Trump returns to White House LIVE updates: US President says he will fire 1000 people, continue flurry of announcements

Among the cacophony of the inauguration yesterday, Marco Rubio became the first member of Trump’s incoming cabinet to be confirmed by the Senate.

This morning in the US he was sworn in as secretary of state and met officials and staff at a televised ceremony at the department’s C Street headquarters in Washington.

Rubio’s first day on the job involves a meeting with his counterparts from the Quad, including Australia’s Penny Wong, which is scheduled to begin about now (the Quad is the US, Australia, India and Japan).

He will spend the afternoon in bilateral meetings with each of those ministers. Wong is expected to make the case to Rubio, as she has publicly stated recently, that the US enjoys an advantageous economic relationship with Australia, including running a trade surplus for many decades.

During his confirmation hearing, Rubio spoke enthusiastically about the AUKUS defence between Australia, the UK and the US, saying it was “something that I think you’re going to find very strong support for in this administration”.

Panama has alerted the United Nations – in a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday – to President Donald Trump’s remarks during his inauguration speech, when he vowed that the United States would take back the Panama Canal.

Panama’s UN ambassador Eloy Alfaro de Alba noted that under the founding UN Charter, countries “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

The letter was addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and circulated to the 15-member Security Council. Panama is a member of the council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for 2025-26.

Doubling down on his pre-inauguration threat to reimpose US control over the canal, Trump on Monday accused Panama of breaking the promises it made for the final transfer of the strategic waterway in 1999 and of ceding its operation to China – claims that the Panama government has strongly denied.

“We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back,” Trump said just minutes after being sworn in for a second four-year term.

Alfaro de Alba shared Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino’s rejection of Trump’s remarks.

“Dialogue is always the way to clarify the points mentioned without undermining our right, total sovereignty and ownership of our canal,” Mulino said.

The US largely built the canal and administered territory surrounding the passage for decades. But the US and Panama signed a pair of accords in 1977 that paved the way for the canal’s return to full Panamanian control. The United States handed it over in 1999 after a period of joint administration.

Reuters

The legal pushback to Trump’s flurry of day-one executive orders has already begun, with 18 Democratic-run states lodging a court challenge to the president’s bid to end automatic citizenship for children born in the US to undocumented migrants.

The lawsuit, filed in a Massachusetts federal court, contends the order was “a flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands [of] American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage”.

It was brought by attorneys-general in New York, California, North Carolina and 15 other states, along with the District of Columbia and the City of San Francisco.

The US has long considered anyone born in the US to be a citizen regardless of their parents’ immigration status, and the states argue such a right is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment states: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump’s executive order essentially contends this does not apply when the child’s mother was in the US illegally or temporarily and the father was also not a US citizen or permanent resident.

It is one of several orders expected to come before the courts as Democratic states and others resist his dramatic moves to undo much of Joe Biden’s legacy and enact his Make America Great Again agenda.

The states say people would suffer “immediate and irreparable harm” if the order is allowed to stand, with children born after February 19 this year being rendered stateless and deportable.

“They will lose the ability to access myriad federal services that are available to their fellow Americans … they will lose their rights to participate in the economic and civic life of their own country – to work, vote, serve on juries and run for certain offices.”

Trump has also spent the morning at a national prayer service at Washington National Cathedral – a customary visit for new presidents and one that essentially wrapped up his four days of inauguration-related events.

One of the speakers at the interfaith service, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, used her sermon to send a message to Trump, urging compassion for LGBTQ people and undocumented migrant workers.

“You have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now,” said Budde, who has criticised Trump before.

Asked afterwards by a reporter what he thought of the service, Trump said: “Not too exciting was it. I didn’t think it was a good service. They could do much better.”

Today, Trump is expected to continue to build on his barrage of Inauguration Day announcements, with the White House promising a “massive announcement” on infrastructure.

Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to detail the announcement in advance, but she said in an interview on Fox News that it would send a message to the world.

“You won’t want to miss it,” she said.

“Infrastructure week” became a punchline during Trump’s first administration as White House officials repeatedly promised – over the years – to train a focus on major public works projects, only to have Trump himself quickly shift emphasis elsewhere while major legislation on infrastructure never materialised.

It was enough of a pattern that Joe Biden joked that his predecessor couldn’t pull off even a week of focus on infrastructure while his administration oversaw the passage of billions of dollars for bridges, tunnels, roads and other projects for the next 10 years.

“He didn’t build a damn thing,” Biden said frequently of Trump, adding that his administration delivered an “infrastructure decade”.

AP

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Donald Trump’s first full day back in the White House.

Following his inauguration on Tuesday AEDT, the 47th president has spent today meeting with congressional leaders, making an infrastructure announcement and demonstrating one of his favoured expressions of power: firing people.

The new president posted on his Truth Social platform that he would sack more than 1000 presidential appointees “who are not aligned with our vision,” including some high-profile names.

Trump fired chef and humanitarian Jose Andres from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, retired General Mark Milley from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council, former State Department official Brian Hook from the board of the Wilson Centre and former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from the President’s Export Council.

“YOU’RE FIRED!” Trump said in his post – his catchphrase from his reality TV show, The Apprentice.

Former president Joe Biden also removed many Trump appointees in his first days in office, including former press secretary Sean Spicer from the board overseeing the US Naval Academy.