Seventeen tech and finance CEOs to join Trump’s China visit
A White House official tells the Guardian that 17 tech and finance CEOs will join Trump on his visit to China.
Notably, the president’s on-off again ally Elon Musk will be in attendance for the visit to Beijing.
Other business leaders include outgoing CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, as well as Blackrock’s Larry Fink, Dina Powell McCormick of Meta and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg.
Key events
Following Donald Trump’s rejection of Iran’s latest peace deal, and noting that the ceasfire was on “life support” the price of oil spiked again, with Brent Crude – the international benchmark – eventually settling at $104.2 a barrel.
Despite the president saying that the price of fuel in the US will drop as soon as the conflict ends, the average price for a gallon of gas continues to stay above $4.50, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
Joseph Gedeon
Pete Hegseth said he has referred Senator Mark Kelly to Pentagon lawyers for allegedly disclosing classified information about depleted US weapons stockpiles – information Kelly says he heard from the defense secretary, in public, under oath.
Speaking on CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Kelly said American inventories of Tomahawk cruise missiles, Army Tactical Missile Systems, SM-3 interceptors, Thaad rounds and Patriot missiles had been severely drawn down during the Iran conflict, warning that replenishment could take years and leave the US exposed in any future confrontation with China.
Hegseth responded on X, accusing Kelly of disclosing details from a classified Pentagon briefing and saying the department’s legal counsel would review whether the senator had violated his oath.
“Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received,” Hegseth wrote on social media. “Did he violate his oath…again?”
Kelly then countered that the information didn’t come from a classified press briefing, but rather from Hegseth’s own mouth while at a late April Senate briefing on the Pentagon’s future budget and war with Iran.
“That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you,” Kelly wrote. “This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is.”
The exchange did indeed happen between the two men on 30 April at the Senate armed services committee hearing conducted in an open session, where Kelly asked Hegseth directly: “How many years will it take to replenish our munitions from Trump’s war in Iran?”
“Months and years,” Hegseth responded. “Fast.”
Schumer says Democrats plan to stymie budget bill that includes funds for Trump ballroom security measures
Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has vowed that Democrats will limit GOP leaders in Congress from passing a budget bill that confers $72bn for federal immigration enforcement, which includes $1bn for security measures for Donald Trump’s ballroom project.
“Democrats will fight the Republicans’ reconciliation bill with every tool we have,” Schumer wrote in a Dear Colleague letter, and noted that lawmakers plan to challenge the legislation by claiming that some of its provisions violate the Byrd rule, and are extraneous and not actually budgetary.
“We will force vote after vote to make the choice unmistakable: will Republicans vote to help American families – to lower costs, to restore savage health care cuts, to roll back cost-spiking tariffs – or will they vote to fund Trump’s gaudy ballroom?” the Senate minority leader added.
Seventeen tech and finance CEOs to join Trump’s China visit
A White House official tells the Guardian that 17 tech and finance CEOs will join Trump on his visit to China.
Notably, the president’s on-off again ally Elon Musk will be in attendance for the visit to Beijing.
Other business leaders include outgoing CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, as well as Blackrock’s Larry Fink, Dina Powell McCormick of Meta and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg.
Trump says diplomatic solution with Iran remains ‘very possible’
Despite earlier saying the ceasefire was “on life support”, Donald Trump said he thought a diplomatic solution with Iran was still achievable and claims he has had a deal with Tehran “four or five times”.
He told reporters:
I think it’s very possible.
Look, I’ve had a deal with them [the Iranians] four or five times. They change their mind.
In line with his usual demeaning of Iran’s leadership, Trump called them “very dishonourable people” and went on to claim he was dealing with the “third level” of Iranian leadership. The “unreasonable” first level is gone, he claimed, and the second level “is more reasonable”.
“The third level,” he continued, “nobody wants to be president, you know? They say ‘who wants to be president?’ Nobody raises their hand.”
It’s unclear who Trump is referring to when he makes these comments because, as you will know, Iran has a president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Back to the prospect of a deal, Trump added:
You know, the mind changes … these people, you make a deal, then the next day they send you a document that takes five days to get there, when it should have been there in 20 minutes. You know, it’s a pretty simple document.
Trump says gas prices will ‘drop like a rock’ as soon as war ends
Donald Trump was then asked if he would suspend the federal gas tax.
He earlier told CBS News that he planned to suspend the tax “for a period of time”.
I think it’s a great idea. Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.
Back to the Oval Office, the president started to answer “yes” before diverging:
As soon as this is over with Iran, you’re going to see gasoline and oil drop like a rock.
The rejection has raised the stakes for Trump’s trip this week to China, as we’ve noted, where he could urge Xi Jinping to pressure Iran into making concessions. China is the biggest buyer of Iran’s sanctioned crude oil.
Asked how long he would suspend the federal gas tax for, Trump replied vaguely: “Until it’s appropriate … it’s a small percentage, but it’s still money.”
Asked about the US’s handling of the hantavirus outbreak and whether he regrets withdrawing from the World Health Organization, Donald Trump said he thought the US response was “fine” and insisted he was “glad” he pulled the US out of the WHO.
I hope it’s fine … it seems like it is not easy to spread. In fact, in some ways, it’s very hard to spread, we’ve lived with it for many years. And I think we’re in good shape.
An American passenger on the cruise ship at the center of the outbreak who was flown to Nebraska along with 16 others on Sunday evening tested positive for hantavirus but had no symptoms. The US health department said one American national evacuated from the ship had tested positive for the Andes strain – the only hantavirus strain that is transmissible between humans – and another had “mild symptoms”.
Trump added that he thought Nebraska has done “a fantastic job” and that the doctors there were “unbelievable”.
Trump says he hopes to get ‘a lot’ out of China summit with Xi Jinping
Ahead of travelling to China tomorrow, Trump said that he hopes to get “a lot” out of his meeting with Xi Jinping.
The president noted that he had a “great relationship” with Xi, and noted that there had been no ships from Iran to China, despite the country’s reliance on Iranian oil.
Iran ceasefire is ‘on life support’, Trump says
Trump noted that the ongoing ceasefire with Iran was “on life support”, while answering questions from reporters in the Oval Office.
“It’s unbelievably weak,” he said “after reading that piece of garbage” – referring to Tehran’s latest peace proposal.
“I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, ‘sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living’,” Trump added.
The president added that Tehran’s latest peace proposal did not include a guarantee to not have a nuclear weapon.
“They just can’t get there. So they agree with us, and then they take it back,” he noted.