Alex Smith
Reporting from Washington DC

Image source, Reuters

Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting of his second term ended up becoming an extended hour-long question and answer session between the president and reporters.

He confirmed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will be heading to the White House on Friday, unveiled plans to sell $5m (£3.9m) "gold card" visas and announced that tariffs on the European Union are coming "very soon".

The person who dominated the meeting was not Trump or a cabinet member, but Elon Musk, who has become one of the president's top advisers. At the meeting, the tech billionaire defended his efforts to slash federal government jobs but admitted his team will make mistakes along the way.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been firing back at both Trump and Musk, with one senator calling them "out-of-touch billionaires" who "do not know what they're doing".

That's not the only thing that's been happening today - earlier lawmakers on the Doge subcommittee gathered to probe US spending cuts to foreign aid, and Donald Trump is expected to sign some more executive orders further cutting federal spending later this afternoon.

We're closing our live coverage. For more analysis, read my colleague Bernd Debusmann Jr's five key takeaways from today's cabinet meeting.

Caitriona Perry
Presenter, BBC News

There's more of our conversation with the EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, who was in Washington to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He abruptly cancelled, citing a scheduling conflict.

After talking about trade and respect, Kallas turned to the deal Ukraine has been hammering out with the US to give the US access to critical minerals in exchange for investment in the country. Europe is anxiously watching the deal and other Trump moves toward his goal of ending the war that began in Ukraine three years ago with Russia's invasion.

Kallas said the minerals deal between the US and Ukraine should include Europe, and said that Ukraine needs security commitments if the war ends, to prevent Russia from attacking it again.

"It's clear that the Russians' narrative is having a very strong hold here," she said.

She added that she hopes for future talks with US officials "to explain what is at stake and how we can work together in order to really achieve peace, a peace that is lasting and sustainable, not any ceasefire which gives Russia the possibility to re-arm, regroup and attack again."

Zelensky is due in Washington on Friday to discuss the agreement with Trump.

Caitriona Perry
Presenter, BBC News

The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has just spoken to BBC News about Trump's relationship with Europe.

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the Vice President of the European Commission was visiting Washington on Wednesday and planning to talk with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Rubio cancelled the meeting at the last minute because of a scheduling conflict, according to his office.

When she spoke with us, she first addressed Trump's plan to impose a 25% tariff on EU cars, which he brought up earlier in the day.

Polls suggest consumer confidence is on the decline in the US, "because the prices are going up and and, of course, the tariffs are increasing the prices," she said.

"So there are no winners in trade wars. Usually, the consumers get to pay higher prices and get to pay for it all. So this is our approach: We shouldn't have trade wars."

Asked if the US respects the EU, given that her meeting with America's top diplomat was abruptly called off, she said "that's definitely complicated."

"The new administration has started, and we are learning how to how to work with them," Kallas said, adding that Europe is looking for "new ways to operate" with Trump's team.

We'll bring you more from the conversation shortly.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, EPA

The Senate has passed the vote appointing a first-term Trump official and lawyer as their new most senior trade representative.

Jamieson Greer has been confirmed as the US Trade Representative to manage US trade policy, a top issue for Trump as the president charges ahead on promises to impose tariffs and other protectionist measures.

Democrats have criticised his appointment, saying he will just be a "rubber stamp" for Trump's decisions instead of formulating and carrying out policies in US economic interest.

Trump has imposed several heavy tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China since coming into office.

During his first cabinet meeting of the current term, Trump turned to the EU, saying it had been established "in order to screw the United States." He said that his administration will soon announce a decision to impose 25% tariffs "on cars and all other things."

We told you a bit earlier that we also had our eyes on some other Musk-related news today.

The Doge subcommittee in the House of Representatives held a hearing that concluded a little bit ago. The group is primarily following the lead of Elon Musk and President Trump in looking for ways to radically downsize the federal government.

Republican leaders on the panel spent much of the hearing criticising Democrats for favouring aid programmes overseas that they said were not aligned with American values.

"Forcing transgenderism and novel sexual fetishes on more traditional cultures does not advance American interests. It alienates the United States on the world stage," argued Texas Congressman Brandon Gill.

Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison added: "This isn't aid. It's a shakedown of taxpayers, courtesy of our left-wing bureaucracy working with dark money networks."

Democrats, on the other hand, launched criticisms of what they said was cutting off needed money to vulnerable communities.

Three of the witnesses were conservative activists, while one - who was invited by the Democrats - works for the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

• For context:Trump is in the process of dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and often decries its programs overseas as wasteful or ideologically driven. Aid groups and others are pushing to keep the agency open and functioning.

As European members of Nato scramble to adjust to the new US stance on Ukraine, it's been announced that France's President Emmanuel Macron will join other European leaders in London on Sunday.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is hosting the event - which will also be attended by the leaders of Italy, Germany and Poland. It will be held just days after both the UK and French leaders visited the White House with European defence front of mind.

Starmer is due to meet Trump tomorrow, while Macron met him on Monday.

Image source, EPA

One long-time Democratic senator has accused Donald Trump and Elon Musk of not caring if they "[burn] down something really important."

They are "out-of-touch billionaires" who "do not know what they are doing," says Washington's Patty Murray.

Speaking during a news conference, Murray lists of examples of federal employees fired in Trump's recent spree of spending cuts - including workers at the Federal Aviation Authority, as well as public health and nuclear safety experts.

“The Trump-Musk firing spree continues to be as surgical as a wrecking ball," she says.

The widespread firings are "no way to treat people who have dedicated themselves to our country, often for years," she adds, "and many of them, by the way, are veterans.”

• For background: Military veterans make up 30% of the federal workforce, according to the government's Office of Personnel Management. , external

Norway's prime minister says the US will be in a "serious" trade conflict with the European Union (EU), if President Donald Trump imposes the tariffs he suggested he would during his cabinet meeting earlier today.

Jonas Gahr Støre was speaking to Norwegian news agency NTB.

Trump earlier raised the possibility that tariffs of "25% generally speaking... on cars and all of things" could be placed on goods originating from the EU "very soon".

Norway is not a member of the EU, but is closely integrated with it when it comes to trade.

Kayla Epstein
US reporter

On Tuesday, after facing a barrage of questions from reporters and a federal judge, the White House announced that the acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency was not Elon Musk – but a woman named Amy Gleason.

Trump created Doge by renaming an existing White House office. On inauguration day, he signed an executive order to change the US Digital Service (USDS), which performs technical and engineering work for the federal government, to the United States DOGE Service.

The order also established that the office would have an administrator who reported up to the White House. But the White House wouldn't say who held that role until Tuesday.

Gleason, who had previously worked for USDS during the first Trump administration and returned to the office in December, was in Mexico when the White House announced her, CBS News reported. She has held several digital roles in healthcare, according to her LinkedIn.

Asked by reporters on Wednesday when Gleason was appointed, White House Press Secretary Karoline Levitt did not provide a specific timeline.

Given Trump's promises on the campaign trail that he would rely on Musk to identify millions of dollars of federal spending cuts, Musk's advising of Trump since then, and Musk's interactions with government agencies since inauguration, many believed the world's richest person officially led the office.

Natalie Sherman & Dearbail Jordan & Tom Espiner
BBC business reporters

Image source, Reuters

It can seem like not a day goes by without tech billionaire - and the world's richest person - Elon Musk making headlines.

The boss of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX made his fortune founding two technology start-ups during the "dotcom boom" of the 1990s - including an online banking company which eventually became PayPal and was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5bn (£1.2bn).

In recent years, he has used his platform to make his views known on a vast array of topics.

And his reach has expanded further still with Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential election, during which the executive played a key but controversial role as he helped funded the then-candidate's campaign.

The president picked the self-proclaimed "first buddy" to lead the newly created advisory body called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge - a nod to Musk's favourite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin).

• READ MORE:Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?

Before his cabinet meeting this morning, President Donald Trump sparked a social media frenzy when he posted a video of Gaza generated by artificial intelligence on his site Truth Social.

BBC social media investigations correspondent Marianna Spring has been analysing the online tactics of Trump and his team.

As a Republican-led House subcommittee held a hearing on foreign aid, a group of demonstrators has been protesting cuts to a US government programme which aims to tackle the spread of HIV.

Protesters called out cuts to the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) programme, wearing T-shirts with the words, "Aids funding cuts kill".

They were arrested by police and removed from the building.

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Yesterday, the White House announced it would be making changes to the group of journalists - known as the press pool - who have access to President Donald Trump.

Speaking at a news briefing Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the White House would determine which news outlets participate in the pool that covers presidential events and shares material with other media outlets.

The rotation of pool reporters was previously determined by the White House Correspondents' Association, which expressed concern that the move will benefit the Trump administration by giving access to news outlets that it sees as sympathetic or friendly.

And now the three permanent news wires in the White House pool - The Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters - have released a statement saying it is essential for the public to have access to government news "from an independent, free press".

"We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the President threatens that principle," the statement says.

"It also harms the spread of reliable information to people, communities, businesses and global financial markets that heavily depend on our reporting."

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

The fact that Elon Musk was in the cabinet meeting was significant - the fact he dominated it, even more so.

Despite being unelected and unconfirmed by the Senate, he has an outsized influence in the administration.

There are some reports the cabinet secretaries are uncomfortable with his position. They had a chance to say something, but laughed when President Trump asked them how they felt. He joked and said he’d throw Musk out.

Musk shunned the suit and tie, and appeared wearing all black with a "Make America Great Again" baseball cap. When asked by reporters about his sweeping federal government job cuts, he defended the work he’s doing, saying it was important to reduce the deficit.

Critics have referred to him as "President Musk" (he calls himself "First Buddy"), assuming that will cause tension between him and the actual president. One magazine cover showed Musk behind the resolute desk, not Trump.

But so far the men seem to be closer than ever.

The president answered questions on a lot of topics just now as he chaired the first cabinet meeting of his second term.

But that's not all that's happening in the world of US politics today.

Earlier today lawmakers on the Doge subcommittee gathered to probe the US's spending on foreign aid - one of the first targets in a stream of spending cuts across the federal government.

And we're expecting to see more of President Trump, as he is expected to shortly be signing some more executive orders.

Stick with us and we'll bring you the key lines throughout the afternoon.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s history of conspiratorial claimspublished at 18:41 Greenwich Mean Time 26 February

18:41 GMT 26 February

By Shayan Sardarizadeh

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was chairing the Doge subcommittee hearing, has been criticised for endorsing false or conspiratorial beliefs in the past.

Prior to being elected to Congress, she repeatedly promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely claims President Trump is waging a secret war against a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophile elites in politics, media and business.

She has also previously endorsed baseless claims about 9/11 being an inside job, that mass shootings could be staged to push for new gun control laws, and that the federal government might be artificially creating wildfires and hurricanes.

She has since distanced herself from some of those views, saying in a 2021 speech at the House of Representatives: “I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true.”

Taylor Greene was criticised by her Republican colleagues for speaking at a 2022 white nationalist conference organised by Nick Fuentes, a far-right commentator with a history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories. She later said that she would not have attended had she known about Fuentes’s views.

While the cabinet meeting was going on, the newly-formed House of Representatives committee on Doge was holding a hearing about foreign aid.

It was led by the House Oversight Committee, the US House of Representatives' panel tasked with making sure federal government and its agencies are efficient and effective.

At the moment, Republicans control the US House, and therefore the oversight committee. Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was leading the hearing, which featured witnesses from conservative think tanks and news outlets.

Greene has asked questions critical of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the foreign aid agency effectively dismantled by Doge last month. The witnesses alleged the agency wasted money on “transgender diversity and abortion programs” or inadvertently funnelled money towards terror organisations.

At one point, Greene announced that an audience member had made an "obscene gesture" and would be escorted out by Capitol police.

The Democrats at the hearing focused their attention more on Elon Musk and Doge.

Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, the top Democrat there, invited Musk to appear before the committee and "bring your chainsaw" - a reference to his appearance at an annual conservative political conference this month.

The public part of President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting has now finished. Here's a recap:

• Trump began by jovially stating that he had put together a "great" cabinet of advisers
• He confirmed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is coming to Washington on Friday to sign a deal handing over certain mineral rights in the country to the US

• On the subject of security guarantees for Ukraine, he said: "I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much, we're gong to have Europe do that."
• Trump called on Musk to speak at the cabinet meeting first, though he is not one of its official members
• Musk defended his efforts to slash federal government jobs, including the sending of an email asking employees list what they had done at their job recently or be fired. He said anyone who did not respond to the email is presumed to be either dead or a fraudster
• Trump also talked about his plan to sell $5m (£3.9m) "gold" US visas, and said he plans to implement tariffs on Mexico and Canada on 2 April
• He said any decision about what happens to Gaza "has to be made by Israel", and criticised his predecessor Joe Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying it made the US look weak to adversaries such as China

Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr tells reporters that two people are now known to have died from a measles outbreak centred in Texas and New Mexico.

Earlier we reported that one child had died, but we are yet to get further confirmation of the second death.

RFK Jr says his department is "following the measles epidemic every day".

"I think there’s 124 people who have contracted measles at this point", mainly in Texas, he says, adding that the outbreak is largely affecting the Mennonite community.

"We’re watching it, there are about 20 people who are hospitalised mainly for quarantine," he says.

But RFK Jr adds that measles outbreaks are "not unusual", saying there have been four this year, and "last year there were 16".

Image source, Reuters

The president is now asked for his thoughts on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin - Trump calls him "a very smart guy, he's a very cunning person".

"As far as this is concerned... he had no intention, in my opinion, of settling this war", the president says. He adds that he "can't guarantee it" but "I think we're gonna have a deal".

Asked if Putin will need to make concessions, Trump says: "Yeah he will."

He claims that Nato was "probably the reason" the war started in the first place.

Trump asks JD Vance to weigh in. The vice-president says "we're not going to do the negotiation in public with the American media", but with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine.

Trump "hasn't conceded anything" in talks so far, he adds and is "doing the job of a diplomat".

You can follow the latest updates and analysis of the proposed deal with Ukraine in our separate live coverage