US politics live: Donald Trump offers absurd excuse for failure to deliver on Ukraine war promise

Donald Trump has offered a dubious excuse for his failure to deliver on an explict promise, made repeatedly before last year’s election.

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The White House has denied it went against a judge’s order to halt deportations of more than 200 Venezuelans under the 18th century Alien Enemies Act.

A judge ruled on Saturday night local time that deportations under the order must be paused, and that any planes in the air carrying migrants must turn back to the US.

Less than 24 hours later, however, hundreds of accused members of a Venezuelan gang were loaded onto a plane to El Salvador, where they will be imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

“The Administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

“The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist aliens had already been removed from the US territory.”

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has offered a ... dubious excuse for his failure to deliver on his pre-election promise to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, if not before.

“I’m not understating the complexity of all this, but as a candidate, you said you would have this war settled in 24 hours,” journalist Sharyl Attkisson, hardly an unfriendly voice, put to Mr Trump during an interview with him on her platform Full Measure.

“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that. What I really mean is I’d like to get it settled, and I think I’ll be successful,” Mr Trump responded.

Hmm. Yes. Well. The thing is, the President’s remarks are on tape. We can watch them back. And don’t you know, there’s nary a hint of sarcasm in them.

Read on for more on that, among the latest updates

Originally published as US politics live: Donald Trump offers absurd excuse for failure to deliver on Ukraine war promise