Donald Trump faced setbacks in the courts and Congress on Friday, as the president finished a visit to the Middle East that included stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but not Israel.
Trump posted on social media: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!”, after the court rejected the Trump administration’s request to remove a temporary block on deportations of Venezuelans under a rarely used 18th-century wartime law.
Meanwhile, rightwing lawmakers derailed Trump’s signature legislation in the House of Representatives, preventing its passage through a key committee and throwing into question whether Republicans can coalesce around the massive bill that would extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term.
Supreme court blocks Trump bid to resume deportations
The supreme court on Friday rejected the Trump administration’s appeal to quickly resume deportations of Venezuelans under a 227-year-old law. Over two dissenting votes, the justices acted on an emergency appeal from lawyers for Venezuelan men who have been accused of being gang members, a designation the administration says makes them eligible for rapid removal from the US under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Venezuelans deported by Trump are victims of ‘torture’, lawyers allege
Lawyers for 252 Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration and imprisoned in El Salvador for two months have alleged that the migrants are victims of physical and emotional “torture”.
A law firm hired by the Venezuelan government said it had been unable to visit the migrants in the mega-prison where they are locked up and are seeking “proof of life”, but have come up against a wall of silence from President Nayib Bukele’s administration and the Central American nation’s justice system.
House Republicans block Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ in major setback
At a House budget committee hearing on Friday intended to advance Donald Trump’s signature legislation, four Republican members of the far-right Freedom Caucus joined with the Democrats to block it from proceeding, arguing the legislation does not make deep enough cuts to federal spending and to programs they dislike.
The party has spent weeks negotiating a measure dubbed the “one big, beautiful bill” that would extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term, fund mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and temporarily make good on his campaign promise to end the taxation of tips and overtime. To offset its costs, Republicans have proposed cuts to the federal safety net, including Medicaid and the supplemental nutrition assistance program.
Trump acknowledges starvation in Gaza
Donald Trump has said people are starving in Gaza and the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of” as it suffered a further wave of intense Israeli airstrikes.
On Friday, Israel announced a major new offensive in the territory just as Trump wrapped up his tour of the Gulf region. On the final day of trip, the US president told reporters in Abu Dhabi: “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”
Trump accuses Comey of calling for his killing
Donald Trump accused the former FBI director James Comey on Friday of calling for his assassination in a coded social media post written in seashells.
Comey has said it did not occur to him that the numbers 8647 – which he spotted spelled out in seashells on a beach, and posted on social media – could be interpreted as a call to assassinate the president, as many Trump supporters have claimed.
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 15 May 2025.
