Trump refuses to rule out recession or clarify tariffs policy in Fox interview: Live updates

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has appointed new leadership at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the agency grapples with President Donald Trump’s declared objective of large-scale deportation operations targeting immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status.

Data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, first reported by Reuters last month, shows that Trump’s administration deported 37,660 people during his first month in office, which is significantly lower than the monthly average of 57,000 removals and returns in the last full year of Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump made the promise to deport millions of people from the United States a central focus of his campaign. Last month, Caleb Vitello, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was reassigned for not meeting expectations, as previously reported by Reuters.

Noem announced she is promoting Todd Lyons, the acting executive associate director of ICE, to serve as the agency’s acting director, and Madison Sheahan, the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, to act as deputy director.

“I am appointing new ICE leadership to deliver results that President Trump and the American people rightfully demand,” Noem said in a statement, adding that Lyons and Sheahan would “lead the men and women of ICE to achieve the American people’s mandate to target, arrest and deport illegal aliens.”

With reporting from Reuters

George Conway has weighed in on President Donald Trump’s threats to the legal profession with some questions for law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.

Are you proud of representing this felon on his criminal appeal?

Why do you think he deserves legal representation when he’s trying to prevent others from getting representation through the corrupt abuse of official power?

What are you going to do if—more likely, *when*—he orders his administration to stop obeying court orders, just he’s now ordering it to stop obeying various statutes and constitutional provisions?

Will you be proud of having represented the man who will have thus shredded the rule of law?

There was a bizarre moment for international diplomacy on X today when Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s minister of foreign affairs, responded to a tweet from Elon Musk.

In response to a comment on a previous post that Vladimir Putin should be recognized as the aggressor in the Ukraine conflict, Musk posted in part: “I literally challenged Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine and my Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.”

Sikorski then quote-tweeted: “Starlinks for Ukraine are paid for by the Polish Digitization Ministry at the cost of about $50 million per year.”

He added: “The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers.”

Musk responded: “Be quiet, small man. You pay a tiny fraction of the cost. And there is no substitute for Starlink.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also got in on the conversation, tweeting in response to Sikorski’s post: “Just making things up. No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink.”

“And say thank you because without Starlink Ukraine would have lost this war long ago and Russians would be on the border with Poland right now.”

Sikorski quickly responded: “Thank you, Marco, for confirming that the brave soldiers of Ukraine can count on the vital internet service provided jointly by 🇺🇸 and🇵🇱.”

“Together, Europe and the United States can help 🇺🇦 to achieve a just peace.”

Shares in Franco-British satellite operator Eutelsat soared as much as 650% during the week ending March 7, due to speculation the company could replace Starlink in providing internet access to Ukraine.

The shares pulled back on Friday to end the week up around 380%.

The State Department is reportedly planning to use artificial intelligence to “catch and revoke” the visas of foreign students who officials perceive as supporting Hamas and other designated terror groups, according to Axios.

Michelle Del Rey reports.

The US president sat down for an interview with Fox News and reacted to criticism of his conduct during an Oval Office meeting with the Ukrainian leader more than a week ago in which Trump and Vice President JD Vance appeared to gang up on the European leader.

On Sunday, Trump reiterated that he thought Zelensky wasn’t “grateful” and added that he “took candy from a baby” — his description of the Biden administration’s policy of military and political support for Ukraine’s military.

John Bowden reports from Washington, D.C.

Over on CNN’s State of the Union, Jake Tapper pressed Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott on Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, asking: “Are you comfortable with Republican elected officials basically going to beg the richest man in the world, an unelected, un-Senate-confirmed person, to have to save American jobs? Is that OK with you?”

Needless to say, he did not get an answer to his question.

Here’s his answer, as clipped by the White House, without the preceding question: “People are fed up with wasteful government spending. We’ve had a 2% increase in population in five years and a 53% increase in spending. We will not get interest rates down, we will not get inflation under control until we balance the budget.”

Ultimate Fighting Championship president and Donald Trump ally Dana White was seen at an event in Las Vegas on Friday warmly greeting Andrew and Tristan Tate, controversial right-wing influencers accused of human trafficking and other abuses across the U.S., the U.K., and Romania.

In an appearance on MSNBC this morning, Rep Jamie Raskin said he believed it should have been President Donald Trump censured by Congress following his speech on Tuesday, rather than Democratic Rep Al Green for his protest.

Said Raskin: “Really, if we were censuring anyone, it should’ve been Donald Trump, who I don’t think had been back to our chamber since he incited a violence insurrection against us. And then he used his pulpit in order to call a sitting member of the Senate ‘Pocahontas.’”

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett expressed hope on Sunday that the dispute with Canada regarding the allegations of deadly fentanyl opioid entering the U.S. through its northern border could be resolved by the end of March.

His remarks on ABC News’s This Week suggest that tariffs, which President Donald Trump is set to reimpose at the end of the month, may be delayed further.

Hassett tried to assert that the on-again, off-again tariffs imposed by Trump on Canada reflect the president’s concerns over drug smuggling.

“We launched a drug war, not a trade war,” he said. “We’ve got the drug war, which we’re hopefully going to solve by the end of the month.”

In reality, Canada accounts for a tiny fraction of drug smuggling into the United States, and it wasn’t immediately clear what progress Hassett was referencing.

Hassett, who leads the White House’s National Economic Council, further confused the issue when he later referred in the interview to America’s “trade war.”

Democratic U.S. Senator Adam Schiff from California, who followed Hassett on ABC, described the adviser’s comments as “incomprehensible.”

“I was just listening to your guest trying to explain that these on-again off-again tariffs are not about trade. It’s a drug war, but next month it’s a trade war, but now it’s a drug war. It was incomprehensible. And he was also trying to say that jobs numbers that came in less than expected are somehow good news. They’re destroying the economy … that’s where we need to keep the focus,” said Schiff.

With reporting from Reuters