Trump says ‘there won’t be an escalation’ with Cuba
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, after the indictment against Raúl Castro was announced in Miami, Trump said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
“There won’t be an escalation. I don’t think there needs to be,” said Trump. “Look, the place is falling apart. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
When asked if there would be a Maduro-style arrest, he said: “I don’t want to say that.”
Key events
Republican congressman pledges to ‘try to kill’ Trump’s $1.776bn slush fund after Trump threatens to unseat him
Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican congressman from a Philadelphia-area district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024, pledged on Wednesday to “try to kill” the $1.776bn slush fund created by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice this week, which could be used to compensate rioters who tried to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election.
Asked by Pablo Manríquez of the MeidasTouch network what he made of the fund, Fitzpatrick replied: “Bad news. We’re going to try to kill it.”
Fitzpatrick added that he was “considering legislative options” but was “going to write a letter to” the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, “to start”.
In that letter, released by Fitzpatrick’s office, the congressman wrote: “A massive discretionary fund, with no oversight or approval from Congress, represents a dangerous backsliding in the transparency of our institutions and our commitment to the American taxpayer.”
Fitzpatrick went on to demand answers to the following questions from Blanche by 1 June:
Where are the nearly $2 billion in funds being diverted from to be used for this fund?
What is the exact legal purpose of the Anti-Weaponization Fund and will individuals convicted of federal crimes or associated with acts of violence be eligible to receive monetary payouts from the Fund?
Are there examples of previous administrations establishing discretionary compensation programs that are not authorized by Congress and do not have court approval or judicial oversight?
Earlier in the day, Trump has issued a thinly veiled threat to unseat Fitzpatrick by bringing up the congressman’s record of opposing some of his initiatives, including his White House ballroom and his “big, beautiful” 2025 tax and spending bill while fielding questions about unrelated matters from Fitzpatrick’s fiancee, the Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
When Heinrich asked Trump if he has a problem with Israeli the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – after the Wall Street Journal reported the two had a contentious call Tuesday over Trump’s push to end the US-Israeli war on Iran through diplomacy – the president looked away and told another reporter: “But her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine? I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him. Her husband, she’s married to a certain congressman, he votes again – he likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well. I don’t know why he does.”
Trump’s comments were clearly intended as a threat to Fitzpatrick, coming days after he helped unseat two Republicans who crossed him, the senator Bill Cassidy and the congressman Thomas Massie, by supporting their opponents in Republican primary elections. Then again, since Fitzpatrick won his primary on Tuesday unopposed, Trump’s comments could help him get re-elected in a district that leans Democratic.
Later in the same exchange, when Heinrich asked Trump what he made of China’s president, Xi Jinping, rolling out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the president responded: “I think it’s good. I get along with both of them, but I think it’s good. I don’t know if the ceremony was quite as brilliant as mine. I watched, we topped them … But no, I get along with Putin, I get along – I get along with everybody, but your husband and a few others.”
Heinrich told People magazine last year that Fitzpatrick had proposed to her in a lavender field in Provence on 29 June 2025. Four days later, he was one of just two Republican congressmen, along with Massie, to vote against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
As Trump hints at a raid on Cuba, his envoy to Greenland says ‘it’s time for the US to put its footprint back on Greenland’
During his commencement speech at the US Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday, Donald Trump once again hinted at US military control of Cuba, Panama and Greenland.
“Just as no family can be truly secure in a violent neighborhood, we will not allow chaos, instability or danger to fester in America’s own back yard,” Trump said.
After veering off-script to praise Markwayne Mullin, who leads the Department of Homeland Security, of which the coast guard is a part of, Trump returned to his prepared remarks to add: “From the Gulf of America to the frozen waters of the Arctic, from the shores of Havana to the banks of the Panama canal, we will drive out the forces of lawlessness and crime and foreign encroachment, just like we’ve been doing.”
Trump’s remarks came as his administration laid the groundwork for a Venezuela-style raid on Cuba by the US military, with the indictment on Wednesday of Cuba’s former president, Raúl Castro, and as his envoy to Greenland, Jeff Landry, concluded a provocative visit to the Danish territory.
Landry, the Republican governor of Louisiana, a former European territory bought by the United States, told the Greenlandic daily newspaper Sermitsiaq, which live-blogged his provocative visit, that Trump would like to see the self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark “become economically independent”.
“I think there are some incredible opportunities that can actually lift Greenlanders from dependency to independence,” Landry added.
“I think it’s time for the US to put its footprint back on Greenland,” Landry told AFP during his first visit to Greenland since his appointment as Trump’s envoy in December.
“I think that you’re seeing the president talk about increasing national security operations and repopulating certain bases in Greenland,” he said.
The United States wants to open three new bases in the south of the territory, according to recent media reports.
A 1951 defense pact, updated in 2004, already allows the US to increase troop deployments and military installations on the island as long as it informs Denmark and Greenland in advance.
The newspaper Sermitsiaq also reported that Landry’s suggestion that the US should assert control over Greenland was rejected by at least one local woman, who was seen in a viral video shouting at the governor: “Colonizer go home! You’re not welcome here! This is Indigenous land!”
Newsom says Trump’s scheme to seize $1.776bn from taxpayers is ‘a full-on criminal enterprise and it needs to be shut down’
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who is in Washington DC on Wednesday, was just asked to comment on Donald Trump’s scheme to take $1.776bn from US taxpayers to compensate people who claim that they were wrongly prosecuted by the government.
“It’s a criminal enterprise,” Newsom told Pablo Manríquez of the MeidasTouch network. “It’s not just corruption, it’s not just graft, it’s a full-on criminal enterprise and it needs to be shut down.”
Cuba’s government says US is in no position to indict Raúl Castro after ‘extrajudicial executions’ of nearly 200 alleged drug smugglers
In a statement posted on the website of Cuba’s state-controlled newspaper, Granma, the Cuban government rejected the US indictment of Raúl Castro for killing four Cuban American activists in the 1996 downing of two civilian planes.
The statement, which was also posted on the Cuban ministry of foreign affairs website in Spanish but not in English, went on to accuse the US government of hypocrisy, given that the indictment was sought after the Trump administration has carried out nearly 200 “extrajudicial executions” of suspected drug smugglers, in 58 airstrikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific since last September.
Instead of the government statement, the English-language version of Granma currently features a call, from the National Bureau of the Young Communists League, for Cubans take part in a national “day of celebration for Raúl’s 95th birthday” on 3 June.
Here’s a recap of what has happened so far today
US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it intensifies pressure. The US has issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, on Wednesday, and five others in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decade-old communist regime.
Alongside his usual boastful claims that Iran’s navy and air force are “gone”, Trump said the only question now is whether the United States goes back to finish the job or if Iran will sign a document. He also said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do”, says Trump when asked about Israel holding off on striking Iran. Trump also cited a poll that gave him 99% approval in Israel. The Guardian US has not yet verified this poll. “I could run for prime minister, so maybe after I do this, I’ll go to Israel and run for prime minister,” he said.
January 6 police officers sue Trump over $1.8bn fund, alleging “presidential corruption”. Two police officers who clashed with rioters at the US Capitol during the January 6 insurrection in 2021 have sued Donald Trump over plans to create a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund.
Barney Frank, one of first out gay members of Congress, dies aged 86. The former US representative died on Tuesday night.
Trump remarked on the IRS settlement, saying that he was suing the agency for a lot of reasons.
“One of the reasons is they released my tax returns, which you’re not allowed to do,” he said. “Now they show I pay a lot of tax. I may even release my current returns because they show I pay a lot of money, but they’re not supposed to do that.”
Ruaridh Nicoll
Raúl Castro’s indictment comes at a time when tensions between Cuba and the US are already high.
Castro is facing the type of indictment that led to the abduction of the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January by US forces.
Although Castro is officially retired, he remains the most potent figure in Cuban politics after the death of his brother, Fidel, in 2016, and by targeting him Washington appears to be heaping pressure on Cuba’s communist leadership at the end of an already extraordinarily intense week.
The indictment has come days after the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, flew into Havana for a meeting with the Cuban ex-president’s grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro and senior government figures.
Ratcliffe’s arrival in turn occurred after a night in which protests spread across the island’s capital, as people struggled with 22-hour blackouts. Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s energy minister, had earlier admitted the island was out of fuel oil. “We have absolutely nothing,” he told state television.
For the last four months the US has imposed a strict oil blockade on Cuba, allowing only one Russian crude carrier, the Anatoly Kolodkin, in for what Trump claimed were humanitarian reasons.
Trump says ‘there won’t be an escalation’ with Cuba
Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, after the indictment against Raúl Castro was announced in Miami, Trump said there would be no escalation with Cuba.
“There won’t be an escalation. I don’t think there needs to be,” said Trump. “Look, the place is falling apart. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.”
When asked if there would be a Maduro-style arrest, he said: “I don’t want to say that.”
Joseph Gedeon
Progressive Chris Rabb wins closely watched Democratic primary in Pennsylvania: ‘We are indomitable’
Chris Rabb, an unflinching progressive state representative, declared his campaign for Pennsylvania’s third congressional district was “indomitable” after winning the Democratic primary in a race that became a proxy battle over the direction of the Democratic party.
In a significant victory for the party’s left wing, Rabb took roughly 45% of the vote in Tuesday’s contest, comfortably ahead of the early frontrunner, state senator Sharif Street, who garnered under 30%, and surgeon Ala Stanford.
Rabb addressed supporters, in an emotional victory speech, who had powered a grassroots campaign backed by the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families party. “I have been critiqued along this campaign for being too radical, being too bold,” he told the crowd. “They ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Framing his win as a populist breakthrough, Rabb called the result “a triumph of the many over the money” before issuing a warning to those who might seek to undermine the movement his campaign had built. “They’re going to try and tear us apart. We’re not going to let that happen,” he said. “We are indomitable.”
The district, which includes most of Philadelphia’s urban core, is the bluest in the US: Kamala Harris won 88% of its votes in the 2024 presidential election, as the rest of the country re-elected Donald Trump.
When asked by an NBC reporter if the announcement of the indictment is partly a pretext to push for regime change in Cuba, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said: “We turned in an indictment and that’s what we are here to talk about. If people want to speculate, I don’t care.”
Ashley Moody, a senator from Florida, read out the penalty sheet for Raúl Castro, as advised by the southern district of Florida, US district court: one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, two counts for destruction of aircraft and four counts of murder.
The FBI conducted 16 cases to bring this indictment together, said Christopher Raia, the FBI’s deputy director.
The investigators reopened many cold cases over 30 years.
“To anyone who spies on our country or who harms our citizens, remember the FBI has a long memory,” said Raia. “We will come after you.”
“According to the indictment, Raúl Castro, then minister of the Cuban revolutionary armed forces, authorized and oversaw a military command that ended with Cuban fighter jets firing air-to-air missiles at civilian aircraft over international waters,” said Jason Reding Quinones, the US attorney for the southern district of Florida.
Those missiles killed all onboard, and for 30 years those families have waited for accountability, he said.
“This is the first time in almost 70 years that a senior leader in the Cuban regime has been charged in the US for acts of violence resulting in the death of Americans,” he said.
Todd Blanche announces Raúl Castro indictment
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, is speaking at a news conference about the indictment of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
“There’s a reason why myself and the leadership are here and not in New York to announce this indictment,” said Blanche from Miami, Florida. “The community here understands the Cuban regime better than anyone in America. Many families know the cost of oppression.”
Today’s indictment makes a statement that those who lost their lives 30 years ago have not been forgotten, he said.
