Trump 2nd term live updates: Dan Bongino named as deputy FBI director

Amid contradictory statements about Elon Musk's position at the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump was asked directly what is Musk's role in the administration.

"Elon is to me a patriot," Trump responded. "You can call him an employee, you can call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want, but he's a patriot."

Trump didn't clarify or elaborate, instead going on to praise Musk for his work. Trump listed examples of government spending he disagrees with, alleging without evidence it's fraudulent or corrupt.

The confusion over Musk came to a head after the administration contended in a court filing late Monday that he was not the DOGE administrator but rather a "special government employee" akin to a senior adviser to Trump.

Taking questions at Mar-a-Lago, Trump blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his administration held talks earlier Tuesday with Russia to bring an end to Vladimir Putin's invasion.

When asked about Ukraine not being a part of those discussions, Trump criticized Zelenskyy's leadership.

"Well, you been there for three years," he said of Zelenskyy. "You should have ended it three years -- you should have never started it," he said, appearing to falsely blame Ukraine for the war. "You could have made a deal."

Trump implied Ukraine should have new elections if it wants a seat at the table.

"Well, we have a situation where we haven't had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he's down at 4% approval rating and where a country has been blown to smithereens," he said.

When asked during a news conference at his Mar-a-lago home what rate he would implement for auto tariffs, Trump told reporters, “Yeah, I probably will tell you that on April 2nd, but it'll be in the neighborhood of 25%.”

Trump also responded about semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, saying the tariff would be “25% and higher and it'll go very substantially higher over the course of a year.”

“I've been contacted by some of the biggest companies in the world, and because of what we're doing economically and through tariffs and taxes and incentives, they want to come back into the United States,” Trump added.

At Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump said he signed an executive order related to oversight of independent agencies.

As explained by White House staff secretary Will Scharf, the order will establish "important oversight functions in the Office of Management and Budget and its subsidiary office, OIRA, supervising independent agencies and many of their actions."

Scharf said the order also establishes "that only the president or the attorney general can speak for the United States when stating an opinion as to what the law is."

OMB Director Russell Vought is a staunch proponent of the "unitary executive" theory, which contends the president has sole authority of the executive branch. The order comes as Trump faces legal pushback amid his administration's unprecedented purge of the federal workforce and reshaping of what Congress set up as independent agencies.