Elon Musk again criticizes Trump’s spending bill and says a new one should be drafted – live

Elon Musk further criticizes Trump’s spending bill, saying a new one should be drafted

Elon Musk, who only days ago left his role in Donald Trump’s administration, continues his onslaught of attacks on the president’s spending bill working its way through Congress, saying on social media that a new one should be drafted.

He wrote on his X platform:

A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS.

In a phrase he repeats in several posts from today, the billionaire said:

America is in the fast lane to debt slavery.

It comes only a day after Musk blasted the bill as a “disgusting abomination”. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” he wrote on X yesterday.

He had previously said he was “disappointed” by the bill, which in adding $2.4tn to the budget deficit would “undermine” the work of his Doge federal cost-cutting team.

Key events

Richard Luscombe

Conservatives on a state college board reversed a decision to hire the experienced academic Santa Ono to lead the University of Florida, despite his efforts to distance himself from previous support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and past criticism of Donald Trump.

The 10-6 vote followed a contentious meeting of the Florida board of governors on Tuesday when members argued over Ono’s record, including accusations he failed to protect Jewish students during pro-Palestinian protests last year while he was president of the University of Michigan.

The rejection came a week after UF trustees voted unanimously to appoint him as the 14th president of the state’s third-largest university at a salary of $1.5m. It also followed what some critics saw as an attempt by Ono to “clean up” his record.

His name was quietly removed last month from a letter signed by more than 600 university presidents accusing the Trump administration of unprecedented interference in academic institutions. Ono wrote an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed in May explaining why he no longer believed DEI on campus represented equal opportunities for students.

“Over time, I saw how DEI became something else – more about ideology, division and bureaucracy, not student success,” Ono wrote, taking credit for eliminating university DEI offices in Michigan.

“Combating antisemitism has [also] been a priority throughout my career. I’ve worked closely with Jewish students, faculty and community leaders to ensure that campuses are places of respect, safety and inclusion for all.”

At least one governor in Tuesday’s board meeting in Tallahassee was skeptical of Ono’s shifting views. And a number of conservative figures in Florida, where the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has led an assault on what he sees as “woke ideology” on campuses, were previously critical of Ono’s nomination.

They pointed to, among other issues, Ono’s previous support for DEI efforts, and a claim he was slow to respond to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus in April and May last year. The university has since taken a particularly harsh approach to cracking down on the protests.

Fox News has some more detail about the notice the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights sent to the accrediting body that audits Columbia University, notifying it that the Ivy League school is currently failing to meet its standards for accreditation. Accreditors determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and Pell grants.

Per Fox News’s story:

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE), which is a recognized accrediting body for degree-granting higher education institutions across the mid-Atlantic, ensures that its member schools – such as Columbia – meet established standards of academic quality, integrity, institutional effectiveness and more. MSCHE is one of several accrediting institutions across the country that the Department of Education deems reliable.

Only institutions accredited by Department of Education-recognized accreditors are eligible to participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs, such as Pell Grants and federal work-study or student loan programs.

Education secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement:

Accreditors have an enormous public responsibility as gatekeepers of federal student aid. They determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and Pell Grants. Just as the Department of Education has an obligation to uphold federal antidiscrimination law, university accreditors have an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards.

We look forward to the Commission keeping the Department fully informed of actions taken to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards, including compliance with federal civil rights laws.

The notice marks the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s bid to beat Columbia into line because of what it alleges is the college’s failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment.

It follows the cancellation of $400m in federal grants and contracts, after which the university yielded to a series of changes demanded by the administration, including setting up a new disciplinary committee, initiating investigations into students critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, and reassigning control of its Middle East Studies department.

Columbia has been the epicenter of a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movement that roiled US campuses over the last year and a half.

The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services said last month that an investigation found that the university had acted with “deliberate indifference” towards the harassment of Jewish students during campus protests.

Columbia failed to meet accreditation standards by violating federal anti-discrimination laws, US government says

The Department of Education said it has notified Columbia University’s accreditor of a violation of federal anti-discrimination laws by the Ivy League school.

This violation, the department said, means that Columbia has failed to meet the standards of accreditation set by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

The university did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.

Trump administration considering $1,000 fee to fast-track tourist visas – Reuters

The Trump administration is considering a $1,000 fee for tourists and other non-immigrant visa applicants seeking an expedited interview appointment though government lawyers have raised legal red flags over the plan, according to an official and an internal state department memo.

Individuals entering the US on tourist and other non-immigrant visas already pay a $185 processing fee. The new $1,000 option the US is considering would be a premium service that allows some people to jump to the front of the line for visa interviews.

The program could arrive in pilot form as soon as December, the memo reviewed by Reuters said.

The proposed fee for visa appointments, which has not been previously reported, comes alongside Donald Trump’s vision of a “gold card” that would sell US citizenship for $5m, granting faster access to those willing to pay.

But the state department’s legal team said there was a “high risk” it would be rejected by the White House budget office or struck down in US courts, the memo said. Setting a fee above the cost to provide the service “is contrary to settled supreme court precedent”, the memo said.

A state department spokesperson said the department does not comment on internal documents and communications.

“The department’s scheduling of non-immigrant visa interview appointments is dynamic and we are continually working to improve our operations worldwide,” the spokesperson said.

State department shifts $250m from refugee aid to ‘self-deportations’

The state department has moved $250m to the Department of Homeland Security for voluntary deportations by migrants without legal status, a spokesperson said, in an unprecedented repurposing of funds that have been used to aid refugees uprooted by war and natural disasters.

The money has been transferred “to provide a free flight home and an exit bonus to encourage and assist illegal aliens to voluntarily depart the United States”, the state department spokesperson told Reuters.

Historically, those funds have been used “to provide protection to vulnerable people” overseas and to resettle refugees in the US, said Elizabeth Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary of state.

The state department’s planned reorganization explicitly states that the agency’s refugee bureau now largely will focus on efforts to “return illegal aliens to their country of origin or legal status”.

The funds came from Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) overseen by the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration. Its website says its mission is to “reduce illegal immigration”, aid people “fleeing persecution, crisis or violence and seek durable solutions for forcibly displaced people”.

Deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau, citing the law authorizing the funding, said in a 7 May Federal Register notice that underwriting the repatriation of people without legal status will bolster the “foreign policy interests” of the US.

He did not mention the $250m transfer to DHS.

The DHS did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Trump’s administration has encouraged migrants to leave “voluntarily” by threatening steep fines and deporting migrants to notorious prisons in Guantánamo Bay and El Salvador. On 9 May, Trump announced ‘Project Homecoming’, an initiative overseen by DHS that offers $1,000 stipends and travel assistance to migrants who “self-deport”.

DHS said in a 19 May news release that 64 people had “opted to self deport” to Honduras and Colombia on a charter flight under the program.
Some experts said that while legal, sending the money to DHS for deportation operations was an unprecedented use of MRA funds.

The main purpose of the funds historically has been “to provide refugee and displacement assistance, refugee processing and resettlement to the US, and respond to urgent and emerging humanitarian crises – not to return those very people to the harm or persecution they fled,” said Meredith Owen Edwards, senior director of Policy and Advocacy at the Refugee Council USA.

Elon Musk further criticizes Trump’s spending bill, saying a new one should be drafted

He wrote on his X platform:

A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS.

In a phrase he repeats in several posts from today, the billionaire said:

America is in the fast lane to debt slavery.

He had previously said he was “disappointed” by the bill, which in adding $2.4tn to the budget deficit would “undermine” the work of his Doge federal cost-cutting team.

Trump says he agrees with Elizabeth Warren that debt limit should be eliminated

Donald Trump has said the nation’s debt ceiling should be eliminated, saying he agreed with Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren’s view on the subject.

“The Debt Limit should be entirely scrapped to prevent an Economic catastrophe. It is too devastating to be put in the hands of political people that may want to use it despite the horrendous effect it could have on our Country,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The GOP is looking to raise the debt ceiling as part of the party’s broader tax and spending cuts package to enact Trump’s domestic agenda.

Warren on Friday backed Trump’s call to abolish the nation’s debt ceiling, pressing for bipartisan action to “get rid of it forever”. She posted on X that she and Trump agree that the debt limit, which caps how much money the Treasury can owe to pay the country’s bills, should “be scrapped to prevent an economic catastrophe”.

However, she also added in a jab to the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” that “jacking up the debt limit by $4tn to fund more tax breaks for billionaires is an outrage”.

Here’s Trump’s full post, which was posted alongside a screenshot of that X post from Warren:

I am very pleased to announce that, after all of these years, I agree with Senator Elizabeth Warren on SOMETHING. The Debt Limit should be entirely scrapped to prevent an Economic catastrophe. It is too devastating to be put in the hands of political people that may want to use it despite the horrendous effect it could have on our Country and, indirectly, even the World. As to Senator Warren’s second statement on the $4 Trillion Dollars, I like that also, but it would have to be done over a period of time, as short as possible. Let’s get together, Republican and Democrat, and DO THIS!

Ukraine has released dramatic edited footage of its drone attack on four Russian military airbases in Operation Spiderweb, which was 18 months in the making, and involved the use of remotely operated drones from Ukrainian territory.

Russian planes and jets were targeted on runways across Russia and destroyed by the Ukrainian drones. Scenes of carnage were visible from the first-person view footage, with Russian planes engulfed in balls of fire.

Ukraine releases dramatic FPV footage of drone attack on Russian airbases – video

The drone attacks carried out by Ukraine in Operation Spiderweb destroyed billions of dollars worth of Russian aircraft stationed at bases across the country, including at locations as far away as Siberia, in what Kyiv claims is its longest-range assault of the war.

The spectacular operation was prepared in secret over 18 months. Ukraine’s agents moved short-range drones and explosives inside Russia before they were launched remotely for a coordinated strike on Sunday that was intended to strike at Moscow’s air superiority.

Drones were smuggled into Russia and placed inside containers, which were later loaded on to trucks. With the trucks positioned near Russian bases, the roof panels of the containers were lifted off by a remotely activated mechanism, allowing the drones to fly out and begin their attack. The drones had first-person view, or FPV, technology that allowed them to be operated remotely, probably from Ukrainian territory.

Attempting to launch drones from Ukraine would have been much harder, as they would have had to cover huge distances and avoid Russia’s air defences.

The White House confirmed yesterday that Donald Trump had no advance knowledge of the attack. He also hadn’t commented on it publicly until this afternoon’s call with Vladimir Putin.

Here’s a visual guide to the operation from my colleagues:

Trump says Putin told him Russia ‘will have to respond’ to Ukraine drone attacks

Donald Trump has said that he has just discussed the recent drone attacks by Ukraine on Russia and developments concerning Iran in a phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin that lasted over an hour.

During the conversation, Putin told Trump that Russia will have to respond to the Ukrainian drone attacks, the US president said. “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace,” he said in a Truth Social Post.

Putin had said “very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields” – referring to ‘Operation Spiderweb’, which saw Ukrainian agents move drones and explosives deep inside Russia to strike four airbases – Trump said.

He also said that Putin had suggested he may participate in talks with Iran to try to get a nuclear deal done. Trump said: “I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement.”

Here’s the full post:

I just finished speaking, by telephone, with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia. The call lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes. We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides. It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields. We also discussed Iran, and the fact that time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly! I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement. President Putin suggested that he will participate in the discussions with Iran and that he could, perhaps, be helpful in getting this brought to a rapid conclusion. It is my opinion that Iran has been slowwalking their decision on this very important matter, and we will need a definitive answer in a very short period of time!

Analysis: Germany on tenterhooks for Merz’s first official meeting with Trump

Kate Connolly

Germany’s new conservative leader, Friedrich Merz, is due in Washington tomorrow for his first official meeting with Donald Trump, putting political Berlin on tenterhooks like no other transatlantic encounter in living memory.

Discussions between the German chancellor and the US president will focus on Ukraine, the Middle East and trade policies. How well or badly the talks go – during a small group meeting, followed by a lunch and then, perhaps most nail-bitingly, a press conference in the Oval Office – may shape relations for decades to come, analysts say.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz will meet Donald Trump at the White House tomorrow. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Having reportedly spoken by phone four times since Merz’s election win in February, swapped numbers and exchanged an undisclosed number of text messages, the two leaders are now on first-name terms.

But Merz knows the road to a normal friendship is thorny. The transatlantic relationship has been altered almost beyond recognition since Trump’s return to office, and the shock “sits very deep”, said Mariam Lau, a journalist and the author of a new in-depth portrayal of Merz. She went on:

It’s the equivalent of a medical emergency in political terms: the speed and degree to which the Merz government has had to react to the disintegration of the transatlantic alliance, one of its main foreign policy pillars, is like being forced to undergo dialysis or an organ transplantation.

Berlin has viewed as menacing and dangerous the unprecedented interference in German politics by leading members of the Trump administration – by his former adviser Elon Musk; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and the vice-president, JD Vance, in particular. There is the lack of unity over how and even whether to punish Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine, there are tensions over defence spending levels, and there are diverging viewpoints over the Middle East, and over Trump’s looming tariffs.

Indeed nobody in Berlin is resting on their laurels. As to just how quickly leaders’ inaugural visits to the Oval Office can curdle, one only needs to recall Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s lions’ den encounter three months ago, or more recently the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s. It has not gone unnoticed that Merz called the latter last Friday, reportedly to pick up a few Trump-whisperer tips.

Lau said Merz would have to “walk a tightrope between keeping an open dialogue with Trump and standing up to him, not giving into his whims”. And Merz is said to have been coached on an array of eventualities and is armed, rhetorically at least. Merz knows that keeping things brief, not interrupting, heaping praise and stressing the commonalities is the accepted playbook when dealing with Trump.

NOAA ‘fully staffed’ with forecasters and scientists, US commerce secretary says

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has told a Senate hearing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is “fully staffed” with weather forecasters and scientists after concerns were raised about some offices losing 24-hour staffing ahead of hurricane season.

“We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched,” Lutnick told a Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing NOAA, saying he got the National Weather Service (NWS) exempted from a federal hiring freeze.

NOAA, which includes the NWS, lost around 1,000 people or 10% of its workforce amid federal job layoffs in the first months of the second Trump administration, including 600 at the weather service. At least six NWS offices had stopped the routine twice-a-day weather balloon launches that collect data for weather models.

The US hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. NOAA forecast last week that this year’s season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.

The agency had been scrambling to reassign staffers internally to fill gaps in understaffed offices over the last few months, sources told Reuters.

Lutnick told the committee that they are going to fill these positions and focus on cutting programs that he said were not part of NOAA’s mission, including “children’s books about climate anxiety”.

An internal memo seen by Reuters said that NOAA plans to hire 126 mission-critical positions at the National Weather Service including forecasters, radar technicians, hydrologists and physical scientists that will be advertised externally.

Congress budget office sees economic output falling from Trump tariffs

US economic output will fall as a result of Donald Trump’s new tariffs on foreign goods that were in place as of 13 May, while also reducing federal budget deficits by $2.8tn over a decade, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said.

Reuters reports that in a letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and two other high-ranking Democrats, the CBO said the tariffs, which have been challenged in court cases, will raise the costs of consumer and capital goods.

“CBO estimates that, on net, real (inflation-adjusted) economic output in the United States will fall as a result,” the agency said.

“Inflation will increase by an annual average of 0.4 percentage points in 2025 and 2026, in CBO’s estimation, reducing the purchasing power of households and businesses,” the letter to Schumer and senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley stated.

Wyden is the senior Democrat on the Senate finance committee and Merkley is the ranking Democrat on the Senate budget committee. The three senators requested the CBO analysis on the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs implemented between 6 January and 13 May through executive actions.

The CBO’s inflation estimates were compared to an economic outlook published by the CBO on 17 January.

The analysis was completed before two courts ruled that the tariffs exceeded the president’s authority to impose them. The administration has asked an appeals court to pause one of the rulings.

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Elon Musk again criticizes Trump’s spending bill and says a new one should be drafted – live | Trump administration

Elon Musk further criticizes Trump’s spending bill, saying a new one should be drafted

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