The president is now asked about what role Elon Musk has within his administration, after questions were raised by a court filing yesterday.

"Elon is to me a patriot," Trump says.

"You could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want, but he's a patriot."

The president then reels off a long list of figures that he says represents the number of people claiming social security payments at different ages - including those who he claims are more than 300 years old.

"That's what we're checking right now," Trump says, alongside where government money is being spent.

Image source, Getty Images

Another reporter asks Trump about what it would take to reinstate the Associated Press (AP) news agency after some of its reporters were barred from covering events at the White House.

Trump says AP refused to go with the law after they refused to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in their reporting, following an executive order Trump signed after being inaugurated.

"I do think that some of the phrases that they want to use are ridiculous and I think frankly they've become obsolete especially in the last three weeks," Trump says.

"We're going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America," he adds.

Trump heaped further criticism on AP, claiming they've been "very, very wrong on the election on Trump and the treatment of Trump".

"They're doing us no favours and I guess I'm not doing them any favours, that's the way life works," he says.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Mar-a-Lago

Asked by the BBC what his message is to Ukrainians who may be feeling "betrayed or disappointed" at not having a seat at the initial talks taking place in Saudi Arabia, Trump replies: "I think I'm really disappointed with what's happened," noting that the war has lasted three years now.

He says it would "never have happened if I was president".

"I'm very disappointed. I hear they're upset about not having a seat. Well they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that."

He adds that a "half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago. Without - I think - the loss of much land, very little land. Without the loss of any lives. And without the loss of cities."

Trump's administration has been signalling that it is open to Ukraine ceding some parts of the country that have been seized by Russian forces.

Trump adds that under his leadership, America "is putting out fires around the world".

• For context: Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls more than a fifth of its territory, mainly in the south and east.

Asked about how the US's talks in with Russia in Saudi Arabia went today, Trump says he feels "much more confident" in a peace deal after the meetings, which he says were "very good".

As a reminder, US officials met Russian officials in Riyadh on Tuesday to talk about the war in Ukraine.

"Russia wants to do something, they want to stop the savage barbarianism", the president says. "Soldiers are being killed by their thousands on a weekly basis, it's ridiculous."

"We want to end it, it's a senseless war... it would have never happened if I was president".

On the possibility of European troops being stationed in Ukraine after any deal to end the war, Trump says: "If they want to do that, that's great... we won't have to put any over there because we're very far away."

In response to another question later, Trump also says "these cities (in Ukraine) look like Gaza". "People are tired of it."

I want to end this war to save millions of lives, Trump says, though he says the topic may be more important to Europeans than to the US: "We have an ocean in between (us), they don’t," he says.

A reporter just asked Trump what the European Union can do to avoid reciprocal tariffs.

The White House previously cited objections to tariffs such as the 10% tax that US-made cars face in Europe, compared with the 2.5% tariff the US applies to cars brought into the US.

Trump said he understands that the European Union is reducing their automobile tariff from 10% to match the 2.5% rate it is in the US.

"That would be great if everybody would do that, then we would all be on the same playing field," he said.

Trump blamed the European Union, saying it has been "unfair" to the US citing how the union does not take any imports from the US.

"They take very little and we're going to have to straighten that out," he said. "We will. I have no doubt about it."

The second item Trump has just signed is a presidential memorandum imposing "radical transparency requirements" on government departments and agencies, White House staff secretary Will Scharf says as he takes the podium next to the president.

It requires agencies, "as waste, fraud and abuse are uncovered", to make such details "freely available" to the public, he says.

Trump has just walked up to the podium, saying that he has just signed three executive orders while at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The first is related to the affordability and availability of in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments.

The executive order will examine ways to make IVF more affordable for more Americans.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Travelling with the president

Image source, BBC / Bernd Debusmann Jr

I'm currently in an ornate golden living room at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders in about 30 minutes.

He's also expected to take questions. Just a few minutes ago, a small wooden desk set up in the room was switched out for a large lectern bearing the presidential seal.

"He wants the podium," an aide just whispered to another.

A few notable figures from Trump's orbit are in the room, including Steven Cheung and counsellor to the president Alina Habba.

While I have been traveling with him all day as part of the press pool, I have yet to catch sight of the president, personally.

The president spent much of this morning at the Trump International Golf Club nearby.

I'll be watching as Trump signs the executive orders and will bring you any updates on his comments before and after the signing. Stay with us for more updates.

Image source, EPA

While we've been keeping an eye on US domestic politics so far today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Saudi Arabia for talks with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

"Today is the first step of a long and difficult journey, but an important one," he says, after the meeting in Riyadh.

Also sitting at the table was National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian president's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Notably Ukraine was not invited to the talks, which its president Volodymyr Zelensky said was a "surprise".

• READ MORE:Russia won't accept Nato troops in Ukraine, Lavrov says after talks with US

Image source, Reuters

Questions around Elon Musk's position in the US government were raised on Monday, after a court filing from a Trump administration official said the tech billionaire is in fact not in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Musk - the world's richest man - has been seen as leading Doge's efforts to slash the US federal government. He had originally floated the idea ahead of last year's election, and has been a near-constant presence in the nation's capital since Trump's inauguration last month. He posts frequently about the organisation's work on his social media platform X.

But the declaration from Office of Administration director Joshua Fisher says Musk works as a "Senior Advisor to the President", and is "not an employee" of Doge. It doesn't say who is officially running the body.

Doge is not an official government department - which would have had to be established by an act of Congress - and instead operates as an advisory body with at least four employees dedicated to each government agency.

The White House has previously said Musk was operating as an unpaid special government employee, which is defined as someone working for the government for 130 days or less in a year.

Earlier today, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Musk "has been tasked with overseeing Doge on behalf of the president".

You can read more about Elon Musk's work with Doge here.

Image source, Getty Images

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has just appeared on Fox News, and Elon Musk was once again a major topic of discussion.

Leavitt described Musk as a "special government employee here at the White House" and said he serves "at the direction of the President of the United States".

Musk "has been tasked with overseeing Doge on behalf of the President", Leavitt says.

Leavitt describes the work of Doge staffers as "onboarding at respective agencies" and says that they are helping secretaries at those agencies cut waste.

For context, Doge is not a government department and some if its cost-cutting measures have been blocked by courts. A judge stopped the agency from accessing personal data held within US Treasury records.

And while controversial, a poll by the BBC's US partner CBS News has suggested Doge enjoys broad popular support.

The poll indicated that a majority of Americans - especially Republican voters - supported its work, even if they disagreed over how much influence Musk should have personally.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Palm Beach

We've just received word that President Trump's executive order signing this afternoon will be open to an "expanded" press pool, meaning both us journalists that have been traveling with the White House team, and some who are joining us here in Palm Beach.

We still don't know what the executive orders will be, and the White House has been tight-lipped despite repeated inquiries.

While nothing is ever guaranteed, in past executive order signings - including one I attended last Wednesday - President Trump has given journalists ample opportunities to ask questions on a variety of topics once he's signed the paper.

If he takes questions today, many are likely to focus on Ukraine, although Doge and the departure of the Social Security Administration's acting head are likely to also feature prominently.

The EO signing is scheduled for 16:00 EST (21:00 GMT).

Political opponents and government watchdogs accuse Doge of acting without transparency and spreading misinformation about government spending - and accuse Musk of overstepping his authority as an unelected official.

Critics highlight Musk's potential conflicts of interest, given the billions in contracts his businesses hold with the US government. Trump and Musk deny that any issues will arise.

Multiple groups including unions and state attorneys general have sued Doge and the wider Trump administration over their plans, and Democrats accuse them of tampering with funding approved by Congress that is outside the president's scope. The White House denies that the work has broken any laws.

Several times, the courts have stepped in to halt the cost-cutting moves, at least once blocking Doge directly when a judge stopping the agency from accessing personal data held within US Treasury records.

When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Musk said he expected to be scrutinised for his work, but insisted that Americans had voted for "common sense" government reform.

Brandon Drenon
Reporting from Washington DC

The US government is trying to rehire nuclear safety employees it had fired on Thursday, after concerns grew that their dismissal could jeopardise national security, US media reported.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) workers were among hundreds of employees in the energy department who received termination letters.

The department is responsible for designing, building and overseeing the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

The terminations are part of a massive effort by President Donald Trump to slash the ranks of the federal workforce, a project he began on his first day in office, less than a month ago.

US media reported that more than 300 NNSA staff were let go, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

That number was disputed by a spokesperson for the Department of Energy, who told CNN that "less than 50 people" were dismissed from NNSA.

The Thursday layoffs included staff stationed at facilities where weapons are built, according to CNN.

The Trump administration has since tried to reverse their terminations, according to media outlets, but has reportedly struggled to reach the people that were fired after they were locked out of their federal email accounts.

• Read more: US government tries to rehire nuclear staff it fired days ago

Are dead people getting social security payments?published at 16:28 Greenwich Mean Time 18 February

16:28 GMT 18 February

By Jake Horton, BBC Verify

Elon Musk has claimed there are “tens of millions of people marked in social security as ‘alive’ when they are definitely dead”.

Social security provides a base income for about 67m retired or disabled people in the US.

Musk shared a screenshot on X of a spreadsheet purportedly showing more than 20 million people aged 100 or older on the programme’s system.

There is a 2023 report by the social security inspector general, external which identified about 19 million people born in 1920 or earlier with no death data on file - although only 44,000 of whom were still receiving benefits.

The Social Security Administration in 2021 estimated some 24,000 people received payments from the agency after death, amounting to almost $300m.

There were an estimated 101,000 people over 100 years old in 2024 across the US, according to the Pew Research Center, external - most of whom you would expect to be receiving social security.

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from Palm Beach, Florida

Image source, Getty Images

Greetings from Florida, where Donald Trump is currently at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

I've been travelling with the President in the "Sunshine State" since Friday, but his only remarks to the traveling press pool came on Sunday, shortly after a splashy visit to the Daytona 500 Nascar race.

Speaking to reporters after descending from Air Force One back in Palm Beach, Trump spent a few minutes discussing a range of topics, including Ukraine, US weapons shipments to Israel, tariffs and inflation - for which he laid the blame squarely at the feet of Joe Biden.

"I've been here for three weeks. I have had nothing to do with inflation. That was caused by Biden," he told us.

"But I'll tell you what, this country has made more progress in the last three weeks than it's made in the last four years ago," Trump added. "And we're respected again as a country."

So far, Trump has only one event on his public schedule today: signing executive orders at 16:00 EST (21:00 GMT).

At the moment, this will take place behind closed doors - but over the last several weeks we've seen these signings open up to the press at a moment's notice.

Social security "provides financial protection for our nation’s people", according to the Social Security Administration.

Employees, their employers, and self-employed people pay social security taxes. This money is placed into two different trust funds, kept separate from other money in the US Treasury.

When they are no longer able to work - because they have retired, died or become disabled - payments are made from the funds to the worker or their family to replace the earnings lost.

The amount of money received depends on the persons average earnings during their working life - so the more regularly someone is employed, and the higher their income, the greater their social security payment will be.

Image source, Reuters

The head of the Social Security Administration's departure is not the first related to the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

The advisory body, created by Donald Trump and overseen by billionaire Elon Musk, has been tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending.

It has encountered legal obstacles, allegations of conflicts of interest, and opponents fear that it will wreak serious damage.

So far Doge officials have entered various government departments to monitor spending, made buyout offers to two million federal employees to try and slash the size of the workforce, and made sweeping cuts to the US's main foreign aid organisation.

• READ MORE: What is Doge and why is Musk cutting so many jobs?

The acting head of the Social Security Administration has stepped down from her role.

Michelle King was named acting commissioner for Social Security just last month, after working for the agency for more than three decades.

A Trump administration official told the BBC's US partner CBS News that King had been replaced by Leland Dudek, who previously led the agency's fraud investigation office. Dudek apparently replaced King before King stepped down.

The president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, Nancy Altman, told CBS that Doge employees had been trying to gain access to a database containing sensitive social security information - and that King had been resistant to allowing them access.

"She was standing in the way and they moved her out of the way," Altman said.

King's departure is the latest of several high-ranking officials concerned about requests from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Brandon Livesay
Reporting from New York

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics, in what is once again a full day of news.

To start with, we will be looking into the boss of US Social Security stepping down after reportedly clashing with the Elon Musk-led Doge.

BBC's US Partner CBS News reports that King reportedly left after resisting Doge staffers' attempts to access sensitive information

Later today, the Senate will vote on Trump's pick to run the FBI - Kash Patel. There will also be a vote to confirm Trump's pick to be secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick.

This page will be focusing on domestic issues today. But we are also covering the latest developments on US-Russia talks to end the Ukraine war over here.

Stick with us.