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

When asked whether he was concerned about the thousands of federal employees fired over the weekend as part of his administration’s desire to cut costs, Trump said, “No, not at all,” telling reporters, “We have to just do what we have to do.”

Instead, he focused on the “amazing” findings he claims they have uncovered, emphasizing that this is what he was elected to do.

“In some cases, they'll fire people and then they'll put some people back, not all of them, because a lot of people were let go,” he said in regards to the firing and rehiring of certain employees that occurred over the weekend.

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.