The relationship between US President Donald Trump and former aide Elon Musk has plunged to a new low, with the pair trading accusations on social media.

Hours after Mr Trump lamented his break-up with Mr Musk at a White House press conference, the president took to his social media platform, saying he "asked" Mr Musk to leave because he was "wearing thin".

In response, Mr Musk took to his own social media outlet, claiming the president "is in the Epstein files"......

Amid a flurry of furious tweets from Elon Musk, denouncing the current centrepiece of Donald Trump’s agenda, came one with particularly telling language.

“In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” Mr Musk posted, referring to the congressional elections of 2026.

Betrayed. There’s a loaded word. One that says more about Mr Musk’s sorely bruised ego, I suspect, than the American government’s long-complacent tax and spending policies......

It has been more than two months since Donald Trump's "liberation day" tariffs were announced, which included a 10 per cent tariff on imported Australian beef.

But US demand for lean beef has far outweighed the tariff and exports have been surging.

"In terms of volume, I don't think Trump's tariffs have had an impact at all," Rabobank analyst Angus Gidley-Baird said.

"Year to date, beef exports are up over 30 per cent and if we continue at this pace, we'll go very close to pushing our quota limit for the first time (which is about 450,000 tonnes)."

According to Meat and Livestock Australia, 167,722 tonnes of beef have been shipped to the US so far this year, which is up 32 per cent.

Beef exports to China are also rising, with 117,341 tonnes exported, up 30 per cent on last year.

General manager of meat processing company, The Midfield Group, Dean McKenna, said Donald Trump's tariffs were "one of the best things" that had happened to his business.

"I wish he went 50 per cent [tariff]," he told Queensland Country Life......

Protests in Los Angeles look set to enter their fifth day as Donald Trump vows to keep troops in the city "until there is no danger".

It comes a day after an ABC camera operator was struck in the chest by a less lethal round in the latest in a string of incidents where members of the media have been hit by crowd-control munitions.

The demonstrations against US immigration enforcement continued on Monday, with the Trump administration ordering 700 additional US Marines into LA and intensifying raids on suspected undocumented migrants......

Where the hell were you in January when LA was on fire?!!!

• Golfing at Trump National Doral Miami Jan 26-27
  
• Golf weekend in Mar-a-Lago from Feb 01
  

https://trumpgolftracker.net/

Well for someone who was going to bring peace to the world and collect a peace prize in the process delusional Donny has only had the opposite effect at home and abroad.

1 thing is for sure and that he's certainly the "King of Chaos".

Rap tycoon Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing conviction on sex trafficking charges. President Donald Trump is already considering granting him clemency.

Pardons are big business in the White House. Trump has set hundreds of people free in his first four months.

First among them were almost all 1500 of those convicted for the January 6 insurrection attack on Capitol Hill. They’ve since been joined by reality TV stars, a well-connected nursing home executive, a MAGA county sheriff and several drug barons......

An Australian blogger who was detained for 12 hours and deported in a “traumatic” ordeal when attempting to visit friends in the United States last week is warning other Aussies to reconsider their travel plans.

Alistair Kitchen, from Castlemaine in regional Victoria, lived in the US for six years and studied creative writing for the last two years as an international student at New York’s Columbia University until he moved home to Australia late last year.

The 33-year-old was travelling back to the States on Thursday using a ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) under the Visa Waiver Program when he was singled out over the loud speaker on his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport on route to New York.

Mr Kitchen is now grappling with the “really painful” reality that he may not see some much-loved friends again.

“I love the US. There are people living there that I love. I may now be banned, I don’t know. I just would tell Australians to consider seriously whether they want to risk visiting the US during the years of the Trump administration,” Mr Kitchen told news.com.au.

But after Mr Kitchen went public with his experience, the US Department of Homeland Security issued its own warning to travellers.

Boasting the “most secure border in American History” under President Donald Trump, it claimed “lawful travellers have nothing to fear” and warned the rest: “don’t even try.”.......

Saw a sign on my way to work this morning near downtown Los Angeles. I think it may capture the sentiment of many of the protesters. It said "Lynch Trump" along with other profane things.

Several high-profile Trump supporters have watched on this week in disbelief, as the man they voted in fired off increasingly inflammatory rhetoric towards Iran from his socials.

We’ve spoken a lot about how the left became fragmented through incessant infighting, which slowly but surely pushed the moderates away from the side of purported fairness.

But now we’re seeing it happen on the right, at least in the US.

The “anti-war, pro-America” agenda Trump ran on has been tested this month, purely because of America’s historical links to Israel.

With Tel Aviv under attack after launching “pre-emptive strikes” at Iran, Trump has been forced to wade into the drama as several of his close Republican confidants bay for blood.

Unfortunately, nuance isn’t the 79-year-old’s strong suit. What followed was a series of threats directed at the Ayatollah, coupled with broad-strokes warnings of bombing Iran into oblivion.

For the libertarian and former Democrat wing of Trump’s voter base – even some of those who have forever stood staunchly behind the billionaire – this messaging was seen as poison.

Optimists saw him as a rejection of the past, but as each day passes, the Republican Party’s old colours are shining through......

Trump has torn up the rule book in his second presidential term — defying the courts, the congress and the constitution.

But it's his attempt to "make America wealthy again" by imposing tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories that have caused months of chaos, undermined business confidence in the United States, and pushed the world to the brink of a financial crisis.

With a three-month pause on the tariffs just days from expiring, leading experts in economics and international relations have told Four Corners they fear Mr Trump's "unworkable" and "absurd" trade policies will create more instability and plunge the global economy into turmoil.........

Physics often has a funny habit of accurately describing human behaviour.

Take Newton's third law that, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

It's a maxim that could apply to all manner of geopolitical events and upheavals right now from the wars tearing apart the Middle East to Vladimir Putin's disastrous military adventure in Ukraine.

And then there is America.

After just five months in power, US President Donald Trump predictably has driven a wrecking ball through the foundations of American society with his attacks on the legal system, various arms of government, academia and the media.

In recent weeks, he's re-opened an old front from his first term, the independence of the US Federal Reserve and, particularly, its chair Jerome Powell — who, incidentally, Trump appointed..........

Trump has flagged a possible 200 per cent tariff on pharmaceuticals — one of Australia's biggest exports to the US — but says manufacturers will be given time to move to America to dodge the tax.

The US president also said copper was likely to be hit with a 50 per cent tariff.

To date, pharmaceuticals and copper have both been exempt from the US's ever-evolving tariffs regime, pending two separate investigations by the Department of Commerce.

But Mr Trump has long railed against American dependence on foreign producers of the products, given the lifesaving nature of many imported medicines and copper's importance to the industrial sector and technological innovation.

Speaking to the media before a cabinet meeting, Mr Trump said pharmaceutical producers would get a grace period to move production to the US......