Trump selling U.S. citizenship through $5m gold cards to ‘very nice’ oligarchs: Live

Following those court defeats we heard about a little earlier, the DOGE boss lashed out on X and once again called for the judges responsible to be impeached.

The world’s richest man voiced his frustration with America’s centuries-old system of checks and balances.

“The only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges. No one is above the law, including judges,” he huffed.

“That is what it took to fix El Salvador. Same applies to America.”

Here’s more from Kelly Rissman.

Leavitt was also pressed yesterday on The Washington Post’s reporting that deported migrants who were held at the American naval base in Cuba had suffered inhumane treatment.

Here’s Andrew Feinberg on her answer.

The billionaire is not a cabinet secretary but will nevertheless be making an appearance at the president’s first official cabinet meeting on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed yesterday.

She said that Musk would be there because he is working “alongside the president, our cabinet secretaries” and the “entire administration” and would offer an update “about DOGE’s efforts and how all of the cabinet secretaries are identifying waste, fraud and abuse at their respective agencies.”

Rhian Lubin has more.

Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich condemned the White House on Tuesday after it announced that it was seizing power from the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) and would now handpick news outlets that will be allowed to participate in the presidential press pool.

“This move does not give the power back to the people – it gives power to the White House. The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time White House press corps,” Heinrich, who is a board member of the WHCA, tweeted.

“WHCA has determined pools for decades because only representatives FROM our outlets can determine resources all those outlets have – such as staffing – in order to get the President’s message out to the largest possible audience, no matter the day or hour.”

Justin Baragona reports.

The administration was dealt three major setbacks in three separate courtrooms on Tuesday as the president’s agenda faces an avalanche of legal challenges.

Federal judges in Washington, D.C., and Seattle ordered the administration to restart hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for foreign aid, blocked the administration from freezing federal grants and loans and temporarily struck down the president’s executive order suspending refugee admissions.

The decisions were issued within 90 minutes of one another.

In D.C., Joe Biden-appointed District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the administration’s “ill-conceived” freeze on federal grants and loans.

Here’s Alex Woodward with the whole story.

In case you missed this one, Kyiv and Washington have agreed to the terms of a rare earth minerals deal after days of tension between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ukraine is ready to sign the agreement on jointly developing its mineral deposits, including oil and gas, after the U.S. dropped demands to the rights of up to $500bn in revenue from the resources, according to sources close to negotiations.

Trump last week demanded preferential access to the $500bn figure as repayment for Washington’s military support for Ukraine under his predecessor Joe Biden.

Zelensky rejected the proposal as “not serious”, saying there was no factual basis for claiming the U.S. was owed that money, as well as the deal providing Ukraine with no security guarantees.

Alexander Butler has this report.

House Republicans narrowly passed a budget proposal late on Tuesday to implement Trump’s agenda moments after deciding to pull the vote due to apparent GOP holdouts.

House Speaker Mike Johnson could only afford one Republican defector, given the razor-thin margin in the chamber, but Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie was the only one of the four holdouts who ultimately voted against the measure.

Here’s John Bowden on Johnson squeaking through in a chaotic session.

The president announced a new path to U.S. citizenship yesterday: a pricey gold card.

The U.S. is going to “sell” gold cards for $5 million, Trump announced in the Oval Office.

“We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you [permanent resident] Green Card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship,” the president said.

He branded it as “somewhat like a Green Card, but at a higher level of sophistication.”

“Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card,” Trump continued.

“They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. And we think it’s going to be extremely successful and never been done before.”

Asked who exactly would be eligible for the scheme, the president joked: “Hey, I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.

“They are not as wealthy as they used to be; I think they can afford $5 million.”

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick clarified the Trump administration plans to terminate a somewhat similar EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program and “replace it with the Trump gold card.”

Kelly Rissman has more.

This simply has to be seen to be believed:

Elsewhere, the president was dishing out Republican family updates in the style of one of those obnoxious Christmas letters people insist on sending out:

Earlier, he was offering his thoughts on the untapped potential of U.S. copper and the allegedly poor treatment of American tech companies by Europe.

Here’s James Liddell on one of the loopiest videos Trump has ever posted – and that is truly saying something.

As Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to hack and slash at the federal government, 20 of its staff resigned on Tuesday, saying in a joint letter they refused to use their skills to “dismantle critical public services.”

They warned that many of those enlisted by Musk are political ideologues who do not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them, suggesting the chaos we have seen so far is only likely to get worse.

Here’s Rhian Lubin on the prospect of disaffected ex-DOGE employees turning Democrat.