Trump news live: President hosts Elon Musk in Oval Office as DOGE evangelist departs administration

The presidential pardon power increasingly looks to be an instrument for Donald Trump to wield on behalf of his wealthy donors, and MAGAworld can do little to explain it.

He moved explicitly into the realm of rewarding his supporters with political favors this past week and began issuing a slew of pardons benefiting loyalists who’d supported his campaigns for president. Among the recipients: A sheriff convicted of taking bribes in exchange for passing out “auxiliary” sheriff badges to local businessmen; the son of a wealthy donor who was instrumental in the effort to pass Hunter Biden’s laptop to the Trump campaign; a reality TV show couple and rapper, NBA Youngboy.

“My friends, Memorial Day is about something profound,” a somewhat fired-up Biden declared. “Our politics have become so divided and bitter. All the years I have been doing this, I never thought we would get to this point, but we are.”

He added: “Our troops do not wear a uniform that says I‘m a Democrat or a Republican. It says, I am an American!”

Representative Greg Steube (R-FL) is pushing to rebrand the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority from WMATA to “WMAGA.”

The “Make Autorail Great Again Act,” introduced on Thursday, seeks to block all federal funding for WMATA until it rebrands as the “Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access.”

Erin Keller reports on the latest cult-like move.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt came to the briefing room podium already breathless as she vowed that the Trump administration would take Wednesday’s ruling “to the Supreme Court,” delivering a minutes-long, impassioned screed about the unprecedented rate at which Donald Trump’s second presidency has been rebuffed by the Judicial Branch.

The press secretary went on to note that in February, Trump’s first full month in office, he was blocked from taking executive action more times than his predecessor was “in three years”.

But her comments bely an obvious counter-argument: that the Trump administration’s unprecedented usage and scope of executive actions is itself to blame for its sky-high rate of failure at the district court level.

And it’s not as if district court judges are alone on an island in this regard.

Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb christened White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt “Creepy Karoline” after she launched an attack on the judges who ruled against Trump’s tariff plans.

Cobb, a former prosecutor, jibed that “Creepy Karoline” isn’t being “taken seriously” by Americans during an interview on CNN’s OutFront show Thursday, where host Erin Burnett grilled him on the overturning of Trump’s tariffs in the U.S. courts Wednesday.

Cobb represented Trump during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Madeline Sherratt has the story.

Longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove warned this week that the “muddled mess” around Donald Trump’s “chaotic trade talk” could “badly damage” the Republican Party in the midterms next year, adding that voters would “blame” the president for higher prices and scarce goods.

The stern words from Rove, a longtime Fox News contributor, prompted the president’s trade adviser to rage against the former George W. Bush deputy chief of staff and campaign architect on Rove’s own network.

Justin Baragona has the details.

The Trump administration is preparing additional actions aimed at China, according to the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, following President Donald Trump’s accusation that Beijing had “violated” its trade agreement with Washington.

“That opens up all manner of action for the United States to ensure future compliance,” Stephen Miller told reporters at the White House.

“There are measures that have already been taken, there are measures that are being taken, there are measures that are being considered,” he said separately on CNN. “It would be incredibly unwise for China to continue down this path and not seek instead the path of cooperation.”

While he spent tens of millions of dollars boosting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign — working his way to a prominent inner-circle role — Elon Musk was reportedly using drugs “intensely” and regularly, including “chronically” using the powerful anesthetic ketamine to the point where it affected his bladder.

Alex Woodward has the story.