Members of Donald Trump's cabinet have met for the first time at the White House, joined by the president's billionaire adviser Elon Musk
The group took questions from reporters. Asked about an email asking federal government workers to detail a list of things they've done in their job recently, Musk said anyone who doesn't respond "is presumed dead" or is "a fraudster"
Musk also acknowledged that his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) will make mistakes, referencing what he says was a brief cancellation of Ebola prevention aid
Meanwhile, a group of US lawmakers earlier met to discuss cuts made to foreign aid by Doge
Most United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staff have either been laid off or placed on leave by the Trump administration
Doge, which is not an official government agency, has been tasked with making sweeping cuts to the federal government, including the size of its workforce
Meanwhile, Trump says Ukraine's President Zelensky will sign a "very big agreement" in the US on Friday. Follow our live coverage of Ukraine here
Musk says Trump told him to be 'more aggressive'
Moving on to the war in Gaza, Trump says the decision on what happens next to the territory "has to be made by Israel".
"We've got a lot of hostages back, but it's very sad what happened to those people," he says.
He adds Israel is "going to have to decide" what to do as the end of the first phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas nears.
Trump criticises international relations under former President Joe Biden, including the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
He describes it as “the worst withdrawal anybody’s ever seen", adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin " looked at that and said wow these guys are a paper tiger".
"We’re no paper tiger," says Trump.
Both a deal Trump negotiated with the Taliban that set the terms for the US departure under his first administration, as well as the Biden administration's timing in ordering a civilian evacuation of the country after the Taliban seized control of the country, have previously come under scrutiny.
Image source, EPAAsked if the US will oppose China taking self-ruled Taiwan under its control by force, Trump says he won't comment.
But he says he has a "great relationship" with China's President Xi Jinping, and that he wants the country "to invest in the United States".
"We're going to have a good relationship with China but they won't be able to take advantage of us," he says.
Trump is asked if he still plans to put tariffs on Mexico and Canada, given the steep drop in illegal migrant crossings since he took office and Canada's plan to enhance border protection.
"I'm not stopping the tariffs, no," says Trump.
When a reporter points out that migrations from Mexico have dropped by around 90% compared to December 2023 figures, Trump says: "They've been good but that's also due to us."
He says "the damage has been done" by the unfair tariff agreements of the past, and the illegal drug smuggling which has killed many Americans.
"April 2, the tariffs go on," he says. "Not all of them but a lot of them. And I think you're gonna see something that's gonna be amazing."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later seeks to expand on Trump's comment, saying that the tariffs won't be removed until "they can prove to the president they've done an excellent job" at halting the trafficking of fentanyl.
President Trump has just been telling a cabinet meeting that the United States has spent three times as much as Europe on Ukraine. But we can’t find any evidence to back that up.
Data suggests the US has spent a lot less than the $300bn - $350bn (£236-£275bn) that Trump has frequently said his country has spent.
The Kiel Institute, which tracks defence spending, has put the figure at $119.7bn. The US defence department has also done a calculation, which looks at a broader range of activity in Europe and includes replenishing defence stocks. Their figure is $182.8bn – still considerably less than the figure the president has mentioned.
We asked the White House where their figure had come from, but we haven’t had an answer.
Europe, according to Kiel figures, has actually spent more on Ukraine than the US. They calculate EU institutions and all European countries combined have spent around $138.7bn.
Asked about the type of security guarantees the White House would be willing to make to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, Trump says: "I'm not going to make security guarantees beyond very much, we’re going to have Europe do that".
He adds that Europe is Ukraine's "next door neighbour", but the US is "going to make sure everything goes well" and will partner with the war-torn country in terms of rare earth minerals.
"We very much need rare earth, they have great rare earth," Trump says.
The president says the preliminary deal will allow the US "to get back the money we've spent".
"I’m watching soldiers being killed, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers being killed," he adds.
"My number one thing is to get that stopped. My number two thing is I don’t want to have to spend any more money."
Image source, ReutersThe president is now asked about the rapidly increasing price of eggs in the country, and a dip in consumer confidence.
Trump doesn't directly answer the question, but claims that since his election victory "confidence in our nation... has reached an all-time high".
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House
President Trump's comments at the outset of the cabinet meeting focused, in part, on a new "gold card" that will allow wealthy foreigners to apply for residency in the US.
On Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump described the programme as a "route to citizenship".
"They'll be wealthy, and they'll be successful, and they'll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes."
Today, both Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick have gone into more detail, with Lutnick saying that he believes approximately 200,000 people could apply - the same number of people currently in line for the current EB-5 investor visa programme.
Lutnick says those gold cards could amount to $1tn (£786bn) to "pay down our debt".
"That's why the president is doing it," Lutnick says.
In his remarks, Trump says that there would be no promise or commitment to create a certain number of jobs, as the applicants will be "successful people".
"I don't know that we're going to sell that many. Maybe we won't sell that many at all, but I think we're going to sell a lot," he adds. "There's no other country that can do this, because people don't want to go to other countries."
Trump says his plan to sell gold visas for $5m (£3.9m) will begin in about two weeks.
He suggests that big companies will purchase them to invest in their workers, injecting "trillions" into the US economy.
Watch: Musk says Trump told him to be 'more aggressive'
Musk is asked by a reporter whether the federal workers who have not responded to his email, demanding a list of things they've done in their job recently, risk being fired.
He begins by saying that Trump authorised the email, and that another one is coming.
"We want to keep everyone who is essential and doing their job well, otherwise they should not be on the public payroll," says Musk.
He says that anyone who doesn't respond, is presumed to be dead, or a fraudster.
Speaking about the more than one million federal workers who haven't responded to the email, Trump adds: "maybe they don't exist".
"Maybe they're going to be gone," he says, before going on to suggest that the Biden administration didn't properly track their own workforce.
"We're trying to figure out who those people are who haven't responded. We're being a little more surgical in situations where people are doing classified stuff," Trump says.
He calls on each cabinet member to "do their own Doge" at their respective agency, and suggests that the Environmental Protection Agency should cut staff by up to 65%.
Image source, ReutersAsked now which government departments he has received most resistance from when it comes to implementing his agenda, Trump says "right now I'm impressed by everybody".
"Some of them just got here", the president says, "so far I'm happy with all of the choices".
"Some groups are much easier than others" to work with, the president says. He goes on to praise the work of Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
His administration is focusing on "cutting down the size of government, we have to", he says.
"We want to have a balanced budget within a reasonably short period of time... meaning maybe by next year or maybe the year after", he adds.
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House
Watch: Elon Musk shows off 'tech support' t-shirt
Watching President Trump and Elon Musk at the cabinet meeting, it's seems clear that they are both seeking to highlight their close relationship and address any speculation of strain between the two men.
US media outlets have repeatedly suggested that Trump and Musk may grow apart as the tech billionaire's profile grows, if Trump grows jealous or believes he is overreaching in any capacity.
But today - and in previous other meetings between the two - the two appear to be hoping to show the US and the rest of the world that they are on the same page.
"I call myself humble tech support here," Musk says, eliciting a hearty laugh from Trump.
Notably, Trump specifically calls on reporters in the room to ask Musk questions - despite him not being a cabinet member.
Musk is asked by a reporter in the room about Trump's post on Truth Social this morning that the whole cabinet is "extremely happy" with the tech billionaire's work.
"Elon, let the cabinet speak just for a second", Trump interjects, to laughter from those around the table.
"Is anybody unhappy with Elon? If you are we will throw you out of here," the president says, to more laughter and applause.
Trump reiterates his belief that the cabinet is behind the tech billionaire and invites Musk to answer.
He uses the moment to praise those gathered round the table: It's the "best cabinet ever, literally", Musk says.
Speaking to the cabinet, Musk says that Doge will certainly make mistakes as they proceed, "but when we make mistakes we'll fix it very quickly".
He gives one example at USAID when "we accidentally cancelled - very, very briefly - Ebola prevention".
"I think we all want Ebola prevention so we restored Ebola prevention immediately. There was no disruption," he says.
Trump says one of the things he was elected to do was balance the budgets and "getting our budget back into shape".
He then introduces Elon Musk to cabinet members, saying he is "sacrificing a lot... and getting a lot of praise, but he's also getting hit".
Musk then stands up and says "the overall goal" of the Doge team is to "help address the enormous deficit".
"We simply cannot sustain it," he says, "if this continues the country will become de facto bankrupt".
"It's not an optional thing, it's an essential thing," he says.
After a prayer led by former NFL player and US housing secretary Scott Turner, Donald Trump starts addressing the cabinet once more.
The president claims that in just over a month after he returned to the White House, illegal border crossings "have plummeted by numbers that nobody's actually ever seen before", while the government is "fighting" to get inflation down.
He then turns to the work of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, saying "one of the most important initiatives is Doge".
"We have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars, we’re looking to maybe get it to a trillion dollars", he adds.
Trump tells his cabinet that tech billionaire and government adviserElon Musk "is here to give you a summary of what's happening... Some of the horrible things they've found, some of the theft and fraud".
Stick with us as we bring you more.
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, US President Donald Trump has just confirmed that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky will visit the White House on Friday.
Yesterday, Trump said that the visit would see Zelensky sign a much-vaunted minerals deal with the US.
Trump now says it "will be a very big agreement", without giving further details.
The President adds that the deal will allow the US to "get our money back".
"And we're going to get a lot of money in the future, and I think that's appropriate, because we have taxpayers that shouldn't be footing the bill," he says. "It's all been worked out."
A peace deal, he says, could follow afterwards.
You can follow the latest updates and analysis of the proposed deal with Ukraine in our separate live coverage
Trump says Zelensky will sign 'very big agreement' on Friday
Image source, US poolWe're now getting a feed through of Trump's first cabinet meeting - you can follow along by pressing watch live at the top of the page.
The first witness to testify to the Doge hearing is Max Primorac, a former USAID employee who worked to distribute US humanitarian aid overseas, before later going on to join the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.
He begins by saying that the agency, which has been targeted by steep cuts, has sponsored "radical, even obscene" policies in foreign countries.
He says the Biden administration pushed a “global green agenda that forced poor countries to rely on China for their energy needs,” he says, going on to criticise countries in Africa for co-operating with China's military.
Primorac says that foreign aid can be used as a policy tool, "but not as an instrument of progressive imperialism”.
He adds that any aid must "pass the middle America smell test on waste, fraud and abuse".
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was one of the first targets of the Trump administration's federal cost-cutting drive.
Set up in the early 1960s to administer humanitarian aid programmes around the world, USAID is the US government's main overseas aid agency.
Cuts to the agency have already upended the global aid system.
Most of the employees at USAID have now either been placed on administrative leave or laid off. It's not clear how many employees will be kept but a notice on Sunday said only "designated personnel" responsible for critical functions would be exempt from having to leave.
An initial attempt to eliminate thousands of these employees was held up by a legal challenge causing it to be temporarily halted - but a ruling on Friday said that would not be permanent.
And during a high-profile speech at a conservative convention on Saturday, President Donald Trump claimed: "We've... effectively ended the left-wing scam known as USAID."