefed by the Pentagon on Friday about the US military’s plan for any war that might break out with China.
“China will not even be mentioned or discussed,” Trump said in a post about the Pentagon meeting on Truth Social on Thursday.
The Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, said in a post on X that the meeting would be “about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production”.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the briefing for Musk would be attended by senior US military officials in the Pentagon and would be an overview on a number of different topics, including China.
According to the New York Times report, the briefing would include 20 to 30 slides that lay out how the United States would fight in a conflict with China. The newspaper cited two US officials it did not identify.
The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said late Thursday that he would be meeting with billionaire Elon Musk at the Pentagon Friday to discuss “innovation, efficiencies & smarter production”.
Musk, a top adviser to Donald Trump, and his “department of government efficiency” have played an integral role in the administration’s push to dramatically reduce the size of the government.
Musk has faced intense blowback from some lawmakers and voters for his chainsaw-wielding approach to laying off workers and slashing programs, although Trump’s supporters have hailed it.
A senior defense official told reporters Tuesday that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs will be cut in the defense department.
In a post on Musk’s X platform, Hegseth emphasized that “this is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans’”, denying a story published by the New York Times late Thursday.
Hegseth is also scheduled to deliver remarks with Trump at the White House Friday morning.
A federal judge instructed the Trump administration on Thursday to explain why its failure to turn around flights carrying deportees to El Salvador did not violate his court order in a growing showdown between the judicial and executive branches.
James Boasberg, the US district judge, demanded answers after flights carrying Venezuelan immigrants alleged by the Trump administration to be gang members landed in El Salvador after the judge temporarily blocked deportations conducted under an 18th-century wartime law. Boasberg had directed the administration to return planes that were already in the air to the US when he ordered the halt.
Boasberg had given the administration until noon Thursday to either provide more details about the flights or make a claim that they must be withheld because they would harm “state secrets”. The administration resisted the judge’s request, calling it an “unnecessary judicial fishing” expedition.
Donald Trump rescinded an executive order targeting a prominent Democratic-leaning law firm after it agreed to provide $40m in free legal services to support his administration’s goals.
The White House has targeted law firms whose lawyers have provided legal work that Trump disagrees with. Last week, he issued an order threatening to suspend active security clearances of attorneys at Paul, Weiss and to terminate any federal contracts the firm has.
But the president suddenly reversed course following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, over the White House order.
Trump’s order singled out the work of Mark Pomerantz, who previously worked at the firm and who oversaw an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into Trump’s finances before Trump became president. Pomerantz once likened the president to a mob boss.
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest news on this Friday morning.
We begin with the news that Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the education department, an agency Republicans have talked about closing for decades.
The order says the education secretary, Linda McMahon, will “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities”.
Eliminating the department altogether would be a cumbersome task, which probably would require an act of Congress, AP reported.
In the weeks since he took office, the Trump administration already has cut the department’s staff in half and overhauled much of the department’s work.
Trump adviser Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” has cut dozens of contracts it dismissed as “woke” and wasteful. It gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.
The agency’s main role is financial. Annually, it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools and manages the federal student loan portfolio. Closing the department would mean redistributing each of those duties to another agency.
The Department of Education also plays an important regulatory role in services for students, ranging from those with disabilities to low-income and homeless children.
In other news:
Elon Musk is reportedly visiting the Pentagon on Friday to get a briefing on the US military’s plans for fighting a war with China.
Trump said that he is rescinding an executive order targeting a Democratic-leaning law firm after the firm agreed to provide $40m in free legal services in support of his administration’s aims.
A federal judge blocked Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” from accessing social security records and ordered them to delete any previously obtained information.
Judge James Boasberg, a former law school housemate of Brett Kavanaugh, said the Trump administration “evaded” his order in the case of Venezuelan migrants deported to El Salvador.
Trump administration lawyers have embraced the view that the Alien Enemies Act, which Trump invoked to deport suspected members of a Venezuelan gang, permits immigration agents to enter homes without a warrant.
The justice department has brought charges against three unnamed individuals for using or planning to use molotov cocktails to attack Tesla automobiles and dealerships.
Immigration agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national with a valid visa doing research at Georgetown University, and are trying to deport him for alleged support of Hamas. A judge later temporarily barred DHS from deporting him.
Tim Walz, who Kamala Harris picked as her running mate, sees an ominous future for the country under Trump, but also opportunities for Democrats to regain their popular support.
Trump pushed the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, something presidents typically do not do. Yesterday, the central bank held rates steady while forecasting weaker economic growth.