Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon. after the indictment against Raúl Castro was announced in Miami, Trump said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
“There won’t be an escalation. I don’t think there needs to be,” said Trump. “Look, the place is falling apart. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
When asked if there would be a Maduro-style arrest, he said: “I don’t want to say that.”
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments:
The US issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro. Cuba’s former president, potentially paving the way for a Us military raid to capture him.
Two police officers attacked by rioters at the US Capitol during the January 6 riot sued Donald Trump over plans to create a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund.
Brian Fitzpatrick. a Republican congressman from a Philadelphia-area district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, pledged on Wednesday to “try to kill” the $1.776bn slush fund created by Donald Trump ’s Department of Justice this week, which could be used to compensate rioters who tried to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy denounced two of Trump’s passion projects: $1bn in taxpayer funding for the White House ballroom the president can’t stop talking about,. the $1.776bn slush fund he plans to use to reward supporters who stormed the Capitol to try to keep him in office despite losing the 2020 election.
A former federal prosecutor in Florida pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges. she illegally emailed herself a copy of the unreleased special counsel report on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, tried to downplay concerns that Donald Trump supporters who attacked police officers on January 6 2021,. were convicted by juries of their peers, might soon be in line for massive payouts from the $1.776bn slush fund created by the Department of Justice.
“You’re the nation’s top law enforcement official right now. Would you be okay with people who were convicted of hurting police getting taxpayer money?” CNN’s chief legal correspondent Paula Reid asked Blanche in an interview.
“Just to be clear, people that hurt police get money all the time, okay?” Blanche claimed. Reid, who is also a lawyer, looked stunned by the response.
“There’s a process where. where, if you are, if you are,” Blanche continued, apparently struggling to find the words, “if you believe you have your rights violated, um, you can apply for funds, you can sue, you can file a claim, you can go to court.”
“In some of those cases, the state, the government, the federal government settles those cases,” Blanche went on. “It’s abhorrent to ever, ever touch a law enforcement officer, which is why any time anybody does that. its a federal officer, we’ll prosecute them.”
Blanche. who unsuccessfully defended Trump in 2024, when the then former president was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsified business records, appeared to overlook or sought to hide, several important facts.
Among the obvious problems with Blanche’s claims are: people who assault law enforcement officers do not, in fact, frequently get paid by the government – people who are assaulted by law enforcement sometimes do; this fund is to be administered by a five-person commission - four of whom will be appointed by him. one in consultation with congressional leadership – so there is no oversight by a court; and hundreds of rioters who assaulted federal officers on January 6 2021 were prosecuted by the Department of Justice and convicted but then pardoned en masse by Trump.
Four days after Donald Trump succeeded in getting Louisiana Republicans to deny senator Bill Cassidy their nomination for another term in office, the senator suddenly found his voice, denouncing two of Trump’s passion projects: $1bn in taxpayer funding for the White House ballroom the president can’t stop talking about,. the $1.776bn slush fund he plans to use to reward supporters who stormed the Capitol to try to keep him in office despite losing the 2020 election.
“People are concerned about paying their mortgage or rent, affording groceries. paying for gas, not about putting together a $1.8 billion fund for the President and his allies to pay whomever they wish with no legal precedent or accountability,” Cassidy posted on social media on Wednesday. “This is adding to our national debt. If there needs to be a settlement, the administration should bring it to Congress to decide.”
On Monday. Cassidy made it clear that he would not vote to spend $1bn of taxpayer funds on the grand ballroom Trump alone claims US presidents have needed for 150 years. “There’s no architectural plans. There is no environmentals. There’s no engineering,” Cassidy said on Wednesday when asked about the ballroom plans. “When we ask: ‘how did it happen to cost exactly a billion?’ In my mind that is. it could cost a lot less, it could cost a lot more. I just don’t get it.”
Cassidy was one of just seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial. over the Capitol riot. Had they been joined by 10 more, Trump would have been barred from office for life.
Four of those Republican senators – Richard Burr, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse. Pat Toomey – decided to retire rather than run for reelection without Trump’s support. One, Lisa Murkowski, managed to defeat a Trump-backed Republican challenger.
Another. Susan Collins, who has cast important votes to advance Trump’s priorities, could be defeated by Democrat Graham Platner in the upcoming November midterms, dragged down by Trump’s huge unpopularity.
“That may have cost me my seat, but who cares? I had the privilege of voting to uphold the Constitution. Isn’t that a great thing?” Cassidy told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday. “When I die. if that’s put in my obituary, ‘he voted to uphold the Constitution’ — I’ll figure that that’s going to be a better obituary.”
A former federal prosecutor in Florida pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges. she illegally emailed herself a copy of the unreleased special counsel report on Donald Trump ’s mishandling of classified documents.
According to the indictment. Carmen Lineberger, a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of Florida in Fort Pierce, Florida, sent a copy of the second volume of special counsel Jack Smith ’s report, detailing his investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents, from her government email account to personal accounts.
Unlike previous special counsel reports, Smith’s report on his investigation of Trump for keeping highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago beach club. Bedminster golf club, after he left office in 2021, and even showing a secret Pentagon plan for attacking Iran to supporters, was not made public by order of Trump-appointed US district judge Aileen Cannon who ruled that doing so would be unfair to Trump.
On his social media platform. Trump highlighted the government’s claim that Lineberger allegedly tried to keep her retention of the secret government report secret by changing the file name for it to “Bundt_Cake_Recipe.pdf” before sending it to her personal Gmail account as an attachment.
The indictment alleges that Lineberger received a copy of the report on her government email on 16 January, 2025, which was five days before Cannon ordered that it should not be made public,. then changed the file name and forwarded it to herself almost a year later, on 1 December, 2025.
Cannon’s order suppressing the report came in response to a motion from Trump’s two co-defendants in the classified documents case, Carlos De Oliveira. Walt Nauta. Nauta, Trump’s former valet, was accused of obstructing justice by conspiring with Trump to hide several boxes of classified materials from the government at Mar-a-Lago,. destroying security camera footage of himself and De Oliveira, an employee of the club, moving the boxes to do so.
Nauta is now the White House director of Oval Office operations and sits in an office next to the president’s.
Brian Fitzpatrick. a Republican congressman from a Philadelphia-area district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, pledged on Wednesday to “try to kill” the $1.776bn slush fund created by Donald Trump ’s Department of Justice this week, which could be used to compensate rioters who tried to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election.
Asked by Pablo Manríquez of the MeidasTouch network what he made of the fund, Fitzpatrick replied: “Bad news. We’re going to try to kill it.”
Fitzpatrick added that he was “considering legislative options”. was “going to write a letter to” the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, “to start”.
In that letter, released by Fitzpatrick’s office, the congressman wrote: “A massive discretionary fund, with no oversight or approval from Congress, represents a dangerous backsliding in the transparency of our institutions. our commitment to the American taxpayer.”
Fitzpatrick went on to demand answers to the following questions from Blanche by 1 June:
double quotation mark Where are the nearly $2 billion in funds being diverted from to be used for this fund?
What is the exact legal purpose of the Anti-Weaponization Fund. will individuals convicted of federal crimes or associated with acts of violence be eligible to receive monetary payouts from the Fund?
Are there examples of previous administrations establishing discretionary compensation programs that are not authorized by Congress. do not have court approval or judicial oversight?
Earlier in the day, Trump has issued a thinly veiled threat to unseat Fitzpatrick by bringing up the congressman’s record of opposing some of his initiatives, including his White House ballroom. his “big, beautiful” 2025 tax and spending bill while fielding questions about unrelated matters from Fitzpatrick’s fiancee, the Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
When Heinrich asked Trump if he has a problem with Israeli the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – after the Wall Street Journal reported the two had a contentious call Tuesday over Trump’s push to end the US-Israeli war on Iran through diplomacy – the president looked away. told another reporter: “But her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him. Her husband, she’s married to a certain congressman, he votes again – he likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well. I don’t know why he does.”
Trump’s comments were clearly intended as a threat to Fitzpatrick, coming days after he helped unseat two Republicans who crossed him, the senator Bill Cassidy. the congressman Thomas Massie, by supporting their opponents in Republican primary elections. Then again. since Fitzpatrick won his primary on Tuesday unopposed, Trump’s comments could help him get re-elected in a district that leans Democratic.
Later in the same exchange. when Heinrich asked Trump what he made of China’s president, Xi Jinping, rolling out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the president responded: “I think it’s good. I get along with both of them, but I think it’s good. I don’t know if the ceremony was quite as brilliant as mine. I watched, we topped them … But no, I get along with Putin, I get along – I get along with everybody, but your husband. a few others.”
Heinrich told People magazine last year. Fitzpatrick had proposed to her in a lavender field in Provence on 29 June 2025. Four days later. he was one of just two Republican congressmen, along with Massie, to vote against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
During his commencement speech at the US Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, Donald Trump once again hinted at US military control of Cuba, Panama. Greenland.
“Just as no family can be truly secure in a violent neighborhood. we will not allow chaos, instability or danger to fester in America’s own back yard,” Trump said.
After veering off-script to praise Markwayne Mullin, who leads the Department of Homeland Security, of which the coast guard is a part of, Trump returned to his prepared remarks to add: “From the Gulf of America to the frozen waters of the Arctic, from the shores of Havana to the banks of the Panama canal, we will drive out the forces of lawlessness. crime and foreign encroachment, just like we’ve been doing.”
Trump’s remarks came as his administration laid the groundwork for a Venezuela-style raid on Cuba by the US military, with the indictment on Wednesday of Cuba’s former president, Raúl Castro,. as his envoy to Greenland, Jeff Landry, concluded a provocative visit to the Danish territory.
Landry. the Republican governor of Louisiana, a former European territory bought by the United States, told the Greenlandic daily newspaper Sermitsiaq, which live-blogged his provocative visit, that Trump would like to see the self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark “become economically independent”.
“I think there are some incredible opportunities that can actually lift Greenlanders from dependency to independence,” Landry added.
“I think it’s time for the US to put its footprint back on Greenland,” Landry told AFP during his first visit to Greenland since his appointment as Trump’s envoy in December.
“I think that you’re seeing the president talk about increasing national security operations. repopulating certain bases in Greenland,” he said.
The United States wants to open three new bases in the south of the territory, according to recent media reports.
A 1951 defense pact, updated in 2004, already allows the US to increase troop deployments. military installations on the island as long as it informs Denmark and Greenland in advance.
The newspaper Sermitsiaq also reported that Landry’s suggestion that the US should assert control over Greenland was rejected by at least one local woman. who was seen in a viral video shouting at the governor: “Colonizer go home! You’re not welcome here! This is Indigenous land!”
California’s governor. Gavin Newsom, who is in Washington DC on Wednesday, was just asked to comment on Donald Trump ’s scheme to take $1.776bn from US taxpayers to compensate people who claim that they were wrongly prosecuted by the government.
“It’s a criminal enterprise,” Newsom told Pablo Manríquez of the MeidasTouch network. “It’s not just corruption, it’s not just graft, it’s a full-on criminal enterprise and it needs to be shut down.”
In a statement posted on the website of Cuba’s state-controlled newspaper. Granma, the Cuban government rejected the US indictment of Raúl Castro for killing four Cuban American activists in the 1996 downing of two civilian planes.
The statement, which was also posted on the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs website in Spanish but not in English, went on to accuse the US government of hypocrisy, given that the indictment was sought after the Trump administration has carried out nearly 200 “extrajudicial executions” of suspected drug smugglers, in 58 airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean. the Pacific since last September.
Instead of the government statement. the English-language version of Granma currently features a call, from the National Bureau of the Young Communists League, for Cubans take part in a national “day of celebration for Raúl’s 95th birthday” on 3 June.
US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it intensifies pressure. The US has issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba ’s former president, on Wednesday,. five others in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decade-old communist regime.
Alongside his usual boastful claims that Iran’s navy. air force are “gone”, Trump said the only question now is whether the United States goes back to finish the job or if Iran will sign a document. He also said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do”, says Trump when asked about Israel holding off on striking Iran. Trump also cited a poll that gave him 99% approval in Israel. The Guardian US has not yet verified this poll. “I could run for prime minister, so maybe after I do this, I’ll go to Israel. run for prime minister,” he said.
January 6 police officers sue Trump over $1.8bn fund, alleging “presidential corruption”. Two police officers who clashed with rioters at the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection in 2021 have sued Donald Trump over plans to create a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund.
Barney Frank, one of first out gay members of Congress, dies aged 86. The former US representative died on Tuesday night.
Trump remarked on the IRS settlement, saying that he was suing the agency for a lot of reasons.
“One of the reasons is they released my tax returns, which you’re not allowed to do,” he said. “Now they show I pay a lot of tax. I may even release my current returns because they show I pay a lot of money,. they’re not supposed to do that.”
Raúl Castro’s indictment comes at a time when tensions between Cuba and the US are already high.
Castro is facing the type of indictment that led to the abduction of the Venezuelan leader. Nicolás Maduro, in January by US forces.
Although Castro is officially retired, he remains the most potent figure in Cuban politics after the death of his brother, Fidel, in 2016,. by targeting him Washington appears to be heaping pressure on Cuba’s communist leadership at the end of an already extraordinarily intense week.
The indictment has come days after the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, flew into Havana for a meeting with the Cuban ex-president’s grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. senior government figures.
Ratcliffe’s arrival in turn occurred after a night in which protests spread across the island’s capital. as people struggled with 22-hour blackouts. Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s energy minister, had earlier admitted the island was out of fuel oil. “We have absolutely nothing,” he told state television.
For the last four months the US has imposed a strict oil blockade on Cuba. allowing only one Russian crude carrier, the Anatoly Kolodkin, in for what Trump claimed were humanitarian reasons.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon. after the indictment against Raúl Castro was announced in Miami, Trump said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
“There won’t be an escalation. I don’t think there needs to be,” said Trump. “Look, the place is falling apart. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
When asked if there would be a Maduro-style arrest, he said: “I don’t want to say that.”
Progressive Chris Rabb wins closely watched Democratic primary in Pennsylvania: ‘We are indomitable’
Chris Rabb. an unflinching progressive state representative, declared his campaign for Pennsylvania’s third congressional district was “indomitable” after winning the Democratic primary in a race that became a proxy battle over the direction of the Democratic party.
In a significant victory for the party’s left wing, Rabb took roughly 45% of the vote in Tuesday’s contest, comfortably ahead of the early frontrunner, state senator Sharif Street, who garnered under 30%,. surgeon Ala Stanford.
Rabb addressed supporters, in an emotional victory speech, who had powered a grassroots campaign backed by the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America. the Working Families party. “I have been critiqued along this campaign for being too radical, being too bold,” he told the crowd. “They ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Framing his win as a populist breakthrough. Rabb called the result “a triumph of the many over the money” before issuing a warning to those who might seek to undermine the movement his campaign had built. “They’re going to try and tear us apart. We’re not going to let that happen,” he said. “We are indomitable.”
The district. which includes most of Philadelphia’s urban core, is the bluest in the US: Kamala Harris won 88% of its votes in the 2024 presidential election, as the rest of the country re-elected Donald Trump.
When asked by an NBC reporter if the announcement of the indictment is partly a pretext to push for regime change in Cuba, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said: “We turned in an indictment. that’s what we are here to talk about. If people want to speculate, I don’t care.”
Ashley Moody, a senator from Florida, read out the penalty sheet for Raúl Castro, as advised by the southern district of Florida, US district court: one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, two counts for destruction of aircraft. four counts of murder.
The FBI conducted 16 cases to bring this indictment together, said Christopher Raia, the FBI’s deputy director.
The investigators reopened many cold cases over 30 years.
“To anyone who spies on our country or who harms our citizens. remember the FBI has a long memory,” said Raia. “We will come after you.”
“According to the indictment, Raúl Castro, then minister of the Cuban revolutionary armed forces, authorized. oversaw a military command that ended with Cuban fighter jets firing air-to-air missiles at civilian aircraft over international waters,” said Jason Reding Quinones, the US attorney for the southern district of Florida.
Those missiles killed all onboard, and for 30 years those families have waited for accountability, he said.
“This is the first time in almost 70 years. a senior leader in the Cuban regime has been charged in the US for acts of violence resulting in the death of Americans,” he said.
The acting attorney general. Todd Blanche, is speaking at a news conference about the indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
“There’s a reason why myself. the leadership are here and not in New York to announce this indictment,” said Blanche from Miami, Florida. “The community here understands the Cuban regime better than anyone in America. Many families know the cost of oppression.”
Today’s indictment makes a statement that those who lost their lives 30 years ago have not been forgotten, he said.
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