Donald Trump gives first interview since taking office — as it happened

Good afternoon, we will end our live coverage here.

Tomorrow Donald Trump will star in an eagerly-anticipated online appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Here is a recap of some of the key events that have happened today:

• Donald Trump has done his first TV interview since taking office this week.
• The US president has suggested he would like to see former President Joe Biden investigated.
• The Justice Department's civil rights division has been told to suspend all activity.
• Donald Trump has selected Sean Curran as director of the Secret Service.
• Mexico is refusing to accept non-Mexican asylum seekers who can't get into US.
• Federal workers have been told to dob in colleagues who 'disguise' DEI programs.
• Donald Trump has claimed the people jailed for the Jan 6 riots were 'treated like the worst criminals in history'.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to reiterate Washington's support for its ally, and the two also discussed Iran and Israeli hostages in Gaza, the State Department said.

The call was Rubio's first with Israel since the Trump administration began.  Trump and Joe Biden have both been supporters of Israel during its wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

Rubio underscored that "maintaining the United States' steadfast support for Israel is a top priority for Trump," the State Department said in a statement.

Rubio also held calls on Wednesday with Saudi Arabia crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the State Department said, adding the topics discussed included Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, among others.

Rubio told Netanyahu that Washington will continue to work "tirelessly" to help free the remaining hostages in Gaza, the State Department added.

"The Secretary also conveyed (to Netanyahu) that he looks forward to addressing the threats posed by Iran and pursuing opportunities for peace," the State Department said.

With Reuters

Trump has re-designated Yemen's Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, as a "foreign terrorist organisation."

The move will impose harsher economic penalties than the Biden administration had applied to the Iran-aligned group in response to its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and against US warships.

"The Houthis' activities threaten the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of our closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade," the White House said in a statement.

The Houthis have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships plying the Red Sea since November 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.

At the start of his presidential term in 2021, Joe Biden had dropped Trump's terrorist designations to address humanitarian concerns inside Yemen.

Confronted with the Red Sea attacks, Biden last year designated the group as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" organisation. But his administration held off on applying the harsher FTO designation.

With Reuters

Jumping back to the Sean Hannity interview briefly.

During the interview, Trump suggested he would like to see investigations into former President Joe Biden.

Trump is the first president to be convicted of a felony — in a case relating to business records of hush money payments — and had faced criminal charges over his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

He indicated to Hannity that after his experience, he's interested in seeing investigations into Biden.

"It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through it also,” he says.

Biden pardoned his siblings and their spouses in his final minutes in office to protect them from potential investigations by Trump. Trump said Biden set an "amazing" precedent for him to follow.

With AP

Earlier we reported that thousands of refugees are stranded at various locations around the globe, because their travel plans were cancelled by the Trump administration.

University of South Carolina's Jen Lantz Reisz told News Channel she thought it was "pretty devastating" for those who have been fully vetted and are now waiting in refugee programs.

"Many are probably reuniting with family members and have waited years for the opportunity to come to the US through the refugee program," she said.

"I think there's about 200,000 people who are already in the refugee settlement pipeline".

You can watch the full interview here:

I mentioned earlier that major US health agencies had been told to freeze any communications with the public unless they've been explicitly approved by a Trump White House appointee.

Reuters is now reporting that the Department of Justice has ordered its civil rights division — which is tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination laws — to suspend any ongoing activity, and to not pursue any new cases or agree to settlements.

The three Democratic members of the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an independent agency that makes sure the government's extremism prevention programs don't infringe on civil liberties and privacy laws, have also been asked to resign or be fired, essentially preventing the five-member body from functioning.

When you consider that all federal staff involved in DEI programs have been put on leave in preparation for mass layoffs, there's a definite trend emerging here.

It's not unusual for incoming administrations to pause or wrap up specific initiatives on ideological grounds, though the groundwork for these decisions often has to be laid first.

Trump's approach so far is different — freezing or abolishing entire government bodies and then picking up the pieces later.

Andrew Puzder, a former CEO of CKE Restaurants, has been named as Trump's choice for US ambassador to the European Union.

The move comes a day after the new US leader vowed to hit the EU with tariffs.

CKE Restaurants is the group behind Carl's Jr., Hardee's, Green Burrito and Red Burrito brands.

"The European Union is very, very bad to us," Trump said on Tuesday, repeating comments made Monday when he took office.

"So they're going to be in for tariffs. It's the only way ... you're going to get fairness."

Puzder was nominated to be labor secretary during Trump's first administration but withdrew amid concerns he could not garner enough Senate votes to be confirmed.

He had admitted in 2017 that he and his wife had employed an undocumented person as a housekeeper. He also faced a flurry of complaints and legal cases brought by workers against his business and its franchises.

With Reuters

The Sean Hannity interview is now over but let's quickly go back to some of the topics brought up earlier.

The pair talked about the sale of TikTok.

Trump says he does think TikTok will be sold and that people want to buy it.

Hannity makes the claim TikTok is "a spying app for the communist Chinese."

Trump retorted claiming you can say that about "everything made in China," noting how many things are made in China.

"Is it that important for China to be spying on young kids watching crazy videos?

"They make your computers, and your telephones, and other things. Isn't that a bigger threat?"

Hannity pushed back and said he didn't want China spying on anyone.

Hannity is now asking Trump about the assassination attempt in Butler.

Trump tells Hannity the gun that was used was a very accurate gun that "a bad shooter would hit the target 100 per cent of the time".

He says two of his sons both have the same gun that was used and they couldn't believe he survived the shooting. 

"I don't think you can say just luck," Trump says.

"The chance was 1/8th of a second or we wouldn't be sitting here."

He tells Hannity his faith in God was now stronger.

He says he plans to release the files about the investigation attempts "immediately" after they are ready.

Hannity says the main criticism of the pardons for the January 6 riots was about pardoning people who were violent with police.

Trump responded saying the people who were in prison for three and a half years were "treated like the worst criminals in history."

Trump claims most of the people were innocent and he continues to allege they were treated horribly.

He tells Hannity they should have been allowed to protest and says incidents involving police were "minor."

The interview between Trump and Fox News's Sean Hannity is underway — Trump seems to be listing his grievances, and Hannity is chiming in to back him up.

The president claims that Nancy Pelosi was responsible for the January 6 attack on the Capitol, an assertion that Hannity lets go unchallenged.

Hannity then asks Trump about Joe Biden's slew of last-minute pardons, including for members of the House January 6 Select Committee, Anthony Fauci and members of his own family.

Trump's answer will do little to ease the concerns of those who believe he will try to prosecute his former opponent:

"The funny thing — maybe the sad thing — is he didn't give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him," the president says.

Donald Trump criticised the government's emergency response agency FEMA, saying "all it does is complicate everything."

"What they've done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole other discussion, because all it does is complicate everything. FEMA has not done their job for the last four years," Trump said in the interview.

"And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I'd rather see the states take care of their own problems."

It is Trump's first TV network interview since taking office this week.

It is broadcasting now in the US.

North America correspondent Carrington Clarke writes that with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris departing Washington, it's unclear who the new leader of the Democratic Party is.

"Standing up to Trump takes intestinal fortitude, but there are multiple candidates vying to be the president's primary antagonist," he writes.

"A few months ago, California Governor Gavin Newsom seemed the front-runner for the role of figurehead of the anti-Trump forces.

"But Newsom's standing has fallen this year, with heavy criticism about the lead-up and response to Los Angeles's devastating wildfires."

You can read the full piece below:

Among Donald Trump's top priorities upon his return to the White House were a swathe of executive orders to dismantle climate policy — among those was withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement.

Ratified in 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement is the global pact for countries to do their part to avoid the catastrophic consequences of rising temperatures.

While it's often talked about alongside "net zero emissions by 2050", the official goal is to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees, and as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. To do that, we need to be reducing our emissions now, and big emitters (like the US) are key to that.

But Donald Trump is not a fan — he's long argued that it's a bad deal for the US, and this is actually second time he's pulled out of the agreement.  (Joe Biden was quick to return the US to the pact when he came to office in 2021.)

We've taken a closer look about what this means for the rest of the world.

Incidentally, today (US time) is Donald and Melania Trump's 20th wedding anniversary.

The president has marked the occasion with a congratulatory tweet.

The first lady is yet to respond in kind.

Donald Trump says he has selected Sean Curran to serve as the new director of the Secret Service, the agency in charge of providing protection to US political leaders and their families.

The name might not be familiar to you, but the face may well be — Curran can be seen in what is probably the most widely shared photograph from last year's election campaign, having rushed to the president's side during an attempted assassination at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

"He proved his fearless courage when he risked his own life to help save mine from an assassin's bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania," Trump said in his statement announcing the appointment.

"I have complete and total confidence in Sean to make the United States Secret Service stronger than ever before."

Curran will be replacing Ron Rowe, who has served as acting director following the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle, who was widely criticised for the agency's failure to prevent the attempted assassin from firing several shots at Trump before being gunned down himself.

Curran was previously the assistant special agent in charge of the presidential protective team during Trump's first term.

 House Speaker Mike Johnson has held a press conference in which he said Donald Trump has "done more in the last 48 hours for the American people than Joe Biden did in four years".

He can be forgiven a bit of hyperbole, but it's worth pointing out that presidents often begin their terms in office with a flurry of activity — much of which involves issuing executive orders undoing actions taken by their predecessor.

Joe Biden, for example, spent his first full day in office signing orders that overhauled the Trump administration's COVID response, ended Trump's travel ban on majority Muslim countries, committed the US to rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and halted construction of Trump's southern border wall, among other things.

Washington Post Texas correspondent Arelis Hernández has told ABC News there is a lot of apprehension among border communities on how Donald Trump's renewed border crackdown will play out.

"Everyone's sort of bracing for impact to see how local leaders are going to respond," she says.

"El Paso–Juárez is a community that acts as one — they're on different sides of the border but they do act as one because of familial ties and business ties — and so everyone here is sort of trying to figure out what this might look like, and what this might mean for really important things like commerce."

Good morning

If you're just joining us here's an update on the latest on the first days of the Trump Administration:

• About 24.6 million US television viewers tuned in to watch Donald Trump's second inauguration on Monday, the smallest audience since Obama in 2013. 
• Trump has asked for an apology from a bishop who delivered a pointed plea for "mercy" for LGBT children from the Republican.
• The Trump administration has asked all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave. 
• Mexican authorities have begun constructing giant tent shelters in Ciudad Juarez to prepare for a possible influx of Mexicans deported under Trump's promised mass deportations.
•  Trump has threatened Russia with new "taxes, tariffs and sanctions" if a "deal" isn't made to end its invasion of Ukraine.
• Trump signed an executive order that "suspends the physical entry of aliens engaged in an invasion of the United States through the southern border".
• The first of around 1,500 January 6 rioters convicted over the incident have been released.
• The number of states that have filed lawsuits against Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order has risen to 22.

Stick with us as we bring you the latest out of the US.