Trump signs executive order slashing benefits for undocumented migrants as Elon Musk backs him over Ukraine war: Live

Mary Papenfuss has this on another false claim repeated once again by the president at yesterday’s summit: the lie that Biden’s administration sent $100m-worth of condoms to Hamas.

As promised, here are a few choice pronouncements from the president’s appearance before the FII Priority Summit in Miami, Florida, yesterday, which was backed by the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund.

Alex Woodward has this on Trump using the occasion to endorse an idea from Musk and his supporters to cut Americans a check for “savings” identified by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Speaking at the Miami summit, the president backed giving 20 percent of those alleged savings back to American taxpayers, with another 20 percent to “pay down debt.”

In the wake of Trump’s astonishing attack yesterday on the Ukrainian President, whom he called a “dictator” for not holding elections during the three-year war after the leader accused him of living in a Russian “disinformation space”, Sir Keir Starmer has leapt to the embattled Zelensky’s defense.

Here’s Mille Cooke on what the British PM had to say, potentially risking friendly relations with Trump in the process.

Over on Truth Social, in amongst the usual deluge of favorable press clippings and excerpts from his appearance baty a Saudi-backed conference in Miami yesterday (more on which in a moment), the president followed up his vicious attacks on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday by posting an endorsement of his position from billionaire ally Elon Musk.

“The President’s instincts on Ukraine are absolutely right,” Trump quotes Musk as saying.

“It is really sad that so many parents have lost their sons, and so many sons their fathers in this pointless war.”

Also on the same platform, the president posted an update on the whereabouts of the Resolute Desk after it was removed from the Oval Office for refurbishment, just in case that was keeping you up at night.

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday ordering the scrapping of federal benefits for people in the United States illegally, the latest skirmish in his crackdown on illegal immigration.

The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens”, although a 1996 overhaul of welfare law already denies most public benefits to people in the country illegally.

Trump’s order claims that the law has been “repeatedly undercut”, however, once more blaming the Joe Biden administration for squandering taxpayer’s money.

“Over the last four years, in particular, the prior administration repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources,” it states

As it stands, illegal immigrants to the U.S. are entitled only to emergency medical care and their children are entitled to free K-12 public education, regardless of their immigration status, under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling, but that’s about it.

Trump’s order ultimately appears to be directed at Biden’s extensive use of parole authority to allow people into the country temporarily, including more than 900,000 through an online appointment app called CBP One used at border crossings with Mexico and more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the U.S. at their own expense with a financial sponsor.

Trump immediately ended both programs.

Biden also granted parole to nearly 300,000 people from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

People granted parole for at least a year are considered “qualified non-citizens”, making them eligible for some income-based benefits, but only after five years.

The layoffs targeting 6,700 probationary employees — that is, those employed for less than a year — come in the middle of tax season. That group of workers represents a little over one-third of all probationary employees.

In an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday evening, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told host Jesse Watters that President Donald Trump has a very simple goal: to abolish the IRS.

“Donald Trump announced the External Revenue Service and his goal is simple: to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,” said Lutnick.

He continued: “We have to use tariffs, we have to use the External Revenue Service to take care of America and cut the scams and the abuse, the waste, and let’s make America great. Great. Not great like 20 years ago. We mean great as in no deficit and basically try to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service.”

Earlier in the segment, speaking about entitlements, waste, and fraud, and Elon Musk’s DOGE, Lutnick said: “Think about it: we have almost $4 trillion of entitlements, and no one has looked at it before. You know Social Security is wrong, you know Medicaid and Medicare are wrong so [Elon’s] going to cut one trillion…”

The Trump administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions as part of its broad-based effort to downsize government.

The firings, which weren’t publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members, come amid what has been a chaotic rollout of an aggressive program to eliminate thousands of federal jobs. The plan is led by billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration effort to slash federal spending.

Adding to the confusion, the park service now says it is reinstating about 5,000 seasonal jobs that were initially rescinded last month as part of a spending freeze ordered by President Donald Trump.

Newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is instructing Pentagon leadership to begin preparing for an 8 percent budget cut in each of the next five years.

The cuts are expected to span across the following areas: Operations at the southern border, modernization of nuclear weapons, missile defense and acquisition of submarines, and one-way attack drones and other munitions, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.

Michelle Del Rey reports.

You might wonder why the President of the United States would suddenly be interested in whether there is still gold in Fort Knox.

Chris Megerian of the Associated Press points out that Elon Musk has been posting about it for the last few days.

“Who is confirming that gold wasn’t stolen from Fort Knox?” he wrote Monday. “Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not.”

Musk and Trump could ask Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about the issue.

Earlier Wednesday, Dan O’Donnell, a talk show host in Wisconsin, asked him about the conspiracy theory.

“We do an audit every year,” Bessent said. “All the gold is present and accounted for.”

“This is something that people are apparently very concerned about,” O’Donnell said. “Elon Musk has been promising to verify that the gold is still there.”

Bessent said he would be happy to arrange an inspection for any senator who is interested.