President Trump today

Our live coverage has ended for the night. Scroll down to read the highlights from Trump’s trip to West Virginia.

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on tax policy, Thursday, April 5, 2018, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

President Donald Trump ratcheted up the trade war rhetoric with China on Thursday, saying he was considering another $100 billion in tariffs on the country. 

“In light of China’s unfair retaliation, I have instructed the [United States Trade Representative] to consider whether $100 billion of additional tariffs would be appropriate,” the president said in a statement. 

Earlier this week, the United States announced new tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, claiming that China is stealing US intellectual property. China responded within hours by announcing $50 billion worth of tariffs on US goods. The moves follow US tariffs that were imposed earlier this year on Chinese steel and aluminum, which also prompted response from China.

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti told CNN he plans to refile a motion to depose President Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, on Monday.

Avenatti wants to ask them about a $130,000 payout from Cohen to the porn star before the 2016 election.

A federal judge in California denied a similar motion last week because it was “premature.”

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto issued a statement today in response to President’s Trump’s order to send National Guard troops to the southern border.

He said the Mexican government will “never negotiate out of fear.”

Peña Nieto said they “will not allow negative rhetoric to define their actions.”

Trump told reporters today that he was considering sending “anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000” National Guard troops to the southern border.

Trump said the administration is still looking at how much the deployment might cost, but that he has a “pretty good idea.”

David Schwartz, spokesperson for President Trump’s private attorney Michael Cohen, just issued a statement in response to the President’s remarks on Air Force One about adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti took to Twitter to respond to Trump’s remarks. Here’s what he said:

What Trump said on Air Force One

Trump said he did not know about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels for her silence.

Asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said: “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”

President Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One today, said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is doing “a fantastic job” and said he’d look at reports about the embattled chief.

“I think he’s done an incredible job,” he said. “He’s been very courageous. It hasn’t been easy, but I think he’s done a fantastic job.”

Asked if he was bothered by reports about Pruitt, Trump said, “I have to look at them. … I’ll make that determination. But he’s a good man, he’s done a terrific job. But I’ll take a look at it.”

President Trump said Thursday he was considering sending “anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000” National Guard troops to the southern border, applying the first figures to his surprise announcement this week that military forces will be deployed to bolster security.

Trump said the administration is still looking at how much the deployment might cost, but that he has a “pretty good idea.”

And he insisted the troops would remain there until his proposed border wall is complete.

The remarks answered, at least in part, several outstanding questions about the deployment plan, which Trump first announced on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump insisted today he did not know about a $130,000 payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence, his first public acknowledgment of the scandal surrounding an alleged sexual affair that has plagued him for months.

“No,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when questioned about his knowledge of the payment, which was made by his private attorney Michael Cohen in the month before the 2016 election.

Asked why Cohen made the payment, Trump said: “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen. Michael is my attorney. You’ll have to ask Michael.”

He said he didn’t know where the money came from and ignored a question about whether he set up a fund for Cohen to draw from in making the payment.

President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion on tax policy Thursday, April 5, 2018, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

President Trump, at a roundtable on tax reform in West Virginia, talked a lot about immigration.

Trump also reflected back to controversial remarks he made when he announced his candidacy. In 2015, he called some Mexican immigrants “rapists” and criminals.

Here’s what Trump said today:

CNN political analyst Joshua Green said Trump is “conflating victims of rape with perpetrators of rape.”

“What he said when he came down the elevator for his campaign speech, essentially, was Mexican immigrants are rapists,” Green said. “One of the reasons these refugees are traveling in a caravan is for safety, to protect themselves collectively against being attacked and raped by people as they move from Honduras and Central America up to the U.S. Border.”

Green continued: “The idea that they, themselves, are this marauding band of rapists trying to climb the border fence, whatever it is that Trump is trying to imply there is wrong in all sorts of ways.”

Environmental Protection Agency Special Agent Eric Weese, who led Administrator Scott Pruitt’s protection detail, was taken off that assignment and reassigned within EPA when he refused to drive with lights and sirens blaring through the streets of Washington, DC, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation.

The lights and sirens were intended to get Pruitt around town more quickly, the sources said. Weese refused to comply with the requests because lights and sirens are only supposed to be used in actual emergencies, the sources said. 

One of the sources told CNN Pruitt’s schedule often runs late and that his protective team has been asked to use lights and sirens to zip him through red lights and get him to meetings and the airport on time.

The use of lights and sirens by Pruitt’s protective detail was first reported by CBS News.

This isn’t the only controversy Pruitt is facing

Earlier this week, the White House said it is “looking into”  Pruitt’s housing situation amid reports that he rented a room in Washington, DC, from the family of an energy lobbyist.

Meanwhile, a senator has said that Pruitt’s 24-hour security in Washington allegedly extends to at least some of his personal trips.

Another report says Pruitt bypassed the White House to give large pay raises to two aides

President Trump floated replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions with EPA head Scott Pruitt as recently as this week, even as the scandal-ridden head of the Environmental Protection Agency has faced a growing list of negative headlines, according to people close to the President.

Though the President has, at times, floated several people a day for multiple positions in his administration that are already occupied, the proposition reveals just how frustrated Trump remains with Sessions because of his decision to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation more than a year ago, while signaling how confident he has remained in Pruitt despite a dizzying number of ethics issues.

But Trump on Thursday said he continues to support Pruitt.

Asked by reporters as he boarded Air Force One if he has confidence in the embattled EPA official, Trump said: “I do.”

Read more about Sessions here.

Today, President Trump revived his claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

Trump, speaking at a roundtable on tax reform in West Virginia, claimed that “millions and millions” of people voted multiple times in the election.

This has been a repeated claim for the President. In May, he even established a commission after claiming without evidence that massive voter fraud had cost him the popular vote. He appointed Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to lead the panel.

That commission shut down in January without finding any evidence of such massive voter fraud.

After the panel’s disbandment, advisers outlined hesitation from within the White House for months about the commission.

President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up during a roundtable discussion on tax policy, Thursday, April 5, 2018, in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

President Trump, speaking at a roundtable on tax reform, said the military would be building “some” of the southern border wall.

Trump’s remarks came during an extended riff on immigration and securing the border. He talked about gang violence and the “bad people” coming across the southern border.

President Donald Trump revived his claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election, claiming that “millions and millions” of people voted multiple times in the election.

“In many places the same person in California votes many times,” said Trump, at the official White House event in West Virginia on tax cuts. “They always like to say, ‘Oh that’s a conspiracy theory.’ It’s not a conspiracy theory. Millions and millions of people and it’s very hard because the state guards their records.”

Trump has made this claim before.

Trump established a commission in May after claiming without evidence that massive voter fraud had cost him the popular vote, and he appointed Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to lead the panel.

The commission was shut down in January without finding any evidence of such massive voter fraud.

President Trump spent several minutes during his tax reform speech to riff on immigration and the border wall.

He pointed to Mexico and Canada’s “tough” policy for immigration.

Trump also appeared to assert that women in Central America are raped at “levels that nobody has ever seen before” as an argument for strengthening US immigration laws.

It is unclear where Trump derived the evidence for his seeming assertion that women in Central America are being raped at unprecedented levels.

He also shifted blame to the Democrats, saying of their obstruction to immigration reform, “It’s insanity.”

President Trump, speaking at a roundtable on tax cuts in West Virginia, criticized the state’s Democratic senator, brought up his electoral victory and talked about his efforts to fight gangs.

At the end he held up a piece of paper with his remarks on it.

“This was gonna be my remarks. It would have taken about 2 minutes,” he said, before tossing the paper in the air.

“That would have been a little boring. Little boring,” he said. “I am reading off the first paragraph and, I said, ‘This is boring.’”

President Trump is in West Virginia holding a roundtable discussion about his tax plan, which passed last year.

He began the event by criticizing Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat who voted against the measure.

“He votes against everything,” Trump said, adding that the senator voted against “our tax cuts.”

This event is not officially a campaign event, but two of the Republican candidates vying to run against Manchin this November are in attendance.

The controversial Republican vying for the party’s nomination, Don Blankenship who was in prison just last year for conspiracy to commit mine safety violations, will not be in attendance. Instead, two of his opponents — Rep. Evan Jenkins and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey — will get screen time with Trump.

White House aides warned officials at the Environmental Protection Agency that having their administrator Scott Pruitt sit for interviews this week could backfire, and told them to rethink their plans, a person familiar with their conversations said.

The White House aides warned the EPA that if Pruitt did poorly under questioning – particularly televised questioning – it would be the quickest way to lose President Trump’s confidence. 

That message was also delivered by White House chief of staff John Kelly when he called Pruitt on Tuesday. Inside the White House, there is general confusion about why Pruitt went forward with the interviews.

The Pentagon announced today that it has created a “Border Security Support Cell” following President Trump’s order to send National Guard troops to the southern border.

The group will coordinate efforts with the Department of Homeland Security.

“This is a 24/7 cell comprised of several (Department of Defense) representatives who will serve as the single conduit for information and coordination between DOD and DHS,” said Dana White, chief Pentagon spokesperson.

She continued: “This is not business as usual. The cell will last for the foreseeable future to ensure we surge our capacity to meet the President’s enhanced border security goals.”

White said the Defense Department does not yet have a cost estimate of department’s role in border security, adding, “that is a lot of the work that the support cell would do.” 

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, released a list of questions about the GOP tax cut plan ahead of Trump’s visit today.

Here are the questions Manchin said he wants answered: