(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, in a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine published Friday, claimed he’s already “made 200 deals” on tariffs and said he’s spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In the cover story, in which Trump’s discussed his first 100 days in office, the president was asked about White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s prediction of “90 deals in 90 days.”
“I’ve made 200 deals,” Trump said. When asked to confirm that number, Trump said “100%.”
Trump, though, would not elaborate on what countries he’s solidified deals with or the terms. He’s met with various foreign officials at the White House in recent weeks on tariffs and other economic issues, but had not yet announced any agreements.
“I would say, over the next three to four weeks, and we’re finished, by the way,” Trump told Time. “We’ll be finished.”
On the issue of China — which faces the highest tariff rate from the administration — Trump said President Xi has called him.
“He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf,” Trump said,
The White House in recent days has softened its stance on China, telling reporters that talks with Beijing were moving in the right direction. But Chinese officials, before Trump’s Time interview was published, disputed the White House’s characterization.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun on Thursday called the administration’s claims active discussions were happening “fake news.” On Friday, the Jiakun said “China and the United States have not consulted or negotiated on the tariff issue” and “the United States should not confuse the public.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Protesters show support for Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, at Federal Court on April 15, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Trump administration admits Abrego Garcia was deported accidentally, but has not yet acted on a judge’s order to facilitate his return to the U.S. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Americans hold mixed views on President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
Voters are divided on sending migrants living in the United States lacking legal status who are accused of gang membership to an El Salvador prison without a court hearing but mainly oppose deporting international students who criticize U.S. policy in the Middle East, according to the poll.
In the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who was deported to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting it, more respondents said he should be returned to the U.S. rather than remain imprisoned in El Salvador, 42-26%. There’s room for movement; 3 in 10 in an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Friday said they don’t know enough about the case to say.
Overall, 46% said they approve of the way Trump is handling immigration, while 53% said they disapprove. On one hand, that’s a 4-point drop in approval from a Washington Post/Ipsos poll in February. On the other, it’s Trump’s best rating across seven issues tested in this survey, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with fieldwork by Ipsos.
There’s about an even division, moreover, on Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants in general. Forty-eight percent said Trump is “going too far” in this regard, while 50% said he’s either handling it about right (34%) or not going far enough (16%).
There’s also a close split on the deportation of suspected gang members to an El Salvador prison without a court hearing: Forty-seven percent said they support this action, while 51% said they opposed.
That result underscores animosity toward undocumented immigrants, as seen in contrast to views on deporting international students who have criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East: In this case, support for deportation drops to 39%, with 59% opposed.
Partisans
Partisanship is a strong factor.
About 9 in 10 Republicans said they approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 1 in 10 Democrats said they approved. Among independents, 45% said they approve.
Trump also wins approval on immigration from 93% of his 2024 voters, compared with 8% of those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris. However, he falls well short among those who didn’t vote for president in the 2024 elections, who disapprove of Trump on immigration by 59%-40%.
In another broad partisan gap, 85% of Democrats said they think Trump is “going too far” with deportations. Sixty percent of Republicans said they think he’s handling this about right — and 27% said he’s not going far enough. Independents again fall in between.
Republicans’ attitudes are not monolithic. Eighty-two percent said they support sending suspected gang members to a prison in El Salvador without court hearings. Fewer, but still 70%, said they support deporting international college students who are critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Fewer still, 53%, said Abrego Garcia should remain in El Salvador, though just 14% said they favor his return, with the rest unsure.
Hispanic people said they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration overall, by 67%-32%. Men divided about evenly on the issue, while most women said they disapprove, 58%-41%. Approval on the issue ranges from 65% of people in rural areas to 45% in suburbs and 36% in cities, with sizable rural and suburban gender gaps.
And there’s a gap by age: Fifty-nine percent of those younger than 40 said disapprove of Trump on immigration, while 48% of those age 50 and older said they disapprove.
Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll was conducted online via the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® April 18-22, 2025, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 2,464 adults. Partisan divisions are 30%-30%-29%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, including the design effect. Error margins are larger for subgroups. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
(WASHINGTON) — ABC News has confirmed that in at least two separate meetings Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused top-ranking military officers of leaking to the media and threatened to polygraph them.
According to one person familiar with the exchanges, Hegseth was upset by media reports that he had planned a briefing for Elon Musk on China.
In a meeting with Adm. Christopher Grady, who was serving as then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth yelled “I’ll hook you up to a [expletive] polygraph!”
Hegseth then made a similar threat in a separate meeting with Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, according to the person.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the exchanges.
A spokesperson for the Joint Staff declined to comment.
(WASHINGTON) — In federal courthouses across the country Thursday, President Donald Trump’s administration faced a series of legal setbacks to implementing the president’s agenda.
On issues ranging from education policy and voting rights to congestion pricing, the series of rulings and developments marked the latest legal setbacks for an administration battling nearly 200 lawsuits in court.
Three separate judges — including two appointed by Trump — blocked the government from withholding federal funds to schools with DEI programs.
In California, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions where local police refuse to help with enforcement of federal immigration policy.
After Trump attempted to reshape elections with an executive order last month, a federal judge blocked the government from requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, saying only Congress has the power to institute such a change.
On immigration issues, the Trump administration is in hot water with multiple judges. A Boston judge is probing whether the Trump administration violated a court order when it removed four alleged members of Tren de Aragua to El Salvador, and a judge in Maryland appointed by the president ordered Wednesday the return of a man deported to El Salvador whose deportation violated a court settlement.
In New York, DOJ lawyers accidentally revealed an internal document acknowledging the shortcomings in their plan to kill congestion pricing.
Friday is set to bring a new legal issue to the forefront, with a federal judge in Boston taking up whether the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education are lawful. The hearing will mark the first time a federal judge has considered the issue since Trump issued an executive order last month directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to shrink the department.
(WASHINGTON) — For years, President Donald Trump has blasted politically damaging reporting by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as fake, made-up.
His most recent criticism has been over Goldberg’s bombshell story about a Signal chat he was accidentally invited to, one that included top members of Trump’s national security team, conversing about an impending military attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Now, in a surprise twist, Trump said he would speak face-to-face with Goldberg on Thursday after claiming on Truth Social that Goldberg, along with The Atlantic writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, would sit down with him for an interview.
“The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, “The Most Consequential President of this Century,” he said.
Goldberg and The Atlantic have not commented about Trump’s post or the alleged meeting as of Thursday afternoon.
Although the president claimed Goldberg was “responsible for many fictional stories about me,” he said he is looking forward to the meeting.
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,'” Trump posted. “Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad.”
Goldberg and Trump have had a contentious back-and-forth going since the president’s 2016 campaign, when the journalist criticized Trump’s rhetoric.
“At the very least, he traffics in racial invective knowingly. To me, that’s a threshold question. If you do that and if you know what you’re doing then, yes, you’re a racist. I think he’s a racist,” he said in a 2016 NPR interview.
Trump criticized The Atlantic’s coverage of his campaign and first term, but things heated up in 2020 after Goldberg wrote an article that described a 2018 incident in which president reportedly refused to visit an American cemetery in France where World War I service members were buried.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump told his advisers, according to the article. It also said Trump called fallen Marines “suckers.”
The president heatedly denied he had used those terms on what was then Twitter and went after Goldberg’s sources. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, later confirmed Goldberg’s account in an interview with CNN.
In Trump’s Thursday post, he brought up that story and claimed it was a “made-up HOAX.”
Goldberg became the target of the president’s ire again last month after he revealed he was inadvertently invited to the Signal chat that consisted of several top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, in which they discussed plans for the March 15 military attack against Houthis in Yemen ahead of the airstrike occurring.
Trump and White House officials slammed Goldberg, claiming his reporting was biased.
“He is, as you know, is a sleaze bag, but at the highest level. His magazine is failing,” Trump said of Goldberg on March 26 during an appearance on the “VINCE Show” podcast.
Goldberg has repeatedly defended his reporting on the scandal.
“They’ve decided to blame the guy who they invited into the conversation. It’s a little bit strange behavior,” he told ABC News in March. “Honestly, I don’t know why they’re acting like this except to think that they’re — they know how serious a national security breach it is. And so they have to deflect it and push it onto the guy, again, they invited into the chat — namely me.”
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape election processes is an attempt to “short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order,” a federal judge in Washington, D.C. wrote Thursday afternoon.
In a 120-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly blocked the Trump administration from requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and ordering that election officials “assess” the citizenship of anyone who receives public assistance before allowing them to register. She also barred the Election Assistance Commission from withholding federal funding from states that did not comply with the order.
“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the authority to regulate federal elections,” she wrote. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”
After Trump issued an executive order last month “preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections,” three separate lawsuits were filed in the D.C. federal court to challenge the policy, including lawsuits filed by the Democratic National Committee (with New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries), the League of United Latin American Citizens and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“These consolidated cases are about the separation of powers,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
She concluded that Trump’s unilateral effort to reshape elections exceeds his own authority, noting that the Department of Justice “offered almost no defense of the President’s order.”
If Trump wishes to reform election processes, she wrote, Congress would be the appropriate branch to do so, adding Congress is “currently debating legislation that would effect many of the changes the President purports to order.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration has made a new emergency request of the U.S. Supreme Court seeking an immediate stay of a nationwide injunction blocking the ban on openly transgender military service members.
Solicitor General John Sauer said the injunction, issued by a district court in Washington, usurps the authority of the president in determining who can serve in the nation’s armed forces and runs counter to the high court’s own decision in the first Trump administration to allow the ban to move forward.
The case is Trump v. Shilling in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
There is a separate nationwide injunction in place in a case out of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers sent a series of letters early Thursday morning to nine separate law firms that have struck agreements this spring with the Trump administration, questioning whether the deals for pro bono work in exchange for the reversal of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump or to avoid being targeted in future missives may violate federal bribery, extortion, honest services fraud or racketeering laws.
In correspondence, shared exclusively with ABC News, California Democratic Rep. Dave Min and Maryland Democratic Rep. April Delaney are leading 15 Democratic colleagues in demanding details of the arrangements from the leadership of some of the country’s most elite law firms from Washington to New York.
The firms included in the letter are: Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, and Milbank LLP.
Throughout the spring, Trump announced in posts on his social media platform, fresh agreements with the firms — totaling nearly $1 billion in pro-bono work. Trump’s posts also show that firms agreed to strike Diversity, Equity and Inclusion considerations from their hiring practices — committing to “Merit-Based Hiring, Promotion, and Retention” while also pledging that they would not deny representation to clients based on political views.
The agreements worry the Democratic lawmakers, who believe the deals “capitulate to clear abuse of the law by the Trump administration.”
On April 10, during a Cabinet meeting, Trump floated the idea that the pro-bono commitments could be used to “help” the United States with trade negotiations as he imposes tariffs across the globe.
“So I think we’re going to and trying to use these, these very prestigious firms to help us out with the trade because, you know, we have a lot of countries, but we want to make deals that are proper for the United States,” Trump told reporters.
“By entering into an agreement that appears to be in response to the threat of illegal economic coercion against your firm from the Trump administration, your firm is not simply agreeing to provide certain pro bono services or end certain personnel hiring and retention practices,” the lawmakers caution in their letter. “Agreements of this kind also signal acquiescence to an abuse of federal power, raising serious questions about how or whether your firm would represent clients or take on matters that might be seen as antagonistic to President Trump or his agenda.”
On April 11, the president announced that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft — a famed Wall Street powerhouse — is among the firms that struck a deal, committing $100 million dollars in pro-bono services itself. Cadwalader is the former law firm of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who served as the president’s former criminal defense attorney in 2024 before joining the current administration.
“Law firms are just saying: ‘Where do I sign? Where do I sign?'” Trump said March 26. “Nobody can believe it.”
“We do not wish to prematurely judge or assess guilt,” the letter states. “Our aim however, is to gather comprehensive information with respect to the formation and implementation of the…agreement and resulting legal and ethical quandaries.”
The letters request details from each firm on its “motivations for entering into this agreement, how was an agreement reached, and what specific terms or promises were made.” The lawmakers also inquire whether the deals comply with state bar ethics requirements, contending that the agreements may raise issues with state bar professional codes of conduct rules for lawyers.
“We are sympathetic to the circumstances in which your firm finds itself, with the Administration using coercive and illegal measures to target certain law firms and threaten their ability to represent and retain their clients,” the letter states, requesting a response from each firm by May 8.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart & Katherine Faulders contributed to this report
(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the state’s entire GOP congressional delegation are urging President Donald Trump to reconsider after the Federal Emergency Management denied the state’s request for federal disaster relief following a series of deadly storms last month.
After severe storms hit the state in mid-March, Sanders applied for disaster relief through FEMA, under what’s known as a major disaster declaration. The request was denied.
“As Governor Sanders noted in her request, these storms caused catastrophic damage across the state, resulting in disastrous amounts of debris, widespread destruction to homes and businesses, the deaths of three Arkansans, and injuries to many more,” the state’s two Republican senators and four GOP House members wrote in an April 21 letter to Trump. “Given the cumulative impact and sheer magnitude of destruction from these severe weather events, federal assistance is vital to ensure that state and local communities have the capabilities needed to rebuild.”
This isn’t the first time FEMA has denied state requests recently. Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, of Washington, said FEMA had denied his state’s application for federal disaster relief stemming from a “bomb cyclone” that slammed the state last November.
“This is another troubling example of the federal government withholding funding,” Ferguson said in a statement. “Washington communities have been waiting for months for the resources they need to fully recover from last winter’s devastating storms, and this decision will cause further delay. We will appeal.”
FEMA also denied a request from North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to extend 100% federal funding for debris removal related to last fall’s devastating Hurricane Helene beyond an initial 180-day timeline.
However, the situation in Arkansas marks the first time that Republicans have publicly pushed back on a denial of FEMA relief requests.
Sanders served as the White House press secretary during Trump’s first term.
ABC News has requested comment from FEMA about why Arkansas’ request was denied.
During a visit in January to parts of North Carolina still left battered by Helene, Trump sharply criticized FEMA and suggested states could manage disaster relief better than the federal government.
“You want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA,” he said. “And then FEMA gets here and they don’t know the area. They’ve never been to the area, and they want to give you rules that you’ve never heard about. They want to bring people that aren’t as good as the people you already have. And FEMA has turned out to be a disaster.”
In January, Trump issued an executive order creating a review council to examine the agency and make recommendations for overhauling it.
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Save Our Schools campaign is launching a comprehensive investigation into the Trump administration’s effort to close the Department of Education.
“I’m opening this investigation to hear directly from students, parents, teachers, and borrowers who are being hurt by Trump’s dangerous agenda,” Warren wrote in a statement obtained first by ABC News.
“Their stories matter — and they are why I’m in this fight,” she said.
Warren said since Trump’s move to effectively abolish the agency, Americans have told her how public education has shaped and strengthened their lives. She sent a letter to a dozen education and civil rights groups, seeking answers to how abolishing the department will impact millions of students and families.
The letters went out to the NAACP, NEA, AFT and several other groups. In them, Warren called Trump’s plan to close the department and ostensibly return education power and decision to the states a “reckless crusade.”
“I request your assistance in understanding whether the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the Department will jeopardize students’ access to affordable, accessible, and high-quality public education,” Warren wrote in the series of letters.
Warren asks for details on how students and families will be affected by any cuts to funding or services if the Education Department is abolished or its functions are transferred to other federal agencies. The groups have until May 22 to respond.
The Massachusetts Democrat and former public school teacher outlines what she calls the Education Department’s key functions in each letter, including protecting the civil rights of students, providing funding for students with disabilities, funding research that helps educators and students, and distributing federal financial aid for students to attain higher education.
“School districts are already preparing for potential funding delays or cuts caused by the dismantling of the Department, with states sounding the alarm about the impact of these funding disruptions on programs like free school lunches for low-income students,” Warren wrote.
But Education Secretary Linda McMahon previously told ABC News “none of the funding will stop” for mandatory programs, arguing that more funding could go to the states if the department is eliminated. It would also take 60 “yes” votes in the Senate to overcome a Democratic filibuster and completely dismantle the agency Congress created.
National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues decried the president and McMahon’s mission to shutter the agency, calling it a “constitutional crisis on almost every front.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the administration is “deliberately dismantling the basic functions of our democracy, one piece at a time.”
Warren’s comprehensive investigation also comes on the heels of roughly 2,000 employees at the education department officially being separated from the agency. The Education Department was slashed nearly in half, including hundreds of Federal Student Aid (FSA) employees whose jobs Warren stressed are critically important to students in need. In addition, Warren said downsizing the agency will have “dire consequences” for the country’s more than 40 million student loan borrowers.
Launched in April, her Save Our Schools campaign vowed to fight back against the administration’s executive order entitled improving education outcomes by empowering parents, states and communities.
Through a combination of federal investigations, oversight, storytelling, and lawsuits, Warren said she will work with the community, including lawmakers in Congress, to do everything she possibly can to defend public education.
“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
“Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”
