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President Trump marked the first 100 days of his second term on Tuesday at a rally in Michigan in which he celebrated his border crackdown by playing dramatic video of the imprisonment of migrants, and mocked his political opponents as he reveled in their inability to thwart his agenda.
The president spoke to about 3,000 supporters at Macomb Community College, in an area near Detroit seen as key to his electoral victory in the state and emblematic of union workers’ shift from the Democratic to the Republican Party.
Mr. Trump mocked the way his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., looked in a bathing suit and encouraged to crowd to cheer to indicate which demeaning nickname for him they preferred: “Sleepy Joe” or “Crooked Joe.”
“I miss the campaign,” Mr. Trump said at one point.
The speech had been billed as a way for build momentum around the president’s economic policies. which have been dragging him down politically. The area in which Mr. Trump spoke held signs that said “Buy American. Hire American.”
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His expansive tariffs have hurt the stock market and contributed to a drop in his approval rating. A majority of Americans approved of Mr. Trump’s performance in office throughout January and February, but he is now struggling with what polls show is greater public disapproval.
Those in the crowd cheered Mr. Trump’s agenda, and attendees said they supported his efforts to use tariffs to try to bring back manufacturing jobs to areas like Detroit, the home of the U.S. auto industry, which has lost one-third of its population since 2000.
Outside the venue, however, protesters gathered with signs saying, “I dissent.” Two protesters who made it into the rally were removed by security, and the president laughed after calling one of them by the wrong gender.
Mr. Trump also cast himself as a man of action, highlighting the rapid pace of his executive orders. He has signed more than 130 executive orders this year, nearly as many as former President Biden did throughout his four years in office.
Fifty percent of voters in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll said the upheaval Mr. Trump had brought to the nation’s political and economic systems was a “bad thing for the country.” Only 36 percent said the changes were good. And voters said he had “gone too far” on issue after issue: his tariffs, his immigration enforcement, his cuts to the federal work force.
At the rally, Mr. Trump showed little concern about his falling poll numbers, dismissing them as rigged.
The Democratic National Committee issued a statement responding to Mr. Trump’s rally. “While Donald Trump lives in his delusions, Michigan families — along with millions of working families across this country — are forced to live with the consequences of his dangerous, chaotic, and economy-destroying agenda,” said Ken Martin, the D.N.C. chairman.
Before the rally, Mr. Trump attended a bipartisan event at nearby Selfridge Air National Guard Base, at which he held to a more serious tone and announced an infusion of new resources, including 21 new fighter jets, seen as key to keeping the base open.
“This will keep Selfridge at the cutting edge of northern American air power,” Mr. Trump said.
There, Mr. Trump credited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat who was criticized by some for her recent visit to the White House, with pushing to save the base. Ms. Whitmer appeared onstage with the president.
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Representative Sam Graves, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on Tuesday unveiled a $15 billion plan to modernize the nation’s air traffic control systems, a move underscoring growing concern over the aging technology responsible for guiding millions of flights safely through the skies each year.
The proposal would fund upgrades to radar, telecommunications and other critical systems used by the Federal Aviation Administration, while also addressing staffing shortages that have strained control towers across the United States.
The timing was not incidental. On Monday, equipment outages and thin staffing disrupted flights at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to the F.A.A. And on Jan. 29, at Ronald Reagan National Airport, near Washington, D.C., a fiery midair collision killed 67 aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet.
A New York Times investigation found that radar limitations and communication failures were among the factors that contributed to the Jan. 29 crash. The Black Hawk’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out, or ADS-B Out, a system that continuously reports an aircraft’s position and altitude, had been turned off during the Army’s training mission that night, forcing the controller to rely on intermittent transponder signals which take five to 12 seconds to refresh, the investigation found.
Radio communications also faltered that night. The controller’s instructions were “stepped on” — or drowned out — as the helicopter crew pressed their microphone, and may never have been heard. This left the helicopter pilots without a key piece of information they needed to execute a common aviation practice known as visual separation and safely navigate around the American Airlines jet without having to rely on the controller working traffic that night.
The vulnerabilities are not new. A Government Accountability Office report issued last year warned that dozens of air traffic control systems were in “unsustainable” condition, citing risks that extend from technological failures to chronic understaffing.
Trump said that his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, captured while the two attended Pope Francis’s funeral in Rome, was a “moment of solace,” because so many Ukrainian people were dying. The moment appeared to be a turning point in the strained relationship between the two leaders, and ignited Trump’s frustration with Russia for not agreeing to a ceasefire deal. “A lot of his people are dying,” Trump said of Zelensky, adding that he felt “very badly about it.”
“I could,” Trump said when pressed in an ABC News interview on his ability to facilitate the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man and Salvadoran immigrant who the administration deported to El Salvador despite a court order forbidding his deportation there. Trump and his advisers have dug in on their refusal to heed a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia. Trump’s answer contradicted his advisers, who have claimed only the Salvadoran government has the ability to release Abrego Garcia now that he is in a prison there. “If he were the gentleman you say he is,” Trump said, he would return Abrego Garcia. But Trump argued Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 and therefore he should not be returned. A federal judge has expressed doubt over the evidence backing up that assertion.
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In January, Border Patrol agents conducted sweeps through immigrant communities in California’s Central Valley, arresting nearly 80 individuals the agency said were unlawfully present in the United States.
Officials said the operation, named “Return to Sender,” was intended to target undocumented immigrants with serious criminal backgrounds. But lawyers for those arrested argued that the agents had simply rounded up people who appeared to be day laborers and farm workers, regardless of their actual immigration status, without having a legally sound reason to suspect they were in the country illegally.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction barring Border Patrol agents from stopping individuals without having a reasonable suspicion of illegal presence, as required by the Fourth Amendment.
The judge also blocked agents from making warrantless arrests unless they have probable cause to believe the person is likely to flee before a warrant can be obtained.
The Trump administration has adopted increasingly aggressive tactics in pursuit of its goal of mass deportations, but has faced pushback from the judiciary. The California ruling marks the latest attempt by courts to rein in enforcement actions that appear to conflict with long-established constitutional and legal protections.
Judge Jennifer L. Thurston of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California noted in her ruling that the government did not “dispute or rebut” the “significant anecdotal evidence” from the plaintiffs regarding Border Patrol’s stop-and-arrest practices.
The preliminary injunction, which applies to the federal district where the sweeps occurred, will remain in place as the case proceeds. A scheduling conference is planned for early June.
The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Representatives for the plaintiffs praised the decision. “You cannot stop people based on how they look,” said Elizabeth Strater, a national vice president of United Farm Workers, a labor union. “This ruling upholds the basic standards of law in the country.”
The Border Patrol operation, carried out in Kern County, which includes Bakersfield, Calif., targeted areas heavily reliant on immigrant labor for agriculture. Agents monitored places including a Home Depot and gas stations frequented by undocumented people.
Gregory K. Bovino, a Border Patrol chief in Southern California, described the operation at the time as an “overwhelming success.” He said in a series of social media posts that it had resulted in the arrests of 78 people who were in the country illegally, including a handful with “serious criminal histories.”
Advocates for farmworkers, however, said that many of those detained had no criminal records and that the raids had terrorized immigrant communities.
In February, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of United Farm Workers and five Kern County residents, claiming that Border Patrol agents stopped and arrested individuals regardless of their immigration status or individual circumstances.
The order granting the preliminary injunction cited public data from Border Patrol stating that of the 78 people arrested during the operation, 77 did not have a criminal or immigration history that was known before their arrest.
Steve Eder and Miriam Jordan contributed reporting.
Within two minutes of speaking at a rally near Detroit to celebrate 100 days of his second term, President Trump told a lie: that he won Michigan “three times.” In fact, he lost the state in the 2020 election.
What followed on Tuesday was an hour and a half filled with many familiar falsehoods and exaggerations about his accomplishments, including on tariffs, immigration and his rollback of Biden administration policies.
Mr. Trump claimed an 87 percent decrease in the price of eggs and gas below $2 a gallon in three states. Both claims were overstated. The wholesale price of eggs has fallen by about 50 percent since he took office, but the retail price of eggs increased from January to March. And there is no state where gas is below $2 a gallon.
He trumpeted the signing of an executive order ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. But three federal courts temporarily paused the order. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case in May.
Mr. Trump claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency, the initiative led by the billionaire Elon Musk, had saved “$150 billion on waste, fraud and abuse.” While the initiative’s website highlights $160 billion in savings, reporting by The New York Times and other news outlets has shown that the figures it posted rely on inflated figures and errors, for example, including a $318 million contract that did not actually exist.
He claimed that he had presided over a turnaround in military recruitment and that “nobody wanted to join the military” six months ago. Military recruitment actually began increasing before his election in November, and the Army recruited more people in August than in January or February.
Mr. Trump also made the case for his tariff policy with misleading claims about global trade.
He again inflated and mischaracterized trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, saying that the United States was “subsidizing” the two countries by $300 billion and $200 billion a year. The trade deficit in goods and services was $41 billion with Canada and $162 billion with Mexico; a deficit simply means that one country’s consumers are buying more from the other nation, not that it is giving money away.
He claimed that the Biden administration had lost $3 billion a day, a reference to the annual global trade deficit in goods. But by that same logic, his administration had “lost” more: about $4.8 billion daily, based on February’s trade deficit in goods of $135.4 billion.
And Mr. Trump repeated a number of inaccurate talking points recycled from the 2024 election.
He misleadingly called former Vice President Kamala Harris a “border czar” in the Biden administration. Ms. Harris was never appointed the border czar nor tasked with addressing border security. Rather, she was deputized to solve the “root causes” of migration.
He again baselessly accused the Biden administration of engineering a “massive border invasion” of terrorists and murderers. There is no evidence that other countries were “emptying” their jails and mental institutions into the United States, and studies have shown that immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
Mr. Trump also rebuked his predecessor’s climate policy, falsely claiming that the Biden administration imposed an “insane electric vehicle mandate.” While the administration instituted a set of regulations that would, in effect, compel automakers to sell more electric vehicles, there was no ban on gas vehicles.
“If people come into our process illegally there’s a different process,” Trump says when pressed on whether he is committed to providing due process for migrants he seeks to deport. The Supreme Court, however, has held that immigrants present in the United States, regardless of legal status, are guaranteed due process rights. The Supreme Court just this month ordered that even those deported under a wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, must be given a measure of due process.
In an interview with ABC News, Trump says his most significant accomplishment in his first 100 days in office is his success driving down illegal crossings at the border. Trump is right that crossings are at a record low. But he stresses the importance of those efforts by claiming, without evidence, that nations in Latin America had intentionally sent criminals to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Democratic National Committee has issued a statement responding to Trump’s rally marking 100 days in office. “While Donald Trump lives in his delusions, Michigan families – along with millions of working families across this country – are forced to live with the consequences of his dangerous, chaotic, and economy-destroying agenda,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin.
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The Trump administration threatened on Tuesday to withhold federal funds from Chicago’s publicschools over a program designed to help Black students do better academically, furthering the White House’s assault on liberal policies in education.
The investigation, overseen by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, is based on a complaint from Parents Defending Education, a conservative, Virginia-based group that claims that the Chicago program, the Black Student Success Plan, amounted to racial discrimination. According to the complaint, the school district was “failing students of all races and ethnicities, which makes this racially segregated program all the more egregious.”
A spokeswoman for the school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A news release from the district said the plan is part of the system’s “commitment to eliminating educational opportunity gaps and ensuring Black students have the support needed to achieve academic success and personal growth.” It involves “implementing culturally-responsive practices and instruction, ensuring equitable resource allocation, increasing the recruitment and retention of Black educators and leaders, and fostering meaningful engagement with Black students and families.”
The Trump administration has slashed the number of civil rights investigators at the Education Department, but has also increased the number of inquiries into programs that administration officials think unfairly favor students based on race or grant special consideration to transgender students.
One investigation took aim at Denver’s public school system over a gender-neutral bathroom at a school. An inquiry into the school district in Ithaca, N.Y., has focused on an annual “Students of Color United Summit,” which a conservative group known as the Equal Protection Project complained had discriminated against white students.
The Education Department has also opened investigations into entire public school systems in California and Maine. The California inquiry concerns a state law protecting transgender students from disclosures to their parents. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from Maine because the state ignored President Trump’s executive order barring transgender athletes who were assigned male at birth from participating in girls’ sports.
Trump said early in his speech that he missed the campaign. That was clear. His speech marking his first 100 days in office often resembled a campaign rally, as he attacked political enemies and complained about his past legal troubles. The 90-minute address did not, however, provide much insight into the future legislative strategy for his administration.
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Trump ends his speech marking 100 days in office with his signature dance to “YMCA” by the Village People. Trump began by promoting his success driving down border crossings before making clear he would continue to embrace sending migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He defended his tariffs as a means of restoring American manufacturing, even though most economists say they will result in higher prices for consumers in the months to come. As is often the case with Trump, he could not seem to stay on the topic of his administration’s actions. He often ran through his list of grievances and attacked political enemies. But that may be fitting given how much time Trump’s first 100 days in office have been dedicated to seeking retribution.
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advised parents of newborns to “do your own research” before vaccinating their infants during a televised interview in which he also suggested the measles shot was unsafe and repeatedly made false statements that cast doubt on the benefits of vaccination and the independence of the Food and Drug Administration.
Mr. Kennedy made the remarks to the talk show host Dr. Phil in an interview that aired Monday on MeritTV to mark the 100th day of the Trump administration. He said, as he has in the past, that “if you want to avoid spreading measles, the best thing you can do is take that vaccine.”
But Mr. Kennedy also made clear, as he has in the past, that he believes it is up to individuals to decide. In suggesting vaccines are unsafe, he contradicted decades of advice from public health experts, including leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I would say that we live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research,” the health secretary said, in response to a question from a woman in the audience who asked how he would advise a new parent about vaccine safety. “You research the baby stroller, you research the foods that they’re getting, and you need to research the medicines that they’re taking as well.”
The phrase “I did my own research” became a cultural and political touchstone during the coronavirus pandemic, when proponents of vaccination, mostly on the political left, used it to denigrate those who had chosen not to get vaccinated. It became an internet meme and popped up on mock tombstones in Halloween-themed graveyards in liberal neighborhoods.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Kennedy’s comments came amid the largest measles outbreak in about 25 years in the United States, which has included the deaths of two young children and an adult.
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who has often been at odds with Mr. Kennedy, said that it was “perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of vaccines,” but that parents who wanted to do their own research must be careful about their sources of information.
“What doing your own research should mean is that you should talk to, or at least look at online, people who have an expertise in the field, which doesn’t mean looking in chat rooms or just on social media blog posts,” Dr. Offit said. He added that while there is good information available, “there’s also a lot of really bad sources of information that will miseducate you about your choice. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a perfect example of that.”
Another vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said Mr. Kennedy was being disingenuous. “He says that — doing your own research — knowing full well that when a parent does their own research, they are now mostly downloading an onslaught of disinformation — a lot of it from the health and wellness, nutritional supplement influencer industry trying to peddle alternatives.”
Mr. Kennedy also suggested, without evidence, that measles shots cause a variety of ailments. “Does it stop measles?” he asked. “Yeah, but does it also do something else, cause you seizures or cause neurological or autoimmune disease? We don’t know. Nobody can answer that question.”
In fact, studies have shown that, with rare exceptions, people who are vaccinated are less likely than those who suffer infections to develop autoimmune diseases, which has led researchers to conclude that vaccines “have not only the potential to protect the patient from infectious diseases, but also from its complications, including autoimmune manifestations.”
Mr. Kennedy’s other statements in the interview were also rife with inaccuracies. “New drugs are approved by outside panels, not by the F.D.A. or the C.D.C.,” he declared.
That is false. Outside panels of experts do advise the F.D.A. on controversial or high-profile drug approval decisions, and some panel members have ties to industry that are publicly disclosed before the meetings begin. But the F.D.A. alone has authority to approve or reject new drugs, vaccines and other therapies. The C.D.C. has no role in drug approvals whatsoever.
“Mr. Kennedy needs a briefing on drug development and F.D.A. decisions about marketing,” said Dr. Robert Califf, the agency’s commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “He is either ignorant on the topic or intentionally misleading the public. Outside panels are advisory. F.D.A. makes the decisions.”
Mr. Kennedy also insisted, inaccurately, that vaccines are not evaluated for safety either before or after they are licensed. “There’s no safety studies at the outset, there’s no surveillance system afterward,” he said, adding, “Vaccines are the only medicine or medical product that is exempt from pre-licensing safety testing.”
In fact, the Food and Drug Administration licenses vaccines after a yearslong process that begins with extensive testing in the lab and in animals and progresses to trials in humans. The F.D.A. requires careful studies of vaccine safety and effectiveness, often with thousands of people in large trials, said Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s vaccine division chief who was recently forced to resign from his position.
“I don’t know where this misunderstanding is coming from,” said Dr. Marks, who has been critical of Mr. Kennedy. “Vaccines are required to be extensively studied for safety. By definition, we’re giving these products to healthy people. So safety is paramount.”
After vaccines are licensed, they are monitored via an alphabet soup of databases. The Vaccine Safety Data Link system has relied on electronic health records from medical centers across the country. It has been responsible for detecting unusual side effects, including rare cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, among young men who took Covid-19 vaccines.
Another system, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, developed in 1990 as a “national early warning system,” relies on reports from patients and providers. Although many vaccine critics, including Mr. Kennedy, have cited VAERS data to argue that vaccines are dangerous, the system was not designed to determine if vaccines cause health problems. It was designed to pick up hints that can be investigated further in other types of data systems.
The F.D.A. has an additional safety monitoring program called BEST, or the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety Initiative.
Dr. Sean O’Leary, the chairman of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said it was wrong to claim that federal officials did not keep an eye on vaccine safety. “I don’t know where this is coming from,” he said, “because none of it is true.”
He added: “We are aware of many rare adverse events. If it becomes clear that the risks are even close to outweighing the benefits, the vaccine gets pulled from the market.”
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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday to disburse congressionally approved grant money it has withheld from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a federally funded news organization that provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedom.
The judge, Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the Trump administration to pay the news organization $12 million for its April funding. Judge Lamberth appeared to close a loophole from his previous ruling, which allowed the Trump administration to effectively hold funds for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty while facially complying with the court mandate.
“In this case,” the judge wrote in his ruling, “it was Congress who ordained that the monies at issue” should go to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in legislation signed by President Trump himself.
“In short: The current Congress and President Trump enacted a law allocating funds to the plaintiffs,” he concluded.
The judge, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, also offered an unusual defense of the federal judiciary and its nonpartisan nature, as Mr. Trump has in recent months called for federal judges’ impeachment and his administration has teetered toward open defiance of courts in some cases.
In recent months, Judge Lamberth wrote, “people from both inside and outside government have variously accused the courts — myself included — of fomenting a constitutional crisis, usurping the Article II powers of the presidency, undercutting the popular will or dictating how executive agencies can and should be run.”
He continued: “The subtext, if not the headline, of these accusations is that federal judges are motivated by personal political agendas.”
Judge Lamberth rejected the assertion that he was dictating administration policy in an abuse of power or siding with the news organization out of admiration for its journalistic work.
“When President Reagan nominated me to this bench,” he said, “I swore that I would discharge my duties ‘without respect to persons faithfully and impartially under the Constitution.’”
He added: “I am governed by that oath every day. I am not a political actor, and I have no agenda to press. I believe that the same is true of my colleagues on the federal bench.”
The White House did not immediately issue a response to the ruling.
In March, the Trump administration terminated the grant for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty after Mr. Trump signed an executive order seeking to gut its parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Judge Lamberth temporarily blocked the grant termination about a week later, saying Mr. Trump cannot unilaterally shut down an organization funded by Congress.
After the ruling in March, the administration reversed the termination but kept withholding the money, asserting that it was negotiating new terms of the grant agreement with the outlet, also known as RFE/RL.
In the proposed agreement, Trump officials sought powers to pause funds for the federally funded broadcaster and shut down parts of its programming, moves that Radio Free Europe argued were forbidden by Congress to ensure journalistic integrity.
The agreement would also allow the Trump administration to determine the members of the outlet’s board, an authority Congress revoked in 2020 after Mr. Trump’s appointee at the global media agency meddled with the news group’s editorial decisions.
The news organization had asked the Trump administration to disburse the money it was owed for April so it could keep its operations going as they negotiate a new contract, but the government ignored the request multiple times.
Trump officials also went eight days without responding to the news group’s email until a few hours before a hearing in front of the judge.
“Turning a blind eye to the defendants’ delay tactics,” Judge Lamberth wrote, referring to the Trump officials who were sued, “would be a naïve conclusion, allowing the agency to indefinitely evade judicial review.”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which reports in nearly 30 languages and reaches 47 million people every week, was on the brink of collapse before the court reinstated its funding.
It had terminated most contracts with freelance journalists, missed payments on office leases and furloughed more than 120 employees. The news group, a private nonprofit that has an independent board and hiring authority, receives 99 percent of its budget from congressional funding, according to court filings. Radio Free Europe’s lawyers said the news outlet would have ceased all operation by June without more funds.
The ruling follows another issued by Judge Lamberth, who ordered the Trump administration to restore operations at Voice of America, another government-funded news outlet the administration moved to shut down by putting nearly all of its employees on paid leave. Unlike RFE/RL, Voice of America is a federal agency whose journalists are government employees.
Mr. Trump has attacked Voice of America as “the voice of radical America,” and accused the outlet, which delivers news to countries such as Russia, China and Iran, of spreading “anti-American” and partisan “propaganda.”
Judge Lamberth had also ordered the administration to halt its efforts to shut down two other federally funded newsrooms: Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. But he stopped short of granting that relief to Radio Free Europe at the time because the government and the news organization were still negotiating.
During a hearing on Monday, Abigail Stout, the Justice Department lawyer on the case, argued that the court should not intervene in an active contract negotiation, as such actions could set a precedent that could bind the government’s hands in hammering out deals with other parties.
Judge Lamberth did not find her argument convincing.
Radio Free Europe lawyers “are not saying they are unhappy with the conditions,” the judge said, interrupting Ms. Stout. “They are saying the terms are illegal.”
When RFE/RL’s counsel, Thomas R. Brugato, approached him and said he had six points refuting Ms. Stout’s arguments, the judge again interjected.
“Only six?” Judge Lamberth asked, smiling.
At his rally in Michigan, Trump referred to former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s “insane electric vehicle mandate.” No such mandate existed. The Biden administration incentivized purchasing electric vehicles and put in place tougher rules on emissions, but did not ban gas cars.
“I know much more than he does about interest rates, believe me,” Trump said of Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Seconds earlier, Trump had sarcastically complained that his criticisms of Powell had shaken the financial markets. “I want to be nice and respectful to the Fed,” he said. “You are not supposed to criticize the Fed. You are supposed to let him do his own thing.”
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At the rally in Michigan, Trump said that that price of eggs had fallen by 87 percent and that gas prices were below $2 a gallon in three states. Neither claim is true. The average wholesale price of eggs had fallen by about 50 percent since inauguration, but the retail price of eggs had risen from $4.95 in January to $6.23 in March. In no state was the average gas price per gallon below $2, according to AAA.
Trump is borrowing incendiary language used by his subordinates to attack federal judges who have blocked his executive orders by ruling them unlawful or unconstitutional. He denounces the judges as “communists,” adding that “judges are trying to take away the power given to the president.”
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President Trump is painting migrants as “monsters” and violent criminals, and showing flashy videos proudly displaying the Trump administration’s iron-fisted immigration enforcement efforts. “The radical Democrat Party is racing to the defense of some of the most violent savages on the face of the Earth,” Trump says.
It’s unclear what Trump is talking about when he says his administration allowed only three people to cross the border in an unspecified timeframe, claiming a “99.999” percent reduction in border crossings. Border crossing statistics for April are not yet public. He is right that his administration reached a record low number of crossings at the border in March, with just over 11,000 border crossings.
Trump’s speech is hitting all of his greatest hits, such as attacking his political opponents and painting himself as a target of the left, but he appears to be reveling in the fact that they haven’t been able to thwart his agenda in his second term. He seems particularly proud of how he has wielded extraordinary executive power in slashing the federal workforce — by far one of the most disruptive acts in his first 100 days in office — eliminating what he calls “incompetent and unnecessary deep state bureaucrats.”
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“I miss the campaign,” Trump says. But since he has entered office, he has treated many of his speeches as if he were still in a campaign. During his roughly three months in office, Trump has often reflected on the last administration and used the pulpit to criticize Biden’s policies.
Trump has started speaking in Michigan at the first official rally of his presidency. After his inauguration, he had what was tantamount to a rally at the Capital One Arena in Washington.
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American textile manufacturers pushed back on Tuesday against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s suggestion that the industry was a thing of the past, arguing that U.S. makers of apparel and fabrics should not be overlooked as the Trump administration focuses on developing more advanced sectors.
The backlash came as President Trump marked 100 days in office by highlighting what he considers his economic accomplishments and as top aides defended his aggressive use of tariffs. Mr. Bessent drew the textile industry’s ire when he said earlier in the day that Mr. Trump was interested in “the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past” while explaining the president’s ambitions to spur domestic manufacturing.
Mr. Bessent, a native of South Carolina, said at a White House press briefing, “We don’t need to necessarily have a booming textile industry where I grew up again, but we do want to have precision manufacturing and bring that back.”
The National Association of Textile Organizations took offense, noting that it had been supportive of the Trump administration’s trade agenda, including the broad tariffs that Mr. Trump announced this month. The group pointed out that the U.S. textile industry produces more than 8,000 different products for the military and employed more than 470,000 workers last year.
“Our industry saw your remarks and were disheartened to hear this sentiment, especially since this industry has been noted by President Trump himself on a number of occasions as critical and strategic,” Kimberly Glas, the trade group’s chief executive, wrote in a letter to Mr. Bessent.
Critics of the Trump administration’s tariff strategy argue that the U.S. economy is heavily reliant on services and that efforts to reshore production of goods such as textiles would raise prices for consumers. Mr. Bessent was making the case that the Trump administration is focused on bolstering domestic manufacturing of products such as automobiles and items that are crucial to national security.
Ms. Glas, who requested a meeting with Mr. Bessent, said that U.S. textile manufacturers should not be overlooked as they compete with Chinese producers that benefit from Beijing’s unfair trade practices.
“This is a strategically important, relevant, and key industry,” Ms. Glas wrote.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted on Tuesday that he had “proudly” canceled a program that seeks to encourage more women to take part in national security issues.
The Women, Peace and Security Act was signed into law back in 2017 by none other than the man who is Mr. Hegseth’s boss today, President Trump. The program looks to increase the role of women in preventing and resolving conflicts all over the world.
Mr. Hegseth, in a post on the social media platform X, called the program “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.”
As defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth does not have the authority to rewrite or overturn laws, but he said that from here on in, the Pentagon would carry out the minimum requirements of the program and work to end it.
He added, “Good riddance, WPS.”
The U.S. military services have tried to carry out the program’s goals in different ways. The Air Force, for instance, has asked commanders to recognize that men, women, boys, girls and various groups, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, all are “affected by conflict in different ways.” The Air Force set up working groups to consider how different populations are affected by military policies.
Aides to Mr. Hegseth said that he had spent the past week trying to draw attention away from negative articles in multiple news outlets about chaos at the Pentagon. Besides the public focus on — and an inspector general review into — his disclosures on the commercial chat app Signal of flight sequencing of American fighter jets in Yemen strikes, Mr. Hegseth has seen the dissolution of his inner circle of close advisers. Four members of the team he brought to the Pentagon have left the department, three of them accused of leaking information and escorted from the building. A fifth — his chief of staff — has also departed his post.
Mr. Hegseth has refused to acknowledge that he did anything wrong in disclosing the Yemen strike details on Signal.
On Tuesday, as he has done during much of his tenure as defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth was again taking aim at diversity and inclusion programs. When Mr. Trump signed the Women, Peace and Security Act into law in 2017, it was backed by a number of present-day Trump officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was a senator at the time, and the current national security adviser, Mike Waltz.
Emily Elconin
Supporters in Warren, Mich., await the arrival of President Trump at a rally to mark his 100th day in office.
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The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have sued the Trump administration over what they say is a plan to illegally dismantle Head Start, the federal program that funds early education for America’s youngest and poorest children.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington State on Monday, was filed on behalf of Head Start associations and parent groups in several states. It argues that the Trump administration cannot reduce or eliminate Head Start, because the program is funded by Congress.
Head Start, a $12 billion-a-year program, provides child care, preschool and other services for children in poverty from birth to age 5, before they start formal school.
The program, under the Department of Health and Human Services, has been subject to spending cuts and layoffs as part of President Trump’s efforts to reduce federal spending.
The Trump administration is expected to propose eliminating the Head Start program as part of its 2026 budget, which could be released as soon as this week, according to a series of draft documents reviewed by The New York Times. The White House previously said that no final funding decisions have been made, and any plan would require the support of Congress.
But Jennesa Calvo-Friedman, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U, said the Trump administration had already found ways to diminish Head Start “through a series of executive actions which make it harder and harder for Head Start programs to stay open.”
A spokeswoman for H.H.S. declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration has withheld and reduced spending for Head Start, money that is appropriated by Congress. From January to mid-April, H.H.S. spent nearly $1 billion less for Head Start than in the same period the previous year, the lawsuit says.
The administration also abruptly closed half of Head Start’s regional offices and cut their employees, as part of other layoffs at H.H.S. at the start of this month.
That has resulted in funding delays and other hiccups, which caused at least one child care provider in Washington State to temporarily close and forced Head Start employees in Oregon to take unpaid days off, according to the lawsuit.
The suit also takes issue with a Trump administration ban on diversity, equity and inclusion, which it says conflicts with other requirements needed for Head Start to effectively serve a diverse population of families, including many children with disabilities.
The lawsuit argues the Trump administration is violating the constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the president, an issue that has been at the center of President Trump’s second term, as he has sought to exert his power over federal spending.
“Head Start is a program established by law,” said Lori Rifkin, a lawyer with Impact Fund, which filed the lawsuit along with the A.C.L.U. “It is illegal for the Trump administration to unilaterally end it, or alter its basic function and purpose.”
The Head Start program, which was created in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty, sends federal dollars to local child care and preschool providers in communities all over the country. About 30 percent of participants live in rural areas, according to the lawsuit.
The program includes dental care, meals and other services beyond early childhood education.
Apoorva Mandavilli and Tony Romm contributed reporting
During a speech in Michigan, President Trump announced 21 new fighter jets for Selfridge Air National Guard Base, a move seen as key to securing the base’s future and preventing concerns about a closure. He credited Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who was criticized by some for her recent visit to the White House, with pushing to save the base.
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President Trump has signed two executive orders that ease some aspects of his tariffs on the auto industry.
His administration says that easing tariffs on the auto industry will help carmakers invest more in the United States, and that tariffs in general are good for U.S. manufacturing. But these changes appeared to be at least a tacit acknowledgment that high tariffs were actually going to hold manufacturing back.
Stacy Cowley has reported on the consumer bureau since 2016.
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Federal judges have again intervened to temporarily stave off mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency that oversees banks and enforces a wide range of consumer protection laws.
On Monday afternoon, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a 2-to-1 ruling barring the latest attempt by Trump officials to fire nearly 1,500 workers, around 90 percent of the agency’s staff.
Russell T. Vought, the White House budget office director who is also the consumer bureau’s acting director, first tried in February to fire almost all employees at the bureau, which he has called a “woke and weaponized” agency.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington blocked the move, calling it an illegal attempt to dismantle the agency. Congress created the C.F.P.B. in 2011 to bolster the safeguards for consumer financial products like bank accounts and mortgages, and only Congress can abolish it.
On April 11, the appeals court’s panel unanimously threw out parts of Judge Jackson’s decision, ruling the consumer bureau’s leaders could lay workers off if they decided, after a careful evaluation, that specific employees were not needed to carry out the agency’s legally mandated tasks.
Days later, Mr. Vought’s team sent termination notices to all but 200 workers.
Judge Jackson again blocked the firings and ordered a hearing to determine if the careful assessment required by the appeals court had actually taken place. The government asked the appellate court to cancel Judge Jackson’s hearing and permit the layoffs to go forward.
In recent days, a union representing the bureau staff filed hundreds of pages of internal agency records and employee testimonials to the district court illustrating Trump officials’ hurry to fire workers and predicting that the layoffs would obliterate the agency’s ability to operate.
Members of Mr. Vought’s team have maintained in court papers that they did complete the court-ordered assessment and stood by the conclusion that the agency could function with just 10 percent of its staff.
Citing those “ongoing disputes,” the appellate panel on Monday said it had decided to preserve Judge Jackson’s temporary ban on layoffs until at least May 16, when the appeals court is scheduled to hear oral arguments. That will ensure the bureau’s union and other suing parties “can receive meaningful final relief” if they prevail in court, the judges wrote.
Judge Jackson canceled her hearing, which was to be held on Tuesday, and said she would take no further action on the case until the appeals court ruled.
Judges Gregory G. Katsas, who was appointed to the appellate court by President Trump during his first term, and Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, joined the majority ruling. Judge Neomi Rao, another Trump appointee, dissented.
Bureau workers celebrated the temporary reprieve. “Once again, C.F.P.B. workers have fought back against this administration’s attacks on our consumer protection mission,” Cat Farman, the staff union’s president, said in a written statement.
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