Trump ends Hannity interview by calling Jack Smith ‘a moron’: live

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he’s ordering the declassification and release of all remaining records relating to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, his brother and New York Senator Robert F Kennedy Sr, and the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Trump made the announcement during an impromptu signing ceremony in the Oval Office after being handed the order to sign by White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, D.C.

On Thursday morning’s Fox and Friends episode, the hosts told federal workers to use Donald Trump’s work ethic as an “example” and to “work all day.”

The hosts accused federal employees of seeking “special treatment” after Trump issued an executive order ending remote work for the federal workforce.

Donald Trump said he is unbothered by Elon Musk’s criticism of the Stargate artificial intelligence infrastructure project he announced this week, telling reporters that Musk is critical because one of the people involved in the deal is “one of the people he happens to hate.”

The president brushed aside the clash that’s been unfurling online between two of his tech business allies, Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Musk has questioned the value of the AI investment, of which OpenAI is a partner.

“People in the deal are very, very smart people. But, Elon, one of the people he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too,” Trump said.

The president did not elaborate.

The president made the comments after the TV show host suggested authorities would’ve tried to put him in jail.

“I think so,” Trump said. “You got a deranged Jack Smith, a total moron…He was looking for something and he’s done it in the past with people. But he’s a failure. He’s a total failure and he failed in the past also. You know why? Because he goes too far.”

The president also addressed the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and his pledge that he would stop it within the first 24 hours of his administration, which didn’t materialize. He appeared to blame the war’s continuance on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelensky, he said, is “no angel” and “shouldn’t have allowed this war to happen,” even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine.

“First of all, he’s fighting a much bigger entity, okay, much bigger. When he was, you know, talking so brave … Zelensky was fighting a much bigger entity, much bigger, much more powerful. He shouldn’t have done that, because we could have made a deal, and it would have been a deal that would have been, it would have been a nothing deal,” Trump claimed.

Border crossings in the Southwest are reportedly down as President Donald Trump’s administration begins its immigration crack down.

Border Patrol apprehended just over 840 people crossing the border between ports of entry, reported NBC News.

Donald Trump announced Thursday he would pardon anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances.

The president called it “a great honor to sign this.”

“They should not have been prosecuted,” he said as he signed pardons for “peaceful pro-life protesters.”

Among the people pardoned were those involved in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of a Washington clinic.

In the first week of Trump’s presidency, anti-abortion advocates have ramped up calls for Trump to pardon protesters charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which is designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats. The 1994 law was passed during a time when clinic protests and blockades were on the rise, as well as violence against abortion providers, such as the murder of Dr. David Gunn in 1993.

Donald Trump’s controversial nominee to be FBI director, Kash Patel, will face down the Senate Judiciary Committee next Thursday when he appears for a confirmation hearing before the panel led by Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. The hearing and subsequent Senate votes will determine whether Patel, a former prosecutor and public defender who gained prominence as a vociferous defender of the president, will replace former director Christopher Wray.

Wray, who Trump named to lead the bureau in 2017 after he fired then-director James Comey, resigned just before the 45th president was sworn in as the 47th president on Monday. Trump had indicated a desire to fire Wray because the former New Jersey US Attorney had failed to stop criminal investigations into his conduct.

Trump, who on Wednesday met with Fox News host Sean Hannity for his first television interview since returning to the White House, will appear on the right-wing host’s eponymous program Thursday evening when the second half of the interview is aired.

The Trump administration canceled a Justice Department recruiting program for young lawyers at prestigious colleges and revoked recent job offers, according to a report.

President Donald Trump scrapped the Attorney General’s Honors Program that had been in place since 1953, sources familiar with the cancellation told the Washington Post. The department’s website describes the program as the “nation’s premier entry-level federal attorney recruitment program,” attracting candidates from top law schools across the country.

The reason for tossing out the program wasn’t immediately clear.

Kelly Rissman reports from New York.

When Elon Musk makes a claim, it’s often wise to mentally add a little note on the end: citation needed.

After volunteer editors updated Musk’s Wikipedia page to reflect his “alleged Nazi salute” at Trump’s inauguration, the world’s richest person demanded an immediate boycott of the non-profit foundation.

Musk has been skirmishing with Wikipedia for a while — in October 2024 he offered a $1 billion donation to change the site’s name to “Dickipedia”— but this latest attack fits into a long and worrying pattern of Musk trying to control what people see and hear about him and his businesses.

“He is the world’s leading free speech hypocrite,” Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, tells The Independent. “And his actions with respect to Wikipedia are further evidence of that.

Musk tolerates free speech — as long as he likes the viewpoint or agrees with the political perspective, notes Stern.