Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: Trump’s shock-and-awe presidency rolls on

Trump’s shock-and-awe presidency rolls on

Apr 25, 2025

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THE CATCH-UP

STUPID GAMES, STUPID PRIZES: “George Santos, who conned his way to Congress before getting booted, sentenced to more than 7 years in prison,” by POLITICO’s Erica Orden

Kash Patel testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The FBI arrested a Milwaukee County judge for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest. | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

SHOCK: The FBI this morning arrested a Milwaukee County judge for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest, Director Kash Patel announced in a since-deleted post on X.

What he said: “Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin on charges of obstruction — after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” Patel wrote.

To say the least: “The department’s apparent arrest of a state judge is a remarkable escalation of the administration’s battle with the judiciary,” POLITICO’s Amanda Friedman writes. “It was not immediately clear why the post from Patel was deleted.” Though DOJ did not respond to a request for comment, a U.S. Marshals Service spox confirmed the arrest.

Donald Trump speaks from the Oval Office.

The Trump administration is reversing the abrupt terminations of foreign students’ U.S. visa registrations. | Alex Brandon/AP

AWE: In a surprising wholesale reversal, the Justice Department moved to restore the thousands of terminated student visa registrations for foreign students studying in the U.S. who had minor — and often dismissed — legal infractions, POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report.

How we got here: DOJ announced the move in court this morning “after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges who deemed the mass termination of students from a federal database — used by universities and the federal government to track foreign students in the U.S. — as flagrantly illegal.”

STRAIGHT FROM THE SOURCE: As we approach President Donald Trump’s milestone 100 days in office, the president granted an extensive sit-down interview with Time’s Eric Cortellessa in the Oval Office to talk about the first three months of his second administration and upheaval that it has brought to Washington and beyond.

The stepback: “The first 100 days of his second term have been among the most destabilizing in American history, a blitz of power grabs, strategic shifts, and direct attacks that have left opponents, global counterparts, and even many supporters stunned,” Cortellessa writes, positing later: “It’s possible that Trump, 100 days in, is at the peak of his power. A resistance … is stirring to life.”

The highlights, in Trump’s own words:

— On tariffs: Trump said he would consider it a “total victory” if high tariffs are still in place a year from now, because “the country will be making a fortune.” As for the “90 deals in 90 days” that his administration forecast: “I’ve made 200 deals,” Trump declared. Pressed on that eye-popping figure, he doubled down with: “100%.” As Cortellessa pointed out to Trump, zero such deals have been announced. Trump predicted they will all be rolled out “over the next three to four weeks.”

— On China: Trump said he does not plan to call Chinese President Xi Jinping, though he claimed his oft-adversarial counterpart has reached out to him already. “He's called. And I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf.” However, Chinese officials continue to insist that no talks have taken place.

— On the Supreme Court: Trump stood by his administration’s decision to not press for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. from Venezuela, despite the justices’ order that it should “facilitate” his return. “I really give that to my lawyers to determine, that’s why I have them,” Trump said. He did, however, indicate that it “wouldn’t bother me” to bring Garcia back to the U.S. to retry him. “At this moment, [the lawyers] just don’t want to do that. They say we’re in total compliance with the Supreme Court.”

Speaking of … The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff reports today that the administration in the days after the revelation of the error that led to Garcia’s deportation, “instead of trying to foreclose Abrego Garcia’s return, officials looked for ways to bring him home. They puzzled over the fragmentary evidence tying him to gang membership. And they worried about his safety in a prison where he could be targeted for attack.”

Rapid fire:

— Would he veto a bill from Republicans that cuts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? “I would veto it, yeah. But they’re not going to do that.”

— Would he sign a bill banning congressional stock trading? “If they send that to me … Absolutely.”

— Will data gathered by DOGE from the IRS be used to target migrants for deportations? “Not that I know of, no.” (For the record: the acting IRS chief resigned earlier this month over a deal to send immigrants’ data to ICE “for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S.,” AP’s Fatima Hussein reported.)

— Why did Russia’s war in Ukraine not end on Day One of his presidency, as he promised? “I said that as an exaggeration … Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest.”

— Will he actually run for a third term? “I’d rather not discuss that now, but as you know, there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known. But I don't believe in loopholes. I don't believe in using loopholes.”

Read the full transcript here … browse Time’s fact-checking companion here … see the cover here … read the story behind the story, from Time EIC Sam Jacobs

Happy Friday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at gross@politico.com.

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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. IMMIGRATION FILES: Trump’s immigration agenda was performing fairly well with voters in the early weeks of his second presidency, but a new WaPo-ABC-Ipsos poll out today shows his policies are slipping among the public, “a sign that his administration’s hard-line and, in some cases, legally dubious enforcement tactics are losing public support,” WaPo’s David Nakamura, Emily Guskin, Scott Clement and Arelis Hernández write.

The data: “A majority of Americans, 53 percent, disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, with 46 percent approving, a reversal from February when half of the public voiced approval of his approach. Negative views have ticked up across partisan groups over the past two months, with 90 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of independents and 11 percent of Republicans now disapproving of the way the president has managed one of his core policy issues.”

Try, try again: The ACLU is mounting another effort to protect the roughly 140 men “who are already in El Salvador, having been deported there under the [Alien Enemies Act] more than a month ago,” NYT’s Alan Feuer writes. “Lawyers for the group filed an updated version of a lawsuit they brought against President Trump’s use of the [act] on March 15, the first that challenged his invocation of the law. This time, [they’re] asking a federal judge in Washington not to stop the men from being sent to El Salvador, but rather to help them return to U.S. soil.”

2. COMING SOON ON CAPITOL HILL: When lawmakers return to the Hill next week, Republicans will put pen to paper on Trump’s domestic policy agenda — one “big, beautiful” bill — but it could also hand Democrats a big target to hang their attacks on, POLITICO’s Nick Wu writes. As House committees prep for a series of meetings advancing individual portions of the megabill, Democrats are “mapping out a committee-by-committee fight.”

The tactics: “They’re planning to force a plethora of votes, aiming to put vulnerable House Republicans on the record regarding some of the most controversial pieces of the GOP agenda. They’re eyeing likely changes to Medicaid in the Energy and Commerce Committee and food assistance in the Agriculture Committee as particularly ripe avenues for attack, not to mention tax provisions in Ways and Means.”

3. FOR PETE’S SAKE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reliance on his personal cellphone seems to cause more concern among the cyber community every day. The latest drop of news finds that Hegseth’s personal number was “easily accessible on the internet and public apps as recently as March,” NYT’s Helene Cooper, Julian Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Christiaan Triebert report. “The phone number could be found in a variety of places, including WhatsApp, Facebook and a fantasy sports site.”

The big problem: “Cybersecurity analysts said an American defense secretary’s communications device would usually be among the most protected national security assets. ‘There’s zero percent chance that someone hasn’t tried to install Pegasus or some other spyware on his phone,’ Mike Casey, the former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview. ‘He is one of the top five, probably, most targeted people in the world for espionage.’”

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4. HOW IT’S PLAYING: “American Consumers Serve Up Bleak Outlook on Economy,” by WSJ’s Harriet Torry: “American households ended April feeling much worse about the economy than they did in March, according to a closely watched measure of consumer sentiment. The University of Michigan said Friday that its final index of consumer sentiment for April was 52.2, down from 57 in March. … A separate index measuring consumers’ expectations for the future was down 32% since January. The survey said that was the steepest three-month percentage decline since the 1990 recession.”

5. FOR YOUR RADAR: The DNC is “ramping up its fight with the GOP over voting rights, urging the Supreme Court to reject Republicans’ efforts to limit provisional voting in Pennsylvania,” POLITICO’s Holly Otterbein reports. “The brief, first shared with POLITICO, argues that the high court lacks jurisdiction to hear the case and that doing so would burden the court with requests to take up ‘any and every state-law election’ dispute in the future. The Republican National Committee is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a decision by Pennsylvania’s highest court that allows voters to use provisional ballots if their mail ballots have been rejected.”

6. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: “China quietly exempts some U.S.-made semiconductors from tariffs,” by WaPo’s Christian Shepherd, Vic Chiang and Katrina Northrop: “Levies on at least eight classifications of U.S.-made microchips have been dropped to zero, instead of the 125 percent retaliatory tariff rate Beijing has imposed on all other U.S. goods, Caijing, a Chinese financial media outlet, reported Friday. The article was later deleted. But two importers who spoke to The Washington Post confirmed that certain semiconductors are exempted from tariffs.”

Related read: “China speeds ahead on electric vehicles as Trump pulls back incentives,” by WaPo’s Evan Halper

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TALK OF THE TOWN

Don’t forget to send us all the best moments and pieces of gossip you pick up during White House Correspondents Dinner weekend: If you spot something or someone noteworthy, email us at playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. (Don’t worry, all tips will be anonymous!)

OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at Meridian International Center and NOTUS/Allbritton Journalism Institute's Fourth Annual Press Pass Party last night: Robert and Elena Allbritton, Stuart and Gwen Holliday, Costa Rican Ambassador Catalina Crespo-Sancho, French Ambassador Laurent Bili, Luxembourg Ambassador Nicole Bintner-Bakshian, Slovenian Ambassador Iztok Mirošič, Panamanian Ambassador Ana Irene Delgado, EU Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė, Pablo Zambrano, Paolo Zampolli, Teresa Carlson and Andre Pienaar, Marek Walkuski, Kylie Atwood, Geoff Bennett, Jessica Dean, Josh Eastright, Fred Hochberg, Jim Acosta and Liz Landers, Sam Feist, Lisa Shoemaker, Maryam Mujica, Anna Palmer, Johanna Persing, Vivian Salama, Tim Grieve, Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka, Jasmine Wright, Margaret Taylor, Danielle Burr, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Sam Tatevosyan, Steven Thomma, Omar Vargas, Christina Sevilla, Puru Trivedi, Riley Nelson, Danielle Najjar, Brad Bosserman, Indira Lakshmanan, Ben and Ashley Chang, Gordon Sondland and Arielle Elliott.

— The Human Rights Campaign Foundation held its Guardians of Truth Awards in D.C. last night, honoring three LGBTQ+ journalists — MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, Axios’ Ina Fried and Queer News Daily’s Nico Lang — for their “fierce commitment to telling the truth and representing the LGBTQ+ community with authenticity.” SPOTTED: Rebecca Kutler, Eugene Daniels, Devin Dwyer, Christopher Wiggins, Orion Rummler, Mariel Sáez, Josh Sorbe and Aaron White.

— Axios and OpenAI hosted a reception at the International Spy Museum rooftop terrace last night. SPOTTED: Michael Kratsios, Kevin Weil, Jon Karl, Ali Vitali, Mike Inacay, Zac Moffatt, Ron Bonjean, Kara Voght, Alex Pfeiffer, Katie Miller, Leland Vittert, Rick Klein, Justin Sink, Dylan Byers, Michael Steele, Andrew Bleeker, Marshall Cohen, Kara Swisher, Charli Huddleston, Lauren French, Chan Park, Hannah Wong, Matt Rimkunas, Liz Bourgeois, Sasha Baker, Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, Chris Gustafson and Alex and Caitlin Conant.

TRANSITIONS — Anthony Reyes is now senior economic policy analyst at the Committee for Economic Development, the public policy center of The Conference Board. He previously was acting deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative in the Biden administration. … Matheo Vidal is now managing director in the office of the president at the White House Historical Association. He previously was associate director of finance at the Biden White House.

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