Trump establishes ‘digital Fort Knox’ for bitcoin but crypto markets slump in response: Live updates

We heard a short while ago about John Kennedy’s “worries” about the president’s stop-start trade war with his nation’s biggest trading partners.

Here’s James Liddell on the other GOP members tentatively expressing unease.

Before the president’s threat to Russia, he was busy on Truth Social rebuking South Africa for allegedly confiscating white farmers’ land, announcing that the State Department was suspending all American aid and offering displaced landowners “a rapid pathway” to American citizenship (presumably without charging them $5 million).

This is an issue the president seems to have taken an interest in since befriending Elon Musk and has been raising periodically of late, although South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected claims that the country’s new land law is being exploited to discriminate against Afrikaaners as misinformation.

Trump followed that just now by quoting Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers union, backing his tariff actions as a “necessary” corrective.

The president has announced he is “strongly considering large-scale sanctions” and tariffs on Russia until a peace deal can be agreed as punishment for the aggressor “pounding” Ukraine with missile strikes overnight.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump declared: “Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.

“To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now, before it is too late. Thank you!!!”

This was Volodymyr Zelensky’s harrowing account of the attacks a little while earlier:

The network has filed a motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit over former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview last year, calling the suit an “affront to the First Amendment without basis in law or fact.”

The president had previously claimed the outlet edited the interview in such a way as to attempt to make him look bad to voters, allegedly contributing to “voter interference.”

He filed the lawsuit in October, months before taking office, prompting CBS to publicly release the unedited video of Harris last month in a bid to demonstrate there was nothing unusual or manipulative in the editing.

Michelle Del Rey has the latest.

House Republicans won’t be able to reach their budget target needed to pass the Trump agenda without major cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed on Wednesday.

Last week, House Republicans took on a budget plan that aims to pass Trump’s agenda on immigration, energy and taxes.

It orders the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending by $880 billion.

The CBO, a nonpartisan federal agency that provides budget and economic information to Congress, noted that when Medicare is taken off the table, the funding governed by the committee amounts to $8.8 trillion over 10 years.

Medicaid makes up 93 percent of that, or $8.2 trillion.

Here’s more from Gustaf Kilander.

Louisiana’s ever-folksy John Kennedy cautiously expresses some disquiet in this interview with former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow on Fox Business.

Patrick Brazeau, 50, a controversial Quebec-based lawmaker, took to X on Thursday to challenge Trump’s eldest son to a charity bout.

“In light of these bogus tariffs from President Trump from the U.S. onto Canada, I challenge you to a fight to raise money for cancer research or an organization of your choosing”, Brazeau wrote to Don Jr.

Here’s more from Madeline Sherratt.

That’s an increase on January and a decent showing amid a climate of DOGE-backed federal layoffs.

Here’s the latest from Rhian Lubin.

Nearly half of the country’s attorneys general sued the Trump administration over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s mass firings of federal workers.

The AGs accuse the administration of terminating tens of thousands of probationary employees without first following federal regulations, including a 60-day advance notice to affected employees and states.

“These large-scale, indiscriminate firings are not only subjecting the Plaintiff States and communities across the country to chaos. They are also against the law,” the suit filed on Thursday says.

“Where an agency fails to provide such notice, the employees ‘may not be released.’”

Here’s the latest from Kelly Rissman.

The late night host roasted the president for falsely claiming, during his address to Congress on Tuesday evening that the U.S. government spent $8m on making mice “transgender”.

Here’s Greg Evans on Kimmel.