Trump’s executive order forces removal of ‘improper ideology’ at Smithsonian museums to promote ‘American greatness’: Live

The University of Michigan is closing its diversity, equity and inclusion offices amid President Donald Trump’s tirade against the programs.

The public university in Ann Arbor is closing its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion, according to a Thursday statement. The university attributed the changes to “recent federal executive orders.”

Katie Hawkinson has the story:

Despite Trump’s apparently friendly call with Mark Carney earlier, relations between the two neighboring countries remain poor enough for the Canadian government to be paying for anti-tariff billboards in American cities.

Gustaf Kilander has this report on the signs, which are going up everywhere from Arizona to Wisconsin to warn against the economic consequences of the president’s actions.

The Associated Press (AP) journalist who took a renowned photo of Donald Trump after he emerged from an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, testified about the impact of the White House limiting the news wire service from presidential events.

“It’s hurting us big time,” Evan Vucci, the chief photographer for AP in Washington D.C., said on Thursday during a hearing in the case between AP and the White House.

“We’re basically dead in the water on major news stories.”

His testimony arrives weeks after Trump restricted AP’s access to key events and areas such as Air Force One and the Oval Office due to the news organization’s refusal to refer to the “Gulf of America” rather than the traditional “Gulf of Mexico.”

Ariana Baio has more.

The Fox & Friends host said he didn’t care that the Trump administration's revocation of student visas over pro-Palestine protests and opinions could have a “chilling effect” on free speech and paint the United States as a censorious regime.

Kilmeade’s colleague Lawrence Jones went even further, saying that he wants “chills to run down the spine of not only terrorists but of people that are residents here.”

Justin Baragona has more.

The vice president and his wife have arrived for their not especially welcome visit to the U.S. Pituffik Space Base on the northwestern coast of the Arctic territory.

Vance, who has reportedly been joined by Mike Waltz on the excursion, said he would talk about the administration’s “interest” in acquiring Greenland from Denmark with “our friends in the media” later after disembarking from Air Force Two.

The Reform U.K. leader has made a rare break with his favorite American on the subject of Russia, warning he is playing into the Kremlin’s hands.

A second judge has blocked the president’s ban on transgender service members in the U.S. military, a “plainly” discriminatory directive with “no evidence” to support the administration’s claims, according to the ruling.

“The government’s arguments are not persuasive, and it is not an especially close question on this record,” George W Bush-appointed District Judge Benjamin Settle wrote in a 65-page opinion Thursday.

Trump’s executive order, one of several that explicitly removes federal recognition of trans people, claims that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”

Responding, Settle wrote: “The government has… provided no evidence supporting the conclusion that military readiness, unit cohesion, lethality, or any of the other touchstone phrases long used to exclude various groups from service have in fact been adversely impacted by open transgender service.

“The court can only find that there is none.”

Alex Woodward reports.

The president reportedly warned America’s top automakers not to raise their prices in response to his 25 percent tariffs on imports that were announced this week.

Trump hosted a call with CEOs Mary Barra of General Motors, John Elkann of Stellantis, and Ford’s Jim Farley in early March and touted the tariffs, assuring the executives they would be “great,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

Auto industry experts, however, have warned that the tariffs risk American consumers having to pay “thousands” of dollars more for vehicles.

“Trump said they should be grateful for his elimination of what he called former President Joe Biden’s electric-vehicle mandate,” the Journal said of the call.

The president is also reported to have “made a lengthy pitch” on how automakers would benefit from the levies, insisting he was “bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. and was better for their industry than previous presidents.”

Rhian Lubin has more.