June 6, 2025: Donald Trump presidency news

Our live coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended for the day. Follow the latest updates or read through the posts below.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia appears in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday.

Federal Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee, determined that Kilmar Abrego Garcia will be held in custody until at least next Friday, when there will be an arraignment and detention hearing.

Abrego Garcia appeared in court wearing a short-sleeved, white, button-down shirt.

When asked if he understood the charges, he told the judge: “Sí. Lo entiendo.”

An interpreter then said: “Yes. I understand.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen appears on CNN on Friday.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who visited Kilmar Agrego Garcia in El Salvador, told CNN tonight that he is “glad in this moment” that the Trump administration is “finally doing with the Supreme Court said.”

The administration earlier Friday returned the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March to the United States to face federal criminal charges.

“The Trump administration said they’d never allow him to come back into the United States, he’s now back and he now at least has a chance in a court of law,” Van Hollen said.

The senator maintained that he has not been vouching for Abrego Garcia personally. “This is not about him. It is about his Constitutional rights. And I think we all recognize that if the Trump administration can trample over his constitutional rights, it’s a very short road to tyranny when they can essentially put all of our Constitutional rights in jeopardy.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Friday, demanded apologies from Van Hollen and other Democratic lawmakers who argued on Abrego Garcia’s behalf. “The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong.”

Van Hollen was defiant: “I will never apologize for defending the Constitution. In fact, it’s the Trump administration and all his cronies who should apologize to the country for putting us through this unnecessary situation, and to Abrego Garcia for putting him through this situation, and his family.”

The White House signed off on the decision to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, to the United States to face federal criminal charges, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The decision was made in the last few days, the sources said. The State Department was also involved in the decision-making, one of the sources said.

The Trump administration had for months been locked in an intense standoff with the federal judiciary over court orders for the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador, where he was mistakenly deported in mid-March.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today that he had been returned to the US to face an indictment on two criminal counts in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.

President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One today that Chinese President Xi Jinping has agreed to restart the flow of rare earth minerals and magnets.

The two leaders held a long-awaited call on yesterday to discuss trade.

Trump said his administration is looking for “clarification” in trade talks to be held Monday between US and Chinese representatives in London.

“We get along very well with President Xi and with China,” he added.

President Donald Trump praised Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department’s “decision” to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, back to the United States to face federal criminal charges.

Asked if it was his call to bring him back to the US, Trump responded: “I don’t want to say that.”

For months, the Trump administration has been locked in an intense standoff with the federal judiciary over court orders for the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador, where he was mistakenly deported in mid-March. A federal judge warned the situation could present an “incipient crisis” between the two branches.

Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.

The president today also levied criticism on the judicial system, chiding some federal judges for attempting to “take the place of a president” in their rulings.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters on board Air Force One on its way from Joint Base Andrews, MAryland, to Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, on Friday.

President Donald Trump said his decision on who he will select to serve as the next Fed chair is “coming out very soon.”

“I could tell you, but I don’t think I’ll do that,” Trump teased on Air Force One. “I have a pretty good idea who it might be.”

Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates. Late last month, the two met at the White House, where the president scolded Powell for not lowering borrowing costs. Powell maintained that any decisions won’t be based on the president’s demands.

Powell was appointed by Trump during his first administration, and his term ends in May 2026.

On Air Force One today, Trump reiterated his wish to see a Fed chair who lowers interest rates.

“If we had a good Fed chairman, he would lower rates,” Trump said.

“If he worries about inflation any longer — all he has to do is get the lower rate, let us borrow at a much lower rate, much lower, he could go down a point or two,” Trump continued. “If in two years, inflation comes back, he raises rates, but he keeps them the same. It’s just insane.”

CNN has previously reported that the leading contender to succeed Powell appears to be Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor who previously was under consideration to be Trump’s Treasury secretary for the president’s second term and was a candidate for the top job at the Fed during Trump’s first term.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown speaks to the press in Baltimore, in January 2024.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a statement on X responding to the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, to the United States to face criminal charges.

Brown welcomed Abrego Garcia’s return “in accordance with the Supreme Court’s clear directive,” adding that “compliance with that order, although delayed, was ultimately non-negotiable.”

He also noted that discussions around possible criminal charges only came after Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation. “If those concerns were credible and supported by evidence, they should have been addressed through lawful means before violating a standing judicial order,” Brown wrote.

Aside from the legal ramifications, Brown emphasized the affect this case has had on Abrego Garcia’s family and the broader community, “who have endured unnecessary hardship and uncertainty throughout this process.”

“This case is a sobering reminder that no one — not even the Executive Branch — is above the law. Upholding the integrity of our courts and respecting their authority is essential to the health of our democracy,” Brown wrote.

Firefighters work at the site of a Russian drone and missile strike in Kyiv, on Friday.

President Donald Trump said today that he’ll use further sanctions against Russia “if necessary” as the country’s war with Ukraine continues to drag on.

“If I think Russia will not be making a deal or stopping the bloodshed … I’ll use it if it’s necessary,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.

He added that senators, many of whom have signed on to a bill to increase sanctions on Russia, are leaving the decision up to him.

US and Chinese officials will meet in London on Monday to discuss trade between the two nations, President Donald Trump announced today.

The announcement comes after Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping spoke for 90 minutes yesterday. After the phone call, the US president said he was encouraged that ongoing trade tensions could soon be resolved.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft are docked ahead of a NASA launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on March 14.

President Donald Trump said today that he intended to look at Elon Musk’s various contracts with the US government after the public and explosive breakup between the two men.

Asked whether the US could survive without contracts with Musk’s businesses, including critical alliances with SpaceX supporting the International Space Station, Trump replied: “Yeah, they can, sure. The US can survive without almost anybody — except me.”

He grinned and added that he was joking on the latter point.

Trump said he didn’t plan to take back the symbolic gold key he presented to Musk last week during an Oval Office event where the two exchanged effusive praise.

Still, he offered some praise to Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying that his efforts “helped us a lot” and that the team did “terrific” work.

Trump said he did not have “any plans” to smooth things over with Musk. “I’m not even thinking about him,” he said, later adding that he is occupied with other “problems in faraway lands.”

“I just wish him well,” Trump said of Musk.

Department of Justice Criminal Chief Ben Schrader, second from left, stands with colleagues at a press conference in Nashville, in March 2024.

The chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division in Nashville resigned over the decision to charge Kilmar Abrego Garcia, people briefed on the matter tell CNN.

The Justice Department’s push to pursue human trafficking charges against Abrego Garcia had caused some disagreement among prosecutors in the Nashville US attorney’s office, sources said.

Ben Schrader, the chief of the criminal division in the US Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee, resigned the same week of the grand jury indictment last month.

Schrader’s post does not mention the Abrego Garcia case. Schrader didn’t respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn account.

The Nashville US Attorney’s office and the Justice Department headquarters declined to comment.

A US official pointed CNN to the seriousness of the allegations in the indictment and said the administration’s priority to pursue immigration enforcement means that anyone who didn’t want to be a part of the priorities can leave.

Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a news conference about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in Washington, on Friday.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a news conference on today that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man that was accidentally deported to El Salvador, has landed back in the United States.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said.

A grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee returned a sealed indictment on May 21, charging Abrego Garcia with criminal counts of alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, Bondi said.

Bondi alleged that Abrego Garcia made over 100 trips smuggling people into the United States, including MS-13 members and minor children.

The president of El Salvador was presented with an arrest warrant for Abrego Garcia and he agreed to return him to the United States, she said.

“We’re grateful to President Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges,” Bondi said.

Bondi said Abrego Garcia is a “danger to our community,” and if convicted on the trafficking charges he faces, he is expected to be returned to his home country after sentencing.

Bondi cited “recently found facts” when CNN’s Evan Perez asked what has changed since Abrego Garcia’s 2022 traffic stop when he was not detained.

President Donald Trump meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 14.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said his country wouldn’t refuse a request from the Trump administration to return a “gang member” to the US to face charges, in a social media post following the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Some background: In April, during a visit to the White House, Bukele made it clear that Abrego Garcia wouldn’t be returned to the US, despite a Supreme Court ruling that the US must “facilitate” his return.

Asked directly by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if he plans to return him, Bukele argued the notion of doing so would be “preposterous.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

Kilmar Abrego Garcia will appear in court in Nashville, Tennessee, at 4:30 p.m. CT (5:30 p.m. ET) today, after he was returned to the US to face criminal charges.

Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, co-cousel for Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks to media after a hearing at US District court on April 11 in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorney, said the government’s move to bring his client back to the US to face federal criminal charges after a months-long legal battle “shows that they were playing games with the court all along.”

Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, which violated a 2019 order from a judge that said he could not be deported to his home country because of fears that he would face gang violence.

Sandoval-Moshenberg told CNN that he didn’t get a heads up that Abrego Garcia was coming back to the US and that they “learned about it on TV just like the rest of the country.”

Now, he hopes to finally be able to see his client as soon as this weekend.

As for the charges, the indictment outlines a series of allegations, not all of them correspond to charges. Sandoval-Moshenberg said this shows that the administration has been “more interested in dragging his name through the mud than in actually sort of going through with proper court proceedings.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg called the allegations against Abrego Garcia “hyperbolic” and said the administration could have fixed its mistake quietly.

This post has been updated with additional remarks from Sandoval-Moshenberg.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem commented on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the US to face criminal charges.

She continued: “Today, the United States of America confronts Kilmar Abrego Garcia with overwhelming evidence — he is being indicted by a grand jury for human smuggling, including children, and conspiracy. Justice awaits this Salvadoran man.”

In responding to a headline from Axios, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy, wrote in a X post today that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was “correctly deported.”

“What a moronic headline,” Miller wrote in reference to the Axios headline. “MS-13 illegal alien Garcia was correctly deported to his home nation of El Salvador and was subsequently indicted after new evidence of especially heinous crimes. He is now being prosecuted. After a lengthy prison sentence, it is back home to El Salvador.”

Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, has been returned to the US to face federal criminal charges, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday.

Now that Kilmar Abrego Garcia has returned to the US to face federal criminal charges, the White House says he will “meet the full force of American justice.”

Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.

The indictment unsealed this afternoon accuses Abrego Garcia and others of partaking in a conspiracy in recent years in which they “knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates.”

The criminal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, could have implications on his immigration case down the road, John Sandweg, a former acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told CNN.

Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States today after the Trump administration has been locked in a legal standoff with the federal judiciary for months.

Abrego Garcia has been indicted on two criminal counts in the in the Middle District of Tennessee: conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.

If convicted, the administration can argue that Abrego Garcia should no longer be eligible for the “withholding of removal” protection, granted by a previous immigration judge which said he could not be deported to El Salvador.

“If they’re successful there, he could find himself back deported, this time lawfully, to El Salvador,” Sandweg said.