Trump administration will pay immigrants in U.S. illegally $1,000 to self-deport

Good morning and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of Donald Trump’s administration.

President Donald Trump has ordered the reopening of the infamous Alcatraz island prison offshore from San Francisco, California, which once housed the Chicago mobster Al Capone but closed in 1963.

“For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat criminal offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than misery and suffering,” the Republican wrote.

“When we were a more serious nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

The president insisted the step was necessary in order to ensure Americans “will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our country illegally.”

Kelly Rissman reports.

The former House speaker, a San Francisco resident, has dismissed the president’s plan to reopen the storied federal penitentiary turned local tourist hot spot as fundamentally unserious.

On his return to the White House last night, after another weekend on the links in Palm Beach, Florida, the president had this to say about his frustrations with America’s legal system holding up his efforts to remove suspected illegal immigrants by insisting on pesky due process.

Here’s a look at the San Francisco penitentiary the president hopes to make great again.

The president, who was famously critical of the dark South Korean satire Parasite winning Best Picture win at the Oscars in 2020, is now saying that foreign cinema poses an existential threat to Hollywood and will be heavily tariffed in retaliation.

“The movie industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.

“Other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.

“This is a concerted effort by other nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!

“Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands.”

Here’s more from Kevin EG Perry.

Back on Truth Social last night, the president lashed out at the former White House deputy chief of staff to George W Bush after seeing his interview with Trey Gowdy on Fox News in which the adviser noted the high cost of gasoline and consumers' concerns about Trump’s tariff war.

“He's got to be focused on those two things, I think, that people wanted, which was a strong and prosperous economy and inflation being wiped up,” Rove said of the president, drawing the following angry rebuttal from Trump:

Before that, the president had gone after the same network’s veteran anchor Howard Kurtz, 71, for offering only a “weak” defense of his administration.

In the segment in question, Kurtz had hosted Trump supporter Ben Domenech and Democrat strategist Leslie Marshall for a discussion on the sacking of national security adviser Mike Waltz and the president’s slumping approval ratings.

Giving a rare interview to a more liberal news outlet yesterday, the president told Kristen Welker on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he does not know whether it is his duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution, despite swearing a solemn oath pledging precisely that at his inauguration at the Capitol in January.

Here’s John Bowden on a startling exchange, even by Trump’s standards.

Here’s two more key exchanges from the president’s interview with NBC yesterday:

This was also not quite the winning spin he appeared to think it was:

The president otherwise spent time reiterating his opinion that America’s children have too many dolls anyway (so inflation pricing their parents out of toys is fine), which is also not a great look.