Trump live updates: President speaks at CPAC; Melania to host dinner at White House after nearly a month of no appearances – UK Times

President Donald Trump went off-script and ignored the teleprompter about 45 minutes into his Conservative Political Action Conference address, The New York Times reports.

Soon afterward, Trump started trashing his predecessor, claiming everything former President Joe Biden touched “turned to s***.”

President Donald Trump joked Elon Musk’s “official position” in his government is “patriot” as the world’s richest man continues to wield high levels of influence and power over the federal government as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Meanwhile, a report this week revealed DOGE has fired hundreds of federal workers who are not funded by the taxpayer — lowering savings for the American people that Trump’s administration promised, according to a report.

Read more from The Independent’s Rhian Lubin:

President Donald Trump praised “border czar” Tom Homan despite his reported anger over deportation numbers.

“A very good friend of mine is this guy…Tom Homan, he is central…He’s doing a great job,” Trump told CPAC. “Thank you, Tom, very much. Thank you, appreciate it.”

“It’s driving him nuts they’re not deporting more people,” a source familiar with internal immigration discussions told NBC News.

President Donald Trump gloated about his fight with Maine Governor Janet Mills, who said she wouldn’t be “intimidated” by his executive order banning transgender women and girls from women’s sports.

“You saw Maine yesterday, right?” Trump asked the CPAC crowd. “The governor of Maine.”

In a meeting with governors at the White House on Friday, Trump said Mills “better” comply or risk losing funding.

“We are federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it. You better do it, because you’re not going to get federal funding … Your population doesn’t want men in women’s sports.”

“We’ll see you in court,” Mills replied.

The governor previously said Maine “will not be intimidated by the president’s threats.”

“If the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides,” Mills said.

Read more about the exchange from The Independent’s Alex Woodward:

President Donald Trump has taken the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Stay tuned for live updates from The Independent.

Elon Musk’s sudden invasion of Donald Trump’s inner circle and the launch of his DOGE effort to shutter whole government agencies came with more than a little controversy.

But CPAC in Maryland’s National Harbor this weekend was a safe space of refuge for the Twitter and Tesla CEO, even as his public and private behavior is increasingly coming under the eye of public scrutiny.

A federal judge has cleared a path for Donald Trump to begin pulling thousands of foreign aid workers off the job, throwing the future of the U.S. Agency for International Development and critical global humanitarian relief into chaos.

Washington, D.C., District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, has lifted his temporary restraining order that blocked the administration from removing all but a fraction of USAID staff and setting a 30-day deadline for global aid workers to move back to the United States.

President Donald Trump has nominated Lt. Gen. Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after firing General Charles Q. Brown Jr. for the position.

“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social.

“General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience,” he added.

Here’s what we know about Caine — and his relationship with Trump: