Trump Live Updates: Law Firms Sue Over EOs, JD Vance Visits Greenland – The New York Times

Judge Howell left in place the administration’s stripping of Jenner & Block’s security clearances.

Jenner & Block and another firm, WilmerHale, filed lawsuits in federal court in Washington on Friday, seeking to halt executive orders that Mr. Trump signed targeting them. Those cases were both initially assigned to Judge Howell, who has also blocked, for now, an order against a third firm, Perkins Coie.

The WilmerHale case was later assigned to a different judge, Richard J. Leon. In a hearing Friday evening, Judge Leon said he was “inclined to grant” a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from punishing the law firm WilmerHale, where Robert S. Mueller III worked before and after he served as special counsel in the Trump-Russia investigation. The judge did not rule from the bench during the hearing, but said he would issue a written decision in a matter of hours.

Earlier Friday, President Trump announced a fresh deal with another major law firm to avoid a punitive executive order. The announcement reflected an emerging divide among law firms, as they grapple with how to respond to Mr. Trump’s multifaceted attack on firms he accuses of acting unethically. In particular, he has sought to punish firms that have employed lawyers who also once worked on investigations and prosecutions of him.

Speaking at the White House, the president said the firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, would provide $100 million in pro bono work on issues that he supports, heading off an expected executive order akin to those he has aimed at other firms that put government buildings and agencies off-limits to the firm’s lawyers.

“This was essentially a settlement,” Mr. Trump said. “We appreciate Skadden’s coming to the table, as you know other law firms have likewise settled the case. It’s a shame what’s gone on.”

The White House has signaled that more firms are in the president’s cross hairs, particularly those that employ lawyers who have worked on investigations into Mr. Trump or on causes that his supporters object to.

The president also issued a statement from the firm, in which it declared a “strong commitment to ending the weaponization of the justice system and the legal profession.”

An executive partner of Skadden, Jeremy London, said in a statement that the firm “engaged proactively with President Trump and his team in working together constructively to reach this agreement,” adding that it looked forward to a “productive relationship.” He continued, “We firmly believe that this outcome is in the best interests of our clients, our people, and our firm.”

Skadden Arps chose to follow a path similar to that of another large firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison in cutting a deal, rather than fighting in court.

The president’s campaign against major law firms, fueled by his anger against lawyers whom he personally blames for his legal troubles, has sent shock waves through the profession and led to an intense debate among lawyers about whether to fight on principle or negotiate.

The Skadden Arps deal suggests negotiating may be getting more costly. Paul Weiss said it would provide $40 million in pro bono work, while the Skadden Arps agreement more than doubled that amount. The deals have also been met with scathing criticism by those in the legal community who see them as unnecessary capitulation in cases where the firms have the law on their side.

For months, the president has railed against firms that he said refused to represent conservatives or their causes. His executive orders are intended to force them to do so.

According to a fact sheet issued by the White House, Skadden Arps “will not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups, who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms” because of the political views of the firm’s lawyers.

On Wednesday, the president boasted about his track record of bringing big law firms to heel.

“They’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir, thank you very much,’” Mr. Trump said, adding that they were asking, “‘Where do I sign? Where do I sign?’”

Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess contributed reporting from New York.

The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Peter Marks, abruptly resigned Friday in a searing letter to the agency’s acting commissioner, citing the aggressive stance of the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., toward undermining the safety of vaccines.

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Marks wrote to Sara Brenner, the agency’s acting commissioner.

The resignation comes after Kennedy extolled the value of unproven alternative treatments during a major measles outbreak in Texas.

“Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety. and security,” Dr. Marks wrote.

It also effectively paralyzes the other body, the National Labor Relations Board, in another blow to unions the day after Mr. Trump moved to end collective bargaining agreements for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

More broadly, the decision was an endorsement of Mr. Trump’s expansive view of executive powers in a case that many legal observers believe is headed for the Supreme Court. A final ruling there could put agencies across the government that Congress intended to be separate from the White House under the president’s control.

By a 2-to-1 vote, the ruling on Friday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed two district court decisions that had reinstated Cathy Harris of the Merit Systems Protection Board and Gwynne A. Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board while their cases play out. Mr. Trump fired Ms. Wilcox in January and Ms. Harris in February. Both women argued that they had been improperly terminated.

“The government contends that the president suffers irreversible harm each day the district courts’ injunctions remain in effect because he is deprived of the constitutional authority vested in him alone. I agree,” Judge Justin Walker wrote in the opinion. Judge Walker was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020. Judge Karen L. Henderson, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, also sided with the government.

Late Friday, Ms. Harris filed a motion asking the panel to hold off on removing her from her position until the full appellate court in the District of Columbia can consider the appeal.

Removing Ms. Wilcox and Ms. Harris from their positions will debilitate each board. The labor board requires a minimum of three members to act. Without Ms. Wilcox, there are just two. The merit protections board requires two members to act, and without Ms. Harris, there will be only one member left.

“The decision will give the administration more running room in its campaign to weaken labor regulation and to remake the civil service,” said Donald F. Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland who studies the civil service. “That will allow it to move even more quickly to make progress on its goals.”

Earlier this month, Ms. Harris ordered the reinstatement of thousands of probationary employees who were fired in February as part of Mr. Trump’s grand plan to shrink the size of the federal government.

Mr. Trump also fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, the government’s independent watchdog agency. The head of that office, Hampton Dellinger, was investigating the probationary firings.

As with Ms. Wilcox and Ms. Harris, a district judge ordered that Mr. Dellinger be reinstated while his challenge to his termination proceeds. And the same panel of appellate judges in the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision. Mr. Dellinger dropped his challenge to the firing after the appeals court decision.

The head of the Office of Special Counsel and members of the labor and merit protections boards are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Patricia A. Millett, an Obama appointee, said that the prevailing opinions are in direct conflict with at least two other circuit courts.

The decision, she wrote, “also marks the first time in history that a court of appeals, or the Supreme Court, has licensed the termination of members of multimember adjudicatory boards statutorily protected by the very type of removal restriction the Supreme Court has twice unanimously upheld.”

She described the other judges’ decisions as a “hurried and preliminary first-look” that traps “in legal limbo millions of employees and employers whom the law says must go to these boards for the resolution of their employment disputes.”

In termination letters, the Trump administration told fired probationary employees that they may have limited grounds to take their appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Government lawyers have also argued that fired employees and labor unions that represent the fired workers do not have standing to bring a case to a district court because Congress designed the merit protections board and similar bodies to handle those matters.

Judge William H. Alsup in the Northern District of California recently questioned how the administration could do that after the “cannibalization” of the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Judge Alsup is presiding over a case brought by several labor unions challenging the firing of thousands of probationary employees.

If the merit protections board does not have enough members to make decisions, “these employees will have no recourse,” Judge Alsup said during a March 13 hearing.

Rebecca Davis O’Brien contributed reporting.

Judge John Bates of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from punishing the law firm Jenner & Block, calling one part of the president’s executive order against the firm “disturbing.”

“This ruling upholds the Constitution’s separation of powers and preserves the bureau’s vital work,” said Deepak Gupta, the lawyer representing the union. Representatives of the consumer bureau did not respond to a request for comment.

The bureau, created after the 2008 financial crisis, has been in turmoil since Feb. 7, when President Trump appointed Russell T. Vought, the director of the White House budget office, as the agency’s acting director. Mr. Vought quickly fired hundreds of employees, ordered the rest to stop all work, closed the bureau’s offices and canceled contracts with vendors for staffing and services that are essential to the agency’s operations.

But only Congress can close the bureau, and parts of the agency have flicked back to life over the past seven weeks in response to legal challenges. Nearly 200 terminated employees have been rehired, and some of the agency’s departments have returned to work to carry out the bureau’s legally mandated responsibilities. Most of the staff, however, has remained on administrative leave.

For years, the financial industry has complained that the consumer bureau, which regulates a range of lending activity from mortgages to credit cards, has been overly aggressive, tying up companies in litigation and red tape and hindering credit from flowing to consumers.

Judge Jackson wrote that Mr. Vought’s actions “were taken in complete disregard for the decision Congress made 15 years ago” to create the agency and assign it the power to monitor banks and other lenders and enforce consumer protection laws. Without an injunction, she said, the government would likely “complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of law” and annihilate it so thoroughly that “it will be impossible to rebuild.”

The judge opened her ruling with three epigraphs quoting senior administration officials — including Mr. Trump himself — openly stating their intention to destroy the bureau. (“That was a very important thing to get rid of,” Mr. Trump said in early February, praising Mr. Vought’s actions.)

Judge Jackson’s order instructs the government to reinstate and preserve the bureau’s contracts, employees, data and operations while the case progresses.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, said he plans to create a vaccine injury agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a NewsNation interview Thursday night. He said the plan is a priority for him and will help bring “gold-standard science” to the federal government.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the study of vaccine injuries has long been a high priority. “I fear this is a way to emphasize vaccine injuries in a way that’s completely disproportionate to what the real risk is,” he said.

Kennedy, who dedicated the last 20 years to undermining confidence in vaccines, is leading a major reorganization of the nation’s health agency, which is on track to pare 20,000 jobs through buyouts, retirements and layoffs. Despite a federal hiring freeze, his agency recently hired a prominent researcher in the anti-vaccine movement to study the long-discounted link between vaccines and autism.

A federal judge had also ordered Mr. Watson and Ozy to pay $96 million in restitution and forfeiture. Mr. Watson and Ozy also no longer have to pay those financial penalties, the people said.

Mr. Watson had pleaded not guilty and continued to assert his innocence up until he was sentenced to 116 months. His commutation was reported earlier by CNBC.

Mr. Watson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Watson started Ozy in 2013, publishing news articles and newsletters before venturing into podcasts and television productions. The start-up secured commitments from prominent investors at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in investments that largely didn’t pan out.

Throughout the legal proceedings, Mr. Watson denied the fraud allegations. In court, his lawyers argued that his representations to investors had been based on good-faith assessments of Ozy’s finances, and they shifted the blame for any fraudulent activity onto other former Ozy employees. When he took the stand at his trial, Mr. Watson said he had not intentionally inflated revenue estimates, but rather had presented the types of service-based income typical of a “scrappy young company” in its early years.

Mr. Watson, at his sentencing hearing in December, reiterated his stance that the government selectively prosecuted him because he is a Black man.

Samir Rao, the other founder of Ozy, and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of staff, pleaded guilty in 2023 to fraud charges and testified against Mr. Watson.

At the heart of the case was a 2021 fund-raising call during which Mr. Rao misled Goldman Sachs employees by impersonating a YouTube executive, as first reported by The New York Times. Prosecutors contended that Mr. Watson had helped set up the call, citing text messages he sent to Mr. Rao that, they claimed, amounted to a script for what to say. Mr. Watson denied any responsibility.

Witnesses also testified that Mr. Watson had misrepresented Ozy’s finances to secure investments, inflating revenue figures and presenting misleading claims of commitments from Oprah Winfrey and Live Nation Entertainment.

Mr. Trump also this week pardoned the three founders of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to violations of the bank secrecy act, one of the people familiar with the matter said, as well as Trevor Milton, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of defrauding investors in the electric truck maker Nikola.

The afternoon brought a flurry of investigations into suspected affirmative action in California higher education: The Justice Department said it would investigate whether Stanford University and three schools in the University of California system were violating a Supreme Court decision that banned the consideration of race in admissions. Then the Health and Human Services Department said it was looking into accusations of similar discrimination at “a major medical school in California.”

By sundown, the Agriculture Department had sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a letter saying it would review its education-related funding in California in connection with transgender protections. And the Justice Department announced that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was under investigation for allegedly taking too long to approve applications for concealed-carry permits.

Neither California nor President Trump has ever pretended there was much love lost between them. The state, which is dominated by Democrats, sued Mr. Trump’s administration more than 120 times during his first term in office. Californians voted against him by landslides in the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections — results that Mr. Trump claimed, baselessly, were tied to voter fraud.

It’s unclear what triggered the barrage of attention this week to California, and whether it was choreographed or coincidental. The White House did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment.

Mr. Newsom declined to comment as well. A spokesman, Izzy Gardon, said the governor was “focused on Los Angeles’s recovery.”

Senator Adam B. Schiff, a Democrat who led the first impeachment of Mr. Trump, said the president had a “partisan vendetta against California” and was “continuing to weaponize the federal government against the one in 10 Americans” who live in the state of more than 39 million people.

California’s Trump supporters applauded.

“Extreme policies and unchecked one-party rule have lowered the quality of life across our state,” said Representative Kevin Kiley, Republican of California. “All Californians will benefit from greater accountability. We need balance and common sense.”

Other California officials and legal experts said the investigations appeared to be legally questionable and politically driven.

“His command of the law and compliance with the law is inconsistent at best,” California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said of Mr. Trump. He said the state was already on track to sue the Trump administration almost twice as many times as it did during the president’s first term, and potentially more than 200 times over the next four years. So far, he said, California has sued the administration eight times in eight weeks.

Since Mr. Trump took office this year, he has serially singled out Democratic strongholds.

Last month, he chastised Maine’s governor over the state’s protections for transgender athletes and opened investigations into the state’s educational system. This week, he signed an executive order initiating a “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force” that would increase the police presence in Washington, maximize immigration enforcement, expedite concealed-carry licenses and crack down on subway fare evasion. Local officials countered that crime in the district was down.

“I think there is no doubt, from the pattern of investigations, that there is targeting of ‘blue’ states and especially California,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the schools where Attorney General Pam Bondi opened “compliance review investigations.”

“Some is likely a difference of policies and values,” Mr. Chemerinsky said. “But some likely is retribution and playing to his political base.”

Political experts said they were surprised it had taken this long for the Trump administration to let loose on California. For months, the Democrats who lead the state had braced for a Republican assault on its influential policies on D.E.I., gun restrictions, immigration, equity in college admissions and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.

Several public affairs experts speculated that the administration had planned to make an example of California immediately after the president took office, but hesitated after catastrophic fires erupted in Los Angeles on Jan. 7, less than two weeks before his inauguration. Mr. Trump falsely suggested in his inaugural address that the state authorities had let wildfires tear through Los Angeles “without a token of defense,” but refrained from attacking the state on other, more partisan cultural issues.

After Mr. Newsom’s press office contradicted Mr. Trump on social media with photos of firefighters assaulting flames and rescuing terrified fire victims, the president pivoted to an inaccurate claim that state protections for endangered fish had diminished the amount of water available for firefighting. In late January, the administration pointedly unleashed a gusher of federal irrigation water nearly 200 miles north of Los Angeles as the president claimed on social media that if California had listened to him years before, “there would have been no fire!”

The water had no direct connection to the infrastructure supplying Los Angeles County, and more than a billion gallons ended up trapped in a low spot in the Central Valley, where farmers, many of whom had voted for Mr. Trump, complained about the potential impact on summer irrigation supplies.

As Los Angeles area fire victims have turned to rebuilding, attacks on the state have become politically safer.

Jason Elliott, a Democratic political consultant and former Newsom adviser, framed Thursday’s assault on California as a well-worn way for Mr. Trump to rekindle his base and distract from bipartisan outrage over tariffs, Elon Musk and the scandal over the discussion of war plans on Signal.

“Clearly somebody put the smelling salts under their nose and they woke up and realized that culture wars are the only thing they have going for them,” Mr. Elliott said. “They turned to the only play they know how to run.”

At a packed hearing in federal court in Washington, lawyer Paul Clement argued on the law firm Wilmer Hale’s behalf that it was “clear as day” that the Trump order against the firm violated the First Amendment. He said the chilling effect on the firm’s business had been immediate. The firm is suing the administration.

Justice Department lawyer Richard Lawson urged Judge Leon not to issue a temporary restraining order, arguing the specific limitations for Wilmer Hale had not been decided, so there was no reason to rush a court decision.

The Trump administration has struck deals with Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador as part of its efforts to remove people who are difficult to deport to their home countries. Hundreds of migrants from countries in Africa and Asia, for instance, have been deported to Panama, a country those migrants had no ties to.

In prior administrations, strained diplomatic relationships and difficulties with paperwork have made it hard to deport large numbers of people to certain countries.

The new order is limited to migrants who have a “final order of removal,” meaning their case has already been considered by an immigration court. The administration has also claimed it has the authority to circumvent much of that process using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, which it has used to remove more than 200 Venezuelans from the United States to El Salvador. Another judge has blocked that use of the law, which only applies during wartime. On Friday, the administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

The plaintiffs in the case are four migrants, identified only by their initials, who are citizens of Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala. Two are in the United States and fear they will be deported when they arrive for upcoming check-ins with immigration authorities. A third is being held at a county prison in Massachusetts; the fourth “remains in hiding in Guatemala,” a country where a U.S. immigration judge “found it was more likely than not that he would be persecuted,” according to the complaint.

Their lawsuit claims that the administration’s deportation policies violate the Constitution’s guarantee to due process, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Muneer Ahmad, a professor at Yale Law School who represents immigrants as part of the school’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, called the decision “important,” adding that it would slow what he called “the Trump administration’s efforts to bum-rush immigrants out of the country in disregard of these core legal obligations to protect against torture or persecution.”

Judge Murphy has scheduled a hearing for April 10 to consider whether to issue a preliminary injunction, which would be more lasting than Friday’s temporary restraining order.

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, noted that the case was one of a series targeting the Trump administration’s lightning-fast efforts to deport migrants.

“This will affect the administration’s ability to carry out more high-profile removals to third countries, like those to Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador,” she said.

Tim Balk contributed reporting from New York.

The agency employed about 10,000 people before the Trump administration began reviewing and canceling foreign aid contracts within days of President Trump’s return to the White House. By Sept. 2, the email said, “the agency’s operations will have been substantially transferred to State or otherwise wound down.”

The cuts are in keeping with the administration’s plan to use foreign aid as a tool to further its diplomatic priorities. This month, recipients of U.S.A.I.D. funds were asked to justify their value to the administration through questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether their programs helped to limit illegal immigration or secure rare earth minerals.

In a statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the forthcoming cuts.

“We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,” he said, calling U.S.A.I.D. in its previous form “misguided and fiscally irresponsible.”

He pledged that “essential lifesaving programs” would be among those preserved under the State Department. In plans shared with Congress, however, the administration signaled that the U.S.A.I.D. programs it was ending included one that funded vaccines for children in poor countries, as well as some funding for combating malaria.

The email to employees, which was written by Jeremy Lewin, who is part of the Department of Government Efficiency and was recently named as one of two acting deputy administrators for U.S.A.I.D., said that all nonstatutory employees of the agency would receive separation notices with a final date of July 1 or Sept. 2. But some employees reported receiving different dates on Friday, including one Foreign Service officer who was told they would have to depart their post at the end of May.

Title 5 of the U.S. Code names only 15 specific employees of U.S.A.I.D.: one administrator, one deputy administrator, six assistant administrators, four regional assistant administrators, one chief information officer, one general counsel and one inspector general. At its peak, the agency counted about 10,000 employees on its payroll, including contractors, in the United States and abroad.

Terminated employees will be able to apply to be rehired by the State Department, the email said, through a process that has not yet been established. Overseas personnel, it said, would be offered “safe and fully compensated” return packages to the United States. Employees posted overseas were told they had 72 hours to request their preferred departure date.

The email was sent to all U.S.A.I.D. employees — including those who are actively responding to the powerful earthquake that struck Myanmar on Friday. The email landed around midnight local time on the phones of dozens of U.S.A.I.D. employees sheltering in the street in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand, as tremors continued to shake the city.

Shortly after the email went out, employees began receiving formal reduction in force notices. One shared with The New York Times read: “The agency is abolishing your competitive area. You will be released from your competitive level and will not have an assignment right to another position in the competitive area.”

They then received an email encouraging them “to step away and recharge,” given the impact of the day’s announcement, according to a copy shared with The Times.

The layoffs are a far more drastic reduction than the Trump administration had initially envisioned for U.S.A.I.D. In February, senior officials at the agency were told that its work force would be cut to a few hundred employees. But on Friday, even some of the workers who had been deemed essential were given their walking papers.

While the administration notified lawmakers of their intent to pursue the cuts, Congress has not approved the reorganization plan, which Democratic lawmakers have called an illegal closure of the agency.

Members of the House and Senate committees that oversee foreign affairs and associated budgets were informed about the reorganization on Friday by the Trump administration, which said it would be completed by July 1.

In the meantime, several employees are taking issue with the way the termination notices were handed out. Some began circulating a list of “irregularities” on Friday, pointing out clerical errors and objecting that the notices had not been disseminated in accordance with the formal reduction in force process.

To put someone “with zero meaningful government, foreign policy or development experience in charge of this process is insulting to the career staff around the world with decades of experience,” Julianne Weis, who was a senior adviser in the U.S.A.I.D. global health bureau and also received a termination letter on Friday, said of Mr. Lewin. “It’s also dangerous for America’s global standing, national security and foreign policy.”

A request for comment sent to U.S.A.I.D. received an automatic reply directing all inquiries to the State Department’s press office.

Amy Schoenfeld Walker contributed reporting.

And after offering positive comments online, the president later suggested to reporters that Canada was not among the nations he believed have treated the United States unfairly in trade.

Mr. Trump has promised to impose on April 2 a variety of tariffs on American trading partners, including new ones against Canada. “Many countries have taken advantage of us,” but not Canada, Mr. Trump said.

He added: “I think things will work out very well between Canada and the United States.”

Earlier, in a social media post, the president described his call with Mr. Carney on Friday as “an extremely productive call, we agree on many things.”

Mr. Carney, the former central banker of England and Canada, became prime minister on March 14 after succeeding Mr. Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party. Mr. Carney is now in the midst of an election campaign in which the dominant issues have been the response to Mr. Trump’s trade policy targeting Canada and the anger over the president’s repeated calls for the country’s annexation.

After Mr. Trump announced earlier this week a 25 percent tariff on imported cars and parts, Mr. Carney suggested on Thursday that Canada would re-evaluate its interdependent economic relationship with its neighbor because “it is clear that the United States is no longer a reliable partner.”

Mr. Carney added: “It is possible that, with comprehensive negotiations, we will be able to restore some trust. But there will be no turning back.”

After Friday’s conversation, Mr. Carney also took a less inflammatory approach to relations with the United States. At a campaign event in Montreal, he said that the call was “positive, cordial, constructive — exactly what we want.”

“We made progress today, but this is the beginning of negotiations,” Mr. Carney said, adding that the president did not offer to remove the auto tariff on Canada, or the tariffs on Canadian steel or aluminum.

Both leaders said that they had agreed, as Mr. Trump put it, “to begin comprehensive negotiations about a new economic and security relationship” after the Canadian election on April 28.

In the interim, Carney said that talks between Howard Lutnick, Mr. Trump’s commerce secretary, and Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s trade minister, “will intensify to address immediate concerns.”

The president’s repeated calls for annexation did not come up, Mr. Carney said.

“The president respected Canada’s sovereignty today,” Mr. Carney said.

However, not all of the Trump administration’s talk about Canada on Friday was positive.

When asked if the United States still intended to impose tariffs on Canada next week, Mr. Trump said he would “absolutely follow through.”

And in Greenland, Vice President JD Vance echoed Mr. Trump’s earlier complaints about Canada, saying that it has imposed “an unfair set of rules” on the United States. He also said, “There is no way that Canada can win a trade war with the United States.”

Asked about the apparent change in tone from President Trump toward Canada, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader and Mr. Carney’s nearest rival in next month’s election, said that “it’s clear that the president would like to keep the Liberals in power.

“They’ve been very good for his agenda,” Mr. Poilievre said. “He wants to take our money and our jobs, and Liberals have helped him do it.”

Led by Vice President JD Vance, the American visitors quickly discovered what past administrations have learned back to the 1860s: The meteorological conditions are as forbidding as the politics. When Mr. Vance’s plane touched down in the midday sunshine, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it was minus 3 degrees outside.

Mr. Vance used a jocular and slightly vulgar epithet to describe the temperature, where he was wearing jeans and a parka, but no hat or gloves. “Nobody told me,” he said to the troops at the Pituffik Space Base as he entered their mess hall for lunch. The U.S. Space Force Guardians, who run what was once known after World War II as Thule Air Force Base, broke out laughing.

But for all the humor, the trip was simultaneously a reconnaissance mission and a passive-aggressive reminder of Mr. Trump’s determination to fulfill his territorial ambitions, no matter what the obstacles. As if to drive home the point, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday: “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of ‘Do you think we can do without it.’ We can’t.”

In fact, of the four territories Mr. Trump has discussed acquiring — Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada and Gaza — it is Greenland that he seems most determined to get. Perhaps it is the vast expanse of the territory, far larger than Mexico. Perhaps it is its strategic location, or his determination to have an American “sphere of influence,” a very 19th-century view of how great powers deal with each other.

Yet one of the mysteries hanging over the Vance tour is how far Mr. Trump is willing to go to achieve his goal. That has been the question since early January, when Mr. Trump, awaiting his inauguration, was asked whether he would rule out economic or military coercion to get his way. “I’m not going to commit to that,” he said. “You might have to do something.”

Not since the days of William McKinley, who engaged in the Spanish-American War in the late 19th century and ended up with U.S. control of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, has an American president-elect so blatantly threatened the use of force to expand the country’s territorial boundaries. And the visit on Friday appeared designed to make that clear, without quite repeating the threat.

Mr. Vance is the first sitting vice president to visit a land that Americans have coveted for more than a century and a half. The fact that he was accompanied by the embattled national security adviser, Michael Waltz, and the energy secretary, Chris Wright, was clearly designed to underscore the strategic rationale that Mr. Trump cites as a justification for his territorial ambitions.

Before the visit, the leader of Greenland suggested that he viewed Mr. Waltz’s presence, in particular, as a show of Mr. Trump’s aggressive intent.

“What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland?” Múte Bourup Egede, Greenland’s 38-year-old prime minister, told the local newspaper Sermitsiaq on Sunday. “The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us.”

Mr. Egede and other Greenland officials made it clear that the Americans were not welcome for a visit. The White House had to scrap a good-will tour by Usha Vance, the vice president’s wife, who had been planning to attend a dog sled race and hold conversations with ordinary Greenlanders. As it became clear that the roads around Nuuk, the capital, would be lined with protesters, the visit was moved just to the Space Force base, where distance from any population center and high fences assured there would be no visible dissent.

Mr. Trump is not wrong when he claims that there are strategic advantages to acquiring the territory. William Seward, the secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, was negotiating to buy the territory for a bit more than $5 million in 1868 — with Iceland thrown in — just after he acquired Alaska. But the deal never came to fruition. Harry Truman wanted the territory after World War II, recognizing that failure to control it would give advantage to the Soviets, and make the United States more vulnerable to Soviet submarines.

Today Greenland is the site of a surface and undersea competition with China and Russia for access to the Arctic, a territory with vastly increased military and commercial importance since global warming made traversing polar routes easier. And Mr. Trump has made clear he is interested in Greenland’s untapped mineral reserves and rare earths, as he is in Ukraine, Russia and Canada.

“If you look at the globe, you can see why we prefer that the Russians and the Chinese don’t control this,” said Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. “But we don’t need to own it to protect it and prevent them from taking control.”

Mr. Trump, he said, “wants the resources of Greenland, but in today’s world you can buy resources.” And by expanding the American presence, he could defend against growing Chinese or Russian influence without seizing control of the land.

But Mr. Trump looks at the world through the eyes of a real estate developer, and he clearly cherishes territorial control. In his inaugural address he talked about “manifest destiny” and praised Mr. McKinley. James K. Polk’s portrait has made it on the wall of the Oval Office, along with a selection of other past presidents; he was the president who oversaw much of the American expansion to the West Coast.

Mr. Vance’s audience was American troops, not Greenlanders, once his wife’s trip was turned into a vice-presidential mission. But he was clearly talking to a larger audience when, before getting back on his plane and returning to warmer climes in Washington, he made the case that the United States would be a far better steward for Greenland than Denmark has been for several hundred years.

“Let’s be honest,” he said. “This base, the surrounding area, is less secure than it was 30, 40, years ago, because some of our allies haven’t kept up as China and Russia have taken greater and greater interest in Greenland, in this base, in the activities of the brave Americans right here.”

He charged that Denmark, and much of Europe, has not “kept pace with military spending, and Denmark has not kept pace in devoting the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and from other nations.”

It was a remarkable public critique of a NATO ally, but milder than what Mr. Vance said to his national security colleagues about European partners in the Signal chat that became public earlier in the week.

“Our message to Denmark is very simple, you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Mr. Vance said, all but goading Greenlanders into declaring independence from Denmark. “You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass, filled with incredible people.”

In an exchange with reporters, Mr. Vance seemed to acknowledge that the drive to acquire the territory had as much to do with Mr. Trump as the national security threat. “We can’t just ignore this place,” he said at one point. “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires. But most importantly, we can’t ignore what I said earlier, which is the Russian and Chinese encroachment in Greenland.”

“When the president says we’ve got to have Greenland, he’s saying this island is not safe,” he said. “A lot of people are interested in it. A lot of people are making a play.” But he was careful to say the decision about whom to partner with was Greenland’s. (Mr. Trump himself has not put it in such voluntary terms.)

Just before he left, Mr. Vance was asked if military plans had been drafted to take Greenland if it declines to become an American protectorate.

“We do not think that military force is ever going to be necessary,” he said. “We think the people of Greenland are rational and good, and we think we’re going to be able to cut a deal, Donald Trump-style, to ensure the security of this territory, but also the United States of America.”

President Trump’s efforts to deport migrants to places other than their country of origin hit a new roadblock on Friday, when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the administration to give migrants an opportunity to contest their removal on the grounds that they might be at risk of torture. The Trump administration has struck deals with multiple countries to detain U.S. deportees.

“The government has been whisking people out of the country and deporting them to third countries,” said Trina Realmuto, one of the lawyers who submitted the complaint. “This will effectively stop those deportations.”

While Mr. Khalil’s lawyers are fighting for his freedom, the Trump administration is seeking to deport him, saying that he spread antisemitism through his involvement in the protests. If Mr. Khalil stays in Louisiana, his case could end up in one of America’s most conservative appeals courts. Those judges could decide whether the government’s rationale for detaining Mr. Khalil could be used in other cases.

The case was originally filed in New York, but a judge there decided he lacked jurisdiction and that it should be heard in New Jersey. The attempts by Mr. Khalil’s lawyers to free him have created a tangle of litigation, much of which has focused on a seemingly technical question: In which court should his case be heard?

On Friday in Newark, Baher Azmy, a lawyer for Mr. Khalil and legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, argued in court that transferring the case to Louisiana would set a precedent for other activists to be moved without legal justification, which he called “Kafkaesque.”

The government’s case against Mr. Khalil was undertaken “in order to retaliate against constitutionally protected speech,” Mr. Azmy said.

But a lawyer for the government, August E. Flentje, said it “made no good sense” for the case to be heard in New Jersey when Mr. Khalil had been arrested in New York, asserting that “the case belongs in Louisiana.”

Judge Farbiarz delayed ruling on a request from Mr. Khalil’s lawyers that he be granted bail, saying he first wanted to resolve the issue of where the case would be heard.

Mr. Khalil is one of at least nine protest participants who have been arrested and detained this month. Unlike some others, he is a legal resident, married to an American citizen who is expected to give birth next month.

He has not been charged with a crime. Instead, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has cited a rarely used law to explain Mr. Khalil’s detention, saying that the recent graduate threatens the Trump administration’s foreign policy goal of halting the spread of antisemitism.

Mr. Khalil’s lawyers initially asked for his release in New York federal court. But the judge there determined that it should be heard neither there, nor in Louisiana, but in New Jersey, where Mr. Khalil was being held at the moment his lawyers filed court papers. Accordingly, the case itself was transferred to New Jersey last week.

Once there, the government’s lawyers continued to fight to transfer the case to Louisiana. In a filing, they noted that Mr. Khalil had never filed a petition in New Jersey — and argued that the court had no jurisdiction.

The administration has reason to continue its fight. If the legal battle is waged in Louisiana, it is likely to make its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which from New Orleans presides over cases from that state.

The Fifth Circuit is known as one of the country’s most conservative, and in the past has sided with government officials over noncitizens. If its judges rule in favor of the Trump administration, Secretary Rubio could continue to cite the law used to justify the detention of Mr. Khalil in efforts to deport other legal permanent residents.

Friday’s hearing came days after a judge in Manhattan ordered the government to halt efforts to detain Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia student and legal permanent resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests. Ms. Chung, who shares a legal team with Mr. Khalil, was never detained by immigration authorities.

In an interview outside the courthouse after the hearing, Mr. Azmy noted the distinction between her case and Mr. Khalil’s.

“The fact that he’s in custody allows the government to have total control over him” Mr. Azmy said.

As the hearing played out, around 50 demonstrators assembled outside the Newark courthouse to protest Mr. Khalil’s detention. They waved Palestinian flags, held signs and chanted.

“Hands off our students! ICE off our campus!” read one sign. “Opposing genocide does not mean supporting terrorism.”

Speaking at the rally, Amy Torres, executive director for the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, pointed to a chilling effect on free speech created by the detention of students across the country.

“They have only targeted people that they view to be voiceless,” she said, adding, “This is about this administration taking the issue that they believe is the least sympathetic, and making an example out of the people that they arrest.”

Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.

Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, has returned to the tactic as he tries to elect a conservative judge, Brad Schimel, in a major race for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The billionaire has offered a chance to earn $1 million to signers of a petition opposing “activist judges.”

Early Friday, Mr. Musk took it a big step further: He told his 219 million followers on X that when he visited Wisconsin on Sunday, he would hand out two $1 million checks to people who had already voted in the election “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.” The offer was open only to those who had already voted, he said.

But later on Friday, Mr. Musk quietly deleted his post on X.

About 12 hours after that initial post, he said he had to “clarify a previous post.” He wrote that “entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges,” adding, “I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition.”

Mr. Musk, whose shoot-from-the-hip approach on his social media site has gotten him in plenty of legal trouble over the years, appeared to be bowing to the legal scrutiny that was building on Friday.

It is Wisconsin law, not federal law, that applies, and the state’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, on Friday sued to block Mr. Musk’s payments. (In a curious twist of fate, the case was randomly assigned to Susan Crawford, the liberal judge whom Mr. Musk is trying to defeat. She quickly recused herself.)

Several experts argued before Mr. Musk’s deletion of his post that his new inducement, which seemed to condition the chance of winning $1 million on voting, was illegal under state bribery laws.

“Conditioning entrance to this event and eligibility for the $1 million payout on having voted arguably violates Wisconsin law, which prohibits offering or giving anything of value to induce a person to vote,” said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer who has defended the legality of some of Mr. Musk’s petition payouts.

Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said that Mr. Musk’s original offer was “pretty clearly” a violation of state bribery laws. While Mr. Musk’s offer before the November 2024 election was a “gray area,” Ms. Godar said, “the key difference here is that the rally and the million-dollar payments are limited to people who have already voted.”

Part of the reason for Mr. Musk’s petition and payouts has been to gin up controversy and attention from the news media. His 2024 petition was challenged in Pennsylvania state court just before Election Day, and a state judge declined to put a stop to it.